On May 14, the Vermont legislature adjourned for the year. SB 86, which had passed the Senate, never received a vote in the House. This is an omnibus election law bill that moves the independent candidate petition deadline from June to August.
However, Vermont has two-year legislative sessions, so the bill could pass the House in 2014.
On May 14, the Texas House Elections Committee passed SB 817, which would provide that ballot-qualified parties that nominate by convention hold their state convention in April, instead of June. Texas primaries are in March. The Libertarian Party requested this bill. The party’s experience has been that the campaigns for its nominees would be advantaged, if the candidates could present themselves to the public as official nominees earlier in the process. The bill has already passed the Senate. The Green Party also supports this bill. The bill would have no effect on petition deadlines for newly-qualifying parties, which would continue to be in May. Thanks to Jim Riley for this news.
On May 14, the city council of Takoma Park, Maryland, lowered the voting age to 16 for city elections. Thanks to Rick Hasen for this news.
California AB 1038 may receive a vote on the Assembly floor on Thursday, May 16. This is the bill to make it illegal to pay registration drive workers according to how many registrants they obtain for any particular political party. If this bill were enacted, it would be much more difficult for either a newly-qualifying party, or an already-qualified party, to get on the ballot or remain on. The only realistic way for parties to be qualified in California is to have approximately 110,000 registered members.
No group formally supports AB 1038, but when the bill was in the Assembly Elections Committee, every Democrat on the committee voted for it. If you live in California, and especially if your Assemblymember is a Democrat, please e-mail or telephone your Assemblymember and ask for a “No” vote. Governor Jerry Brown vetoed very similar bills in both 2011 and 2012, and some federal courts have struck down laws similar to the provisions in this bill.
On May 14, the Florida Election Commission voted 5-1 that the Florida Libertarian Party should not be fined for having filed a campaign finance report a week late. The fine had been imposed in January, and was in the amount of $70,000 ($10,000 per day). The party had actually filed, but with the wrong agency. The Commission agreed with arguments that the law is too vague, and that a plausible argument could even be made that the report is not mandatory.
The Green Party was also before the Commission at the same meeting, over its $10,000 fine for being a few hours late with the same report. The Commission voted to lower the amount of the fine to $200, which was 25% of all the money the party had in its bank account.
