Maine Citizens for Clean Elections, the advocacy group that backs Maine’s public funding for campaigns program, will attempt to qualify an initiative to make some changes in the program. The initiative would increase funding for the program, and also provide for a mechanism by which candidates who have already qualified for some public funding can repeat the qualification process (raising a certain number of small private donations) and obtain more funding. See this story.
Lowell Weicker, a former Republican U.S. Senator from Connecticut, and a former Governor elected on the “A Connecticut Party” line, has urged the Republican Party to again let independents vote in its primaries.
The Connecticut Republican Party won a lawsuit in the U.S. Supreme Court in 1986, to force the state to let independents vote in the Republican Party’s primary. That decision, Tashjian v Republican Party of Connecticut, was a landmark victory for First Amendment rights for political parties. Ironically, a few years after winning the lawsuit, the Republican Party went back to excluding independents from voting in its primaries. See this story about Weicker’s recent remarks.
Connecticut Democrats have never allowed independents to vote in their primaries. The state didn’t even have primaries until the 1950’s; previously party meetings chose all party nominees.
As noted earlier, a bill was introduced in the U.S. House of Representatives on January 16, to restore the federal Voting Rights Act with a new coverage formula to replace the one struck down last year by the U.S. Supreme Court. The bill, HR 3899, is sponsored by James Sensenbrenner (R-Wisconsin). The eight co-sponsors include three Republicans and six Democrats. The three Republicans are Spencer Bachus of Alabama, Steve Chabot of Ohio, and Sean Duffy of Wisconsin. The five Democrats are John Conyers of Michigan, John Lewis of Georgia, Bobby Scott of Virginia, Sheila Jackson Lee of Texas, and Steny Hoyer of Maryland.
The identical Senate bill is S.1945. It is sponsored by Senator Patrick Leahy (D-Vermont), and co-sponsored by Senators Richard Durbin (D-Ilinois) and Christoper Coons (D-Delaware).
On January 21, the Presidential Commission on Election Administration released its recommendations on how to improve the voting process. The Commission relied on the testimony of hundreds of local election officials, and also on scholarly research. It is bipartisan. Perhaps the most interesting recommendation is the Report’s strong endorsement of early voting. Here is Nate Persily’s description of the Report, with a link to the Report itself.
The Republican National Committee meets January 23-24 in Washington, D.C. See NBC’s First Read article at this link (scroll down to the third item, “RNC to Consider Changes to 2016 Calendar.” The party will decide whether to hold its 2016 national convention in either June or July, which would be a substantial change from 2012, when its convention was in September. The party will also decide whether to require that presidential primaries all be held before 35 days, or 45 days, before the convention.
If the party chooses June, and especially if it then chooses 45 days, it could no longer use its presidential primaries in New Jersey, Montana, New Mexico, and South Dakota, unless it can persuade state legislatures in those states to hold earlier presidential primaries. Under current law, those states hold their presidential primaries in June.
