Gabriel Gomez, one of the Republicans planning to run for U.S. Senate in the June Massachusetts special election, has signed a contract with a paid petitioning firm to get him on the primary ballot. The 10,000 valid signatures are due February 27. See this story, which says that the contract will be in excess of $100,000. The paid petitioning company, Spoonworks, is run by Harold Hubschman, who was an expert witness on the side of the state of Illinois in last month’s lawsuit over the constitutionality of Illinois ballot access in special elections.

On February 11, only ten minutes before the challenge deadline, the petitions of three candidates for U.S. House (in the special election to fill the vacant Illinois 2nd district seat) were challenged. Petitions for the Green Party candidate, and two of the three independent candidates, were challenged. One independent candidate, Marcus Lewis, did not have his petition challenged. Lewis insists he and his campaign had nothing to do with the challenge.

The challenged candidates are Green Party nominee LeAlan Jones, and these two independent candidates: Curtiss Bey and Elizabeth Pahlke. The hearing on the challenges will probably be next week.

Montana Representative Nicholas Schwaderer (R-Mineral) has introduced HB 397, to move the non-presidential independent candidate petition deadline to mid-July. The current March deadline was held unconstitutional last year. The Secretary of State’s omnibus election law bill, which has already passed the House, moves that deadline from March to late May, which is still too early by court precedents. The Secretary of State supports HB 397, and says she didn’t put the July deadline in her own omnibus election law bill because an omnibus election law bill, by tradition, doesn’t make any law changes that are controversial. The Chair of the House Judiciary Committee also supports HB 397. Thanks to Steve Kelly for this news. HB 397 has a hearing on February 13.