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.

On February 14, the New Mexico House unanimously passed HB 328, which makes some ballot access improvements: (1) it moves the petition deadline for a newly-qualifying party from April to late June; (2) it cuts the number of signatures needed for minor party nominees in mid-term years, from approximately 8,000 to approximately 6,000 for statewide office, with proportionate decreases for other office as well; (3) it provides that the petition to create a new party will be accepted if it appears on its face to have enough valid signatures, with no need to check each signature.

An identical bill, SB 125, has passed the Senate Judiciary Committee. These bills only exist because in December 2013, the Constitution Party won its lawsuit against the April petition deadline for newly-qualifying parties. Thanks to Rick Lass for this news.

According to this story, New York has eleven vacant legislative seats, but there are no plans to call any special elections, so presumably this situation will last for the remainder of 2014.