The Argus-Courier is a weekly newspaper in Petaluma, California, which has existed for almost 150 years. It recently conducted an on-line survey to determine attitudes toward the California Proposition 14 “top-two” (called an “open primary” by its supporters) system. On-line polls are not scientific, and furthermore the sample size was small. Nevertheless, the poll showed that more people are opposed to the system than in favor of it. See here.
Last year California Governor Jerry Brown vetoed a bill to make it illegal for anyone to pay registration workers on a per-registration card basis. However, the same bill has been re-introduced. Assemblymember Richard Pan, and Senator Lou Correa, have amended a non-election law bill that already passed the Assembly so that it imposes the ban. It is AB 2058, and will probably have a hearing in the Senate Elections Committee in June. If passed, it would take effect on January 1, 2013.
The only way qualified parties can remain ballot-qualified in California is by having registration equal to 1% of the last gubernatorial vote, which currently is 103,004 members (however, this doesn’t go into effect until November 2014). Neither the Libertarian Party, nor the Peace & Freedom Party, have that many registered members. They only feasible way for parties to increase their registration substantially has always been to pay people on a per-registration card basis. Persuading strangers on the street to register into a minor party is very difficult work, and paying on a per-registration basis is the only realistic way to substantially increase a party’s registration.
The reason for the bill is that recently, Republican Party activists hired a company to increase the number of registered Republicans, and the people who were hired committed fraud. It does not necessarily follow that the fraud would have been prevented if the ban on paying per-registration card had been in effect.
The Sixth Circuit will hear arguments in Green Party of Tennessee v Hargett on July 25, Wednesday, at 9 a.m. The hearing will be in Cincinnati. The state hopes to persuade the court to remove the Constitution and Green Parties from the ballot. There will probably also be argument on the part of the U.S. District Court decision that said states must give all parties an equal chance to be listed first on the ballot.
On May 18, the U.S. Court of Appeals in the District of Columbia upheld section five of the national Voting Rights Act. Section five is the part of the act that requires certain states and counties to get permission from the U.S. Justice Department before changing any election law. The vote was 2-1. Here is the decision. The decision was written by Judge David Tatel, a Clinton appointee, and co-signed by Judge Thomas Griffith, a Bush Jr. appointee. The dissent is by Judge Stephen Williams, a Reagan appointee. The case is Shelby County, Alabama v Holder, 11-5256.
The same panel also issued an opinion in LaRoque v Holder, 11-5349. That opinion is unanimous. That is also a challenge to the Voting Rights Act, brought by voters in Kinston, North Carolina, who were dissatisfied that the Voting Rights Section of the U.S. Justice Department had refused to let Kinston change from partisan city elections to non-partisan city elections. After this lawsuit was filed, the Voting Rights Section changed its mind and let Kinston make that change. The ruling in this case says that it is now moot. Thanks to Rick Hasen for the link.
Alabama’s legislature is now in special session. Senator Scott Beason (R-Gardendale) has introduced a bill to provide for registration by party in Alabama. By coincidence, in the special session, the new bill is SB 15, which happens to be the number of this year’s ballot access bill in the regular session (the regular session is now over, so the original SB 15 is dead).
The new SB 15 says that only registered party members may vote in primaries. This is a legal flaw, because in 1986 the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in Tashjian v Republican Party of Connecticut that states have no authority to tell parties whether to let independents vote in their primaries or not. Parties decide that for themselves.
The new SB 15 has been sent to the Taxation & Finance Committee, but is not scheduled for a hearing. However, the bill probably has substantial support, because in order for this bill to be introduced, Senator Beason had to have unanimous consent. Election law bills are not on the Governor’s call for the special session, so the special session can only consider election law bills that have unanimous consent to be introduced. It seems conceivable that Senator Cam Ward, author of the ballot access bill, might attempt to gain unanimous consent to re-introduce his ballot access bill. It did pass the Senate and the House committee in the regular session, so it has substantial support.
The new SB 15, on party registration, seems to imply that voters could register into unqualified parties. It has no authorization for any party to reject any voter’s registration. Current law in Alabama gives parties the ability to refuse to let individuals run in its primaries for political reasons. If this bill passed, and someone registers into a party, and files in its primary, that might make it impossible for major parties to continue to exclude certain candidates from their primaries on political grounds, if that person is a registered member of that party.
The bill does not address the question of whether someone must be a registered member of a party in order to file in its primary.
The author of the voter registration bill, Senator Beason, did vote in favor of the regular session’s ballot access bill. Perhaps he will amend his bill to include ballot access improvements as well.
