On May 3, the Florida legislature passed HB 7013. Here is a copy of the bill. Go to the end of the document to see a summary of all the changes.

The bill moves the presidential primary from January to March. It moves the non-presidential primary from early August to late August. It does not include the provision that would have relaxed the duration of membership requirement for candidates to run in a party primary. Because section 99.021 was not amended in HB 7013, the restriction passed in 2011, saying candidates cannot run in a party primary if they have been members of another party during the preceding year, remains in place.

If any qualified political party passes a bylaw contradicting the state law, and saying candidates can run in that party’s primary even if they were members of another party in the past, the party would probably win the lawsuit. The U.S. Supreme Court said in Tashjian v Republican Party of Connecticut that states cannot tell parties that may not nominate a non-member. Duration of party membership laws have been struck down in Colorado and New Mexico.

As noted earlier, on March 19, a U.S. District Court in Arizona had upheld the state’s voter registration forms. Even though Arizona provides mandatory primaries to five political parties, the state’s voter registration forms only have three checkboxes, labeled “Democratic”, “Republican” and “other.” There is a short blank line next to the “other” checkbox, so that voters can either write in “independent” or the name of some other party, qualified or not. The case is Arizona Libertarian Party v Bennett, 4:11cv-856.

The Libertarian and Green Parties had asked for reconsideration on April 15. On April 22, the judge asked the state to respond to the request for reconsideration. On May 3, the state courteously responded that it had no objection to the request for rehearing and the additional evidence that had been submitted with the reconsideration request. The fact that the judge asked the state to respond is encouraging; most requests for reconsideration are simply denied.

John L. Mealer, of Lakeside, Arizona, has filed campaign finance documents with the Arizona Secretary of State’s office, indicating he is raising money for a campaign for Governor and that he will run in the Americans Elect Party primary. See this link. Thanks to Richard Grayson for the news.