Arizona Governor Jan Brewer, and legislators, briefly considered a special session of the legislature to pass some alternate primary system and place it on the November ballot as a constitutional amendment. However, they have dropped plans to do this. See this story. The top-two initiative, assuming it qualifies, will be the only statewide ballot measure dealing with election law on the ballot.
On July 6, Gallup Polls released this poll, which includes five presidential candidates: President Obama, Mitt Romney, Gary Johnson, Jill Stein, and Virgil Goode. The poll shows support for the three minor party members as: Johnson 3%, Stein 1%, Goode under 1%. The poll did tell the respondents the party affiliation of these candidates. The poll shows President Obama at 47% and Mitt Romney at 40%.
If Gary Johnson were to poll 3% in November, and 3% in each jurisdiction, then the Libertarian Party would have met the vote test for a party to remain on the ballot, for the first time ever, in Arkansas, Connecticut, District of Columbia, Iowa, and Kentucky.
On July 6, Missouri Governor Jay Nixon signed HB 1236. The bill deletes the requirement that a petition to place a newly-qualifying party on the ballot must list that group’s presidential nominee, and must also list the group’s candidates for presidential elector.
Missouri’s law had been quite irrational, until this bill was signed. The old law did not require the group’s nominees for office other than president and presidential elector to be listed on the petition. The old law was the product of a drafting error made back in 1993.
If this new law had been in effect earlier this year, it would have been helpful to Americans Elect. Americans Elect collected signatures on a petition in Missouri during 2011, but that petition didn’t list any presidential candidate, nor did it list any presidential elector candidates. Americans Elect never submitted that petition. The new law has no effect on Americans Elect in any event, since back on May 17, Americans Elect said it wouldn’t run a presidential candidate this year. Thanks to Ken Bush for the news about the Governor’s action.
On July 3, the California Senate Public Safety Committee did not pass AB 2058. The vote to pass it was 3-1, but the bill needed four votes to pass. This corrects an error made by this blog. The posting on the evening of July 3, saying the bill did pass, is in error. The Committee has five Democrats and two Republicans.
AB 2058 is the bill to make it illegal for registration drive workers to be paid on a per-registration card basis. The Senate Committee on Public Safety will not meet again this year, so the bill cannot pass this year, even though the Committee did authorize a reconsideration vote at some unspecified point in the future.
Senators who voted for the bill in the Senate Public Safety Committee are these three Democrats: Loni Hancock of Berkeley, Carol Liu of La Canada, and Curren Price of Inglewood. The “no” vote was cast by Joel Anderson, one of the two Republicans. Democratic Senators who did not vote are Ron Calderon of Montebello and Darrell Steinberg of Sacramento, the Senate President.
On July 5, the Federal Election Commission announced that Gary Johnson is about to receive a second check for primary season matching funds. The second check is for $130,059. The first one had been for $100,000. See this story.
