On February 21-22, state officials of the Alabama Republican Party will determine whether 18 particular Republican candidates should be removed from the party’s June 2014 primary. See this story. Many, if not most, of the challenges are based on allegations that the challenged candidates are not loyal to the Republican Party, or that they took money from groups that the Republican Party doesn’t like.
Marianne Williamson, the independent candidate in California’s 33rd U.S. House district this year, and a well-known author, has hired John Shallman and Joe Trippi to work on her campaign. See this story. Shallman and Trippi normally work for Democrats. Williamson is actively trying to raise $1,500,000 for her campaign.
On February 8, the Pennsylvania elections office announced that it has re-designed the petition form for candidates seeking to get on a primary ballot. The new form no longer says that the circulator lives in the particular district or jurisdiction in which the candidate is running. Although both primary and general election petitions in Pennsylvania can only be circulated by residents of Pennsylvania, at least circulators can now live anywhere in Pennsylvania, whether they are circulating primary petitions or general election petitions.
This liberalization had already been made some years ago for general election petitions. It was odd that Pennsylvania had continued to enforce the in-district residency requirement for circulators for primary petitions, but not general election petitions.
The form was changed in response to a federal lawsuit filed on November 1, 2013, Villa v Aichele, eastern district, 13-6374. The lawsuit was voluntarily dismissed after the state agreed not to enforce the residency requirement.
As recently as 2010, the only Republican running for U.S. House in Pennsylvania’s First District had been kept off the primary ballot because some of her petitioners had not lived in the First District.
On February 14, Maryland State Senator William C. Ferguson (D-Baltimore) introduced SB 1032, which changes the number of registered members for a party to remain ballot-qualified from 1% of the state total, to exactly 10,000 members. If the bill were enacted, the state’s two ballot-qualified minor parties, the Libertarian and Green Parties, would no longer face removal every four years. Parties need 10,000 signatures to get on the ballot, so logically it is difficult to understand why they should need more than 10,000 members to remain on. Thanks to Brian Bittner for this news.
According to this story, some Nebraska legislators want to move the primary from May to April. There is no bill to make that change, but Senator John Murante already has an election law bill, LB 1048, and he may amend his bill to make the date change. Thanks to FrontloadingHQ for the news.
Nebraska’s primary has been in May since 1956. Before then, it was in April in presidential years and August in midterm years.
