On March 25, the Oklahoma House Subcommittee on General Government (part of the Committee on Budget and Appropriations) passed SB 76 by 5-1. This is the bill that doubles candidate filing fees. The new fees will be: legislature $400; Governor $3,000; U.S. Senate $2,000; U.S. House $1,500; other statewide state executive office $1,000. The bill had already passed the State Senate. Thanks to E. Zachary Knight for this news.
The Pennsylvania Constitution, Green, and Libertarian Parties have all decided to appeal the March 7 decision of a U.S. District Court that they don’t have standing to sue over the Pennsylvania challenge system, which leaves any statewide independent candidate, or any statewide petitioning party, in jeopardy of over $100,000 if they submit a petition that has fewer valid signatures than are required.
In other Pennsylvania news, two activists from the Constitution Party will soon visit Harrisburg this week to examine the official election returns sent in by each county. They will examine the returns so that the number of write-ins for various presidential candidates who weren’t on the ballot can be known to history. Most of the counties count the write-ins and record them, but the state won’t tally them up this year, even though it did so for a few presidential write-in candidates in 2008.
George F. Will here comments on the Republican National Committee’s ideas on how to improve the process by which the party chooses its presidential nominees. Especially interesting is his suggestion that if the party wants true reform, it should fight the idea that four particular states are somehow entitled to vote before all the other states. Those four states are Iowa, New Hampshire, South Carolina, and Nevada. But even Will quickly agrees that there is little hope for that reform. Thanks to the Center for Competitive Politics for the link.
On March 21, the Working Families Party of South Carolina held a convention and nominated Elizabeth Colbert Busch (sister of Stephen Colbert) for the special U.S. House election, First District, that will be held May 7. Busch is also the Democratic Party nominee, but voters can choose which label to use if they vote for her. The Green Party nominee is Eugene Platt. Republicans haven’t yet chosen their nominee, but it will either be Mark Sanford or Curtis Bostic.
On March 19, the Arizona Libertarian Party notified the Arizona Secretary of State that the party’s 2014 primary will be open to independent voters. The party had also taken that step in 2012, although it did not let independents vote in its primary in 2008 nor 2010. Under the U.S. Supreme Court ruling in Tashjian v Republican Party of Connecticut, every party has the right to decide for itself whether to invite independent voters to vote in its primary; states cannot make this decision for political parties.
