This story on Politico features a recent study of the finances of the state Democratic and state Republican Parties. It shows 15 major state party organizations have more debt than resources (8 state Democratic Parties and 7 Republican Parties). The McCain-Feingold law, which severely restricted donations to political parties, helped cause this situation. A bigger cause is that big money now flows to outside groups that make independent expenditures. Thanks to Rick Hasen for the link.
Alabama holds an election for U.S. Senate in 2014. Republican Senator Jeff Sessions is running for re-election. For the first time in Alabama history, the Democrats are not running anyone for U.S. Senate. Here is a list of Democrats running in the June 2014 primary for federal and state office.
There are no Democrats running for U.S. House in the 4th and 5th districts. For the 140 state legislative races, no Democrats are running in 57 races. There are no Democrats running for these additional statewide posts: Justice of the Supreme Court, Public Service Commissioner seat #1, and Public Service Commissioner seat #2.
Because of Alabama’s severe ballot access laws, it is likely that no minor party or independent candidate will be on the ballot for U.S. Senate or any other statewide race in Alabama either. The petition deadline in midterm years is more lenient than it is in presidential election years. In 2014, it is due June 3, but 44,829 valid signatures are required. If a minor party could get on the ballot for U.S. Senate, chances are that it would poll 20%, which would put it on the ballot automatically for 2016.
Meanwhile, the Alabama House Constitution and Elections Committee has passed HB 268, which moves the independent petition deadline from primary day, to the day on which major party candidates file for the primary. If the bill were to pass, in 2016 the independent petition deadline (for office other than president) would move from March to December of the year before the election. Even the March petition deadline is at risk of being held unconstitutional, and a deadline of December of the year before would obviously be unconstitutional. HB 268 is sponsored by Representative David Standridge (R-Hayden). Primary candidates in Alabama do not need to petition for a place on the ballot; they pay a filing fee. HB 268 not only moves the deadline months earlier, it requires independent candidates to pay a filing fee.
Reason has this interesting article on its web page about the Libertarian Party’s court battle with the Federal Election Commission, over whether limits on individual contributions should apply to bequests. The party received a surprise bequest in 2007 in excess of $200,000. The FEC refused to let the estate award the money to the party at once, and required the estate to hold back the money and release it slowly over the next seven years. Whether the FEC’s rules are too restrictive is a question pending in the U.S. Court of Appeals, D.C. Circuit.
On March 7, 2013, some Republican candidates and a Republican voter sued Sandoval County, New Mexico, election officials for voter suppression. Specifically, the lawsuit charged that the County Clerk, who is a Democrat, arranged to have so few voting machines in Rio Rancho (a Republican-leaning city in Sandoval County), that some voters had to wait in line as much as five hours.
The case, Fleming v Gutierrez, 1:13cv-222, is still undecided, almost a year after it was first filed. U.S. District Court Judge William P. Johnson, an appointee of George W. Bush, has denied all attempts by the county to have the case dismissed on procedural grounds. Officials of the Secretary of State’s office have filed affidavits saying that if the county had asked for more voting machines, they would have been furnished. However, the case is taking so long to resolve, the plaintiffs’ request that certain election outcomes from the November 2012 election be reversed seem likely to soon become moot. Some of the plaintiffs had been Republican nominees who had narrowly been defeated, and they had argued that without the voting problem, they likely would have won. For more details about the case, see here.
On February 14, the Utah Senate Business and Labor Committee unanimously passed SB 54. Currently, Utah is the only state in which no one can run in a partisan primary unless he or she has substantial support at a pre-primary party caucus. The bill requires parties to let party members cast a caucus vote even if they can’t physically be present at a caucus meeting. It also slightly eases the support needed at a caucus in order for a candidate to advance to a primary, from 35% to 30%.
Finally, the bill says that parties must let all registered voters vote in their primaries. If they don’t, then they must forego using the pre-primary caucus system entirely.
An initiative petition is circulating in Utah to eliminate the caucus system entirely. See this story about the bill. Backers of the initiative say SB 54 does not go far enough to satisfy them, and will continue circulating the petition even if the bill passes.
