On February 3, California State Senator Ellen Corbett (D-San Leandro) introduced SB 168, which makes it a crime for anyone to pay anyone else to circulate an initiative, referendum or recall petition, if the circulator is being paid per signature, “directly or indirectly.” The penalty for the person who pays is a fine of up to $25,000 and one year in prison. The penalty for the circulator is a fine up to $1,000 and up to six months in prison.
On February 7, West Virginia HB 2853 was signed into law. It provides for a special gubernatorial election this year, on October 4. This means four states will hold gubernatorial elections this year. The others, who always have their gubernatorial elections in the odd year before a presidential election year, are Kentucky, Louisiana and Mississippi.
New Mexico Senator Linda Lopez (D-Albuquerque) has introduced SB 403, a 130-page bill of election law changes. The bill is backed New Mexico elections officials. It includes a few improvements in the ballot access laws. It changes the filing deadline for independent candidates from the day after the primary (which is in early June) to the day that is three weeks later than the primary. For presidential independents, the existing New Mexico law has the earliest petition deadline of any state except Texas.
The bill also lowers the number of signatures to qualify a new or previously unqualified party, in midterm years. Current law says the petition needs signatures equal to one-half of 1% of the last vote cast. The bill changes that to the last vote cast in a gubernatorial election year. Because turnout is always higher in presidential years than mid-term years, this eases the number of signatures for a party that is qualifying in a midterm year. For example, in 2010, a party needed 4,151 signatures, but if this bill had been in effect in 2010, the requirement would have been 2,796 signatures.
The bill also specifies that the petition to create a new qualified party must be available from the Secretary of State’s office at any time. Past Secretaries of State have withheld the petition form, even though there had been no law authorizing that behavior. The bill’s author is Chair of the Senate Rules Committee, the Committee that handles election law bills. Thanks to Carol Miller for the news about the bill’s introduction.
West Virginia State Senator Clark Barnes (R-Beverly) has introduced SB 417, to ease the definition of “political party.” The existing law, ever since 1916, has defined a political party as a group that polled at least 1% of the vote for Governor in the last gubernatorial election. SB 417 would define “political party” as a group that either polled 1% for any statewide race at the last election, or which has registration of at least one-twentieth of 1%. That works out to 608 registered members. A companion bill will probably be introduced in the House soon, but its registration threshold will be exactly 1,000 registered members.
If either bill passed, the Libertarian Party would automatically be back on the ballot, since it has over 1,000 registered members. The Constitution Party, which did the work of getting the bill introduced, probably could get its registration up that high fairly quickly. The Green Party is already ballot-qualified in West Virginia, although its name is the Mountain Party. It also has over 1,000 registered members.
If the bill were enacted, it would relieve minor parties of the burden of always feeling they must run a gubernatorial candidate. Sometimes minor parties would rather save their resources for lower level offices, but when ballot access depends on a party’s polling a certain vote in one high-profile race, they have no choice but to run in such elections. Thanks to Jeff Becker for the news.
Senator Cam Ward (R-Alabaster) has introduced SB 17. It lowers the number of signatures for statewide independent candidates from 3% of the last gubernatorial vote, to 1.5% of the last gubernatorial vote. It makes no change to the procedures for new or previously unqualified parties. Also, it has no effect on the independent presidential candidate petition, which is already substantially easier than the procedures for independent candidates for other office. And it has no effect on independent candidates for district or county office.
Alabama and New Mexico are tied for having the most severe petition requirements for statewide non-presidential independent candidates. Those two states are the only two states in which the statewide independent non-presidential petition is greater than 2% of the last vote cast. Since Alabama set this requirement at 3% in 1995, no independent candidate for statewide office has ever used the requirement. Thanks to Joshua Cassity for the news.
California’s county election officials are hoping that the state legislature will pass a bill, ending elections for political party officers. For almost a century, members of qualified political parties in California have chosen county central committee members, at the primary election. The Libertarian Party has opted out of such elections, but the other five qualified parties continue to use these elections to choose party officers. The Contra Costa Times has this article, airing the issue. The reason for abolishing these elections is to save money.