Paul Zukerberg, the only candidate who filed a petition to run for District of Columbia Attorney General in any primary this year, is currently battling the Washington, D.C. government over whether that office will be on the ballot in the April 1 primary. Zukerberg submitted 4,800 signatures to gain a place on the Democratic Party primary ballot for that office. No one else filed.

The voters of Washington, D.C., had passed a ballot measure in 2010, providing for an Attorney General election in 2014. The ballot said the election would be in 2014, but the actual law, the text of which was too long to print on the ballot, said the election should be held “after January 1, 2014”. The D.C. city council then passed an ordinance saying the first election for that office would be in 2018.

Here is a news story about the government’s brief, which apparently says that voter intent is of no importance when ballot measures are voted on. The lawsuit is pending in the Superior Court, in the D.C. court system (not the federal court system) and obviously the case will be decided quickly, because the primary ballots will be printed in February.

On January 30, the Arizona House Judiciary Committee passed HB 2196. That bill repeals the 2013 bill, HB 2305, that made it extremely difficult for members of small qualified parties to get on their own party’s primary ballots. HB 2305 had many other election law provisions also, some of which are strongly opposed by Democrats and their allies.

Repealing the 2013 bill would cancel the November 2014 referendum on the 2013 bill. See this story.

The daily newspaper of Lancaster, Pennsylvania, the Intelligencer Journal, has this letter to the editor. It chides State Senator Lloyd Smucker, who represents Lancaster, for repeatedly refusing to hold a hearing on SB 195, the bill to improve ballot access for minor party and independent candidates. The bill has been introduced in three sessions of the legislature, but it has never had a hearing. It is in the Senate State Government Committee, chaired by Senator Smucker. Senator Smucker has twice scheduled meetings with supporters of the bill, and then in each case canceled the meeting.