California AB 145, by Assemblyman Richard Pan, will not pass in the current legislative session. This is the bill to criminalize paying registration drive workers on a per-registration card basis. This is the second bill Pan has introduced this year on this subject. The first was AB 2058, which failed to pass several months ago in the Senate Public Safety Committee. AB 145 failed to pass the Assembly Rules Committee and it is now too late for bills that didn’t pass committees to be enacted.

The only feasible method for minor parties to obtain a place on the California ballot, or to remain on the ballot, is for such parties to have over 100,000 registered members. Making it more difficult for them to carry out registration drives would have been a serious blow to their efforts to get on, or remain on, the ballot.

On August 15, Matt Erard, the Socialist Party’s nominee for U.S. House, 13th district, filed a lawsuit against Michigan’s law on how newly-qualifying parties get on the ballot. Such parties this year need 32,261 signatures, yet older parties only needed 16,083 votes to remain on, for both 2010 and 2012. In Williams v Rhodes, in 1968, the U.S. Supreme Court said states cannot require newly-qualifying parties to show support from more voters than the support that is required for older parties to remain on the ballot. The case is Erard v Michigan Secretary of State, eastern district, U.S. District Court, 2:12-cv-13627.

Erard is a pro se litigant, so he can’t represent the Socialist Party; he can only represent himself.

The San Jose Mercury News has this story about a local ballot measure placed on the November ballot by the Santa Clara Valley Water Agency. Election laws say the measure’s description on the ballot cannot exceed 75 words, but the description submitted by the agency is 77 words. The Agency then tried to correct the problem, but has not been able to do so. Thanks to Around the Capitol for the link.