The Montana House State Administration Committee will hear HB 436 on Tuesday, February 19, at 8 a.m. This is the bill to establish a top-two primary system for all partisan office except President. It is unfortunate that Montana’s legislature has hearings that early in the morning, because Montana is physically a very large state, and sometimes has bad driving conditions in the winter, and it is very difficult for persons who live far from Helena to be there that early, unless they go to the expense of arriving the day before and staying the night. Thanks to James Conner for this news.

Ron Fournier of National Journal has this essay about the plausibility that the next presidential election will see the birth of a new political party. Although the article is newsworthy, Fournier’s use of the term “two-party system” is flawed. He seems to use “two-party system” as a synonym for the Democratic Party and the Republican Party, taken together. Many others use the term in the same way. However, the term was coined in 1911 to describe any system in which two particular parties are far larger than all the other parties. It was first applied to the British party system. But Britain has never been without third parties big and powerful enough to elect multiple members of the House of Commons. Thanks to PoliticalWire for the link.

On February 13, the Ninth Circuit heard arguments in Chamness v Maldonado, 11-56303, over California’s law on partisan labels on the ballot in congressional elections and elections for partisan state office. California law puts party labels on the ballot if the candidate is registered in a qualified party, but all other candidates must have “no party preference” on the ballot. This is true for independent candidates, and also for candidates who are registered members of unqualified parties. The lower court had upheld this law.

The panel seemed unpersuaded that the U.S. Constitution requires states to permit all candidates to list their party of registration on the ballot, but they also seemed to feel that the mandatory label “no party preference” is not fair to candidates who hold themselves out as independent candidates. They also had some sympathy for members of unqualified parties who are not accurately described by that label. Judge Paul Watford suggested that requiring candidates to have “no party preference” is a form of forced speech, and such candidates should at least have the option to have no ballot label whatsoever. He also suggested that the label “Not affiliated with a qualified party” would be more accurate.

Judge Marsha Berzon was interested in the fact that California law recognizes “political bodies”. A “political body” is a group that has elected state officers, has filed the names of these officers with the state, and has notified the Secretary of State that it is trying to qualify. This point is important because it shows that unqualified parties in California do exist and do have a structure.

The attorney for the California Secretary of State said that it is easy to qualify a new party in California, a statement that is not true. Except for Americans Elect, no new party has qualified in California since 1995. California requires more registrations to get a newly-qualifying party on the ballot than any other state even requires signatures on a petition. Currently, California requires 103,008 registered members, or 1,030,080 valid signatures, whereas no other state requires more than 89,340 valid signatures. Furthermore, the deadline for qualifying a new party in California was held unconstitutional last year. No legislator so far has been willing to introduce a bill to replace the old law.

Here is a link to the audio for the hearing, which lasts about 45 minutes. Thanks to Mike Feinstein for the link.