The Washington Secretary of State has submitted a proposed bill to the legislature, which makes many technical changes. Among them is a clearer definition of “major political party.” Existing law says a “major political party” is on the ballot automatically for President, whereas other parties must submit 1,000 signatures. Existing law also says a “major political party” is one whose nominee for any statewide office at the last election polled at least 5% of the vote.

Because parties in Washington no longer have nominees, except for President and Vice-President, the Libertarian Party last year filed a lawsuit, charging that the Republican Party was no longer a qualified major party after the November 2010 election because it had no nominees for a statewide office in 2010. The only statewide partisan office up in 2010 was U.S. Senate. A lower state court ruled that the Republican Party did have a nominee in 2010, because the state party had endorsed one particular individual, and therefore the Republican Party was still a qualified major party.

The proposed bill re-defines “major political party” to be one that polled 5% for President. When a party meets that vote test, it keeps that status for four years. The bill will probably exist with its own bill number next week.

On January 8, Oklahoma Representative Mike Brown (D-Tahlequah) introduced a bill to provide for recall of state and local office-holders. It is HB 1008. Oddly enough, it is just a statute, not a proposed constitutional amendment. Generally recall is something that appears within state constitutions, in states that have the recall. Thanks to E. Zachery Knight for this news.

The Wyoming legislature convened on January 8. According to this news story, the President of the Wyoming Senate, Tony Ross (R-Cheyenne) addressed the Senate with a speech, and in that speech he “deplored the emergence of fringe parties with extreme agendas that have an attack-only strategy.”

The parties with candidates on the ballot in Wyoming last year were Republican, Democratic, Libertarian (all of which are long-established in Wyoming), and two parties that appeared on the ballot for the first time, the Constitution Party and the Country Party.

As the story points out, the Wyoming Senate now consists of 26 Republicans and 4 Democrats. Thanks to Don Wills for the link.