On January 24, the North Carolina Supreme Court issued a one-line order, saying that although the legality of the state’s U.S. House and state legislative districts is still under review, the existing districts will be in effect for 2014. See this story.
According to this story, the scheduled hearing in the Arizona House Judiciary Committee on HB 2196 was postponed. HB 2196 is the bill to repeal the 2013 omnibus election law bill. That 2013 bill made many election law changes that are hostile both to minor parties, and to Democrats, and if the legislature doesn’t repeal it, the voters will vote on it in November 2014.
Interesting election law bills that have already been defeated in the Virginia legislature this year are:
1. SB 507, which forces all qualified parties to nominate by primary, lost in the Senate Privileges and Elections Committee on January 21. Current law lets them choose whether to nominate by primary or convention.
2. SB 474, which deletes the ability of incumbents to dictate to their own party how that party nominates in that incumbent’s race for re-election (either convention or primary), lost in the same committee on January 21.
3. HB 645, which puts party labels on the general election ballot for partisan county office, lost in the House Privileges Committee on January 24.
Two bills to ask applicants on a voter registration form to choose a party, or independent status, have not moved, so are likely to fail. They are HB 31 and HB 55.
A bill that seem likely to pass is HB 105, which says that write-ins (for office other than President) will no longer be counted unless it appears the write-in candidate might have won. That bill passed the House on January 22, by 83-14. Also likely to pass is SB 319, which moves the non-presidential primary from the second Tuesday in June to the third Tuesday in June.
Kentucky State Senator Reginald Thomas (D-Lexington) has introduced SB 79. It places new restrictions on candidates in special congressional and legislative elections. Kentucky is one of eight states that doesn’t let anyone run for partisan office if the candidate has switched partisan affiliation recently. But these restrictions don’t apply to special elections. SB 79 would extend them to special elections.
Senator Thomas says this is just “closing a loophole”, but there is a sound reason not to apply such restrictions in special elections. Regularly-scheduled elections are predictable events, but special elections are not. They are generally triggered by events that could not have been predicted, such as the death or resignation of an incumbent. Other states with prior affiliation laws don’t apply them to special elections, or at least have a shorter restriction. See this story.
Law professor Eugene Volokh has this commentary about the January 23 decision of the Tenth Circuit, Riddle v Hickenlooper. That decision struck down Colorado’s law that lets contributors give twice as much money to a candidate nominated in a primary (i.e., Democrats and Republicans) than to a minor party, independent, or write-in candidate. Thanks to Jon Roland for the link.
