One of the Nevada Secretary of State’s omnibus election law bills this year is AB 48. It makes many miscellaneous election law changes, including a provision that says the qualified smaller parties must notify the state of their presidential and vice-presidential nominees in August. This is discriminatory, because the law would continue to let the two major parties notify the state in early September. The Independent American Party (the Nevada state affiliate of the Constitution Party) is working with the Secretary of State and the legislature to amend the bill.

The bill passed the Assembly Legislative Operations and Elections Committee on March 28, with an understanding that the provision mentioned above will be taken out of the bill, or at least some satisfactory solution will be found.

The U.S. Supreme Court will consider whether to hear Initiative & Referendum Institute v U.S. Postal Service, 12-722, on April 12.

This article, posted on March 27 at The Monkey Cage, is by three political scientists at the University of California, Berkeley. It uses empirical data to show that the California top-two open primary in 2012 did not boost moderate Democrats and moderate Republicans at the expense of far-left Democrats and far-right Republicans. The authors are Doug Ahler, Jack Citrin, and Gabriel Lenz.