On October 29, the Nevada Republican Party leadership meets, and is expected to move the Nevada Republican caucus from January 14 to sometime in February. This will virtually guarantee that New Hampshire then sets its presidential primary for January 10. See this story about the Nevada Republican Party’s reasons for moving its caucus.
In 2008, the New Hampshire presidential primary had been on January 8, the earliest presidential primary ever conducted by any state government.
As of mid-day, October 21, only two individuals have filed to be on the New Hampshire Democratic presidential primary, Barack Obama and Darcy G. Richardson. However, filing doesn’t close until October 28.
Darcy Richardson is the author of six books, all non-fiction books involving U.S. political history. He lives in Jacksonville, Florida, and has recently worked in the financial services industry. He has extensive political experience, and he frequently blogs at UncoveredPolitics.
Filing for the Missouri presidential primary opens on October 25, and closes four weeks later. Candidates may file for the Republican, Democratic, Libertarian, or Constitution Party primary by paying a filing fee of $1,000. Missouri’s primary is the earliest at which any minor parties have their own primaries.
Filing for the New Hampshire primary ends October 28, but unlike Missouri, in New Hampshire only the Democratic and Republican Parties have their own primary. Filing has also been underway for some time in the South Carolina Republican primary. New Hampshire requires a fee of $1,000, and South Carolina’s Republican primary requires a fee of $35,000.
On October 20, the Ohio Senate passed HB 318-substitute, a bill that creates a March 2012 primary for U.S. Senate, state legislature, and county office, as well as a June 12 primary for U.S. House and President. Here is the text of the bill.
Candidates running in a primary for U.S. House in the June primary would still be expected to submit petitions by December 7, but the petitions could be circulated in the districts established by the legislature a few weeks ago. If the district boundaries change, the petitions would still be valid.
Ohio doesn’t know what the U.S. House district boundaries will be in 2012, because a referendum petition is being circulated against the bill that established those boundaries. So, the Senate felt that it would be better to postpone the U.S. House primaries to June. The presidential primary will also be put off until June, because Ohio’s presidential primary always elects delegates to the major party national conventions from particular U.S. House districts.
Of course it is massively more expensive to hold two primaries than to hold one. One would have expected the legislature to simply move the primary for all office to June, given the delay in knowing what the U.S. House district boundaries will be. What is especially peculiar with the bill is that the primary for U.S. Senate would be in March but the primary for U.S. House would be in June.
In the meantime, the Secretary of State is still pondering whether or not to put Americans Elect, the Green Party, the Constitution Party, and the Socialist Party, on the 2012 ballot. The Libertarian Party is now on the ballot. Thanks to Mark McGinnis for this news.
On October 20, the Michigan Supreme Court issued a two-page order in Scott v Michigan Director of Elections, 143878. The order reinstates the November 8, 2011 recall election of state representative Paul Scott. On October 6, the State Court of Appeals had stopped the recall, on the grounds that the statement on the recall petition, explaining why Scott should be recalled, was not accurate. See this story. For the earlier BAN blog post about this case, see here. Thanks to Thomas Jones for this news.
The State Supreme Court order does not address the merits of the case, but reverses the Court of Appeals because of procedure. The State Supreme Court is quite critical of the State Court of Appeals.
