Arizona State Senator Russell Pearce, president of the State Senate, will face a recall election in November 2011. See this story. Like Wisconsin, when a recall gets enough signature in Arizona, there is no separate vote on whether to recall the office-holder. Instead, a successful recall petition merely creates a special election, conducted on non-partisan lines, and with only one round.
This year, the Florida legislature passed a bill that lets state officials choose the presidential primary date. This story shows that it is impossible to predict when the Florida presidential primary will be held. That uncertainty affects two other states that also have flexibility, New Hampshire and South Carolina. New Hampshire is another state in which the law does not determine the date, and which lets a state executive official decide, very late in the process. And the South Carolina Republican presidential primary is being paid for by the Republican Party, so the party is relatively free to also decide much later when to hold the primary.
On July 8, Missouri Governor Jay Nixon vetoed SB 282, this year’s omnibus election law bill. See this story. Among other things, the bill moved the presidential primary from February to March; provided for special elections when a vacancy occurs in statewide office (including U.S. Senate); and eliminated non-partisan city elections in some cities when the number of candidates listed on the ballot equals the number of vacancies.
Governor Nixon’s veto message criticized the latter two provisions. An irony of this veto is that, just before this bill passed the legislature, the conference committee had deleted a provision helping newly-qualifying minor parties, because the conferees felt that anything that helps minor parties would be “controversial” and would make the bill more likely to be vetoed. The provision would have eliminated the typographical error in the existing law that forces petitions for a newly-qualifying party to list candidates for president and presidential elector, if the new party desires to nominate for these offices in the next election. Thanks to Ken Bush and Brandon Henderson for the news about the veto.
On July 8, Dan La Botz filed a lawsuit in U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C., over a complete absence of objective criteria in several televised debates last year between candidates for U.S. Senate in Ohio. La Botz was the Socialist Party nominee in 2010 for U.S. Senate. The Ohio News Organization, comporsed of the largest eight newspapers in the state, sponsored televised U.S. Senate debates, and failed to set out any objective criteria on whom to include. Instead, the organization merely invited the Democratic and Republican nominees, and did not even communicate with the other two candidates listed on the ballot.
Although federal regulations permit broadcasters to set severe standard on whom to invite, they are very clear that there must be such standards. After the debates were over, the Ohio News Organization said it had invited the two major party nominees based on their party affiliation and the fact that they were the “obvious frontrunners.” La Botz then complained to the Federal Election Commission, which did not act on his complaint and dismissed it on May 19, 2011. Therefore, La Botz is now suing the FEC to force it to enforce the law. When there are no objective standards, the debate sponsors are in violation of federal election law, which bans corporate contributions to candidates for federal office.
On July 8, the U.S. Court of Appeals for D.C. issued this opinion in LaRoque v Holder, 10-5433. The decision says that independent candidate John Nix, who wants to run for city council of Kinston, North Carolina, in the November 2011 election, has standing to challenge the chain of developments that causes Kinston to still have partisan city elections.
In November 2008, the voters of Kinston voted to start using non-partisan elections instead of partisan city elections. But the U.S. Justice Department refused to pre-clear that change, arguing that partisan elections are more beneficial to black voters in the south. Therefore, Nix and some other plaintiffs filed a lawsuit against the Attorney General, arguing that partisan elections are harmful to independent candidates, not only because North Carolina has such severe ballot access hurdles for independent candidates, but because North Carolina uses a straight-ticket device that injures independent candidates. Nix argued that the city council refuses to file a lawsuit to get permission for the city to use non-partisan elections, and therefore his only remedy is to sue to get Section Five of the Voting Rights Act overturned. The U.S. District Court said Nix lacks standing, but now the U.S. Court of Appeals has ruled Nix does have standing.
Because the constitutionality of Section Five of the Voting Rights Act (the part requiring certain parts of the nation to get permission from the Justice Department before changing any election laws) is already shaky, this case may become very important. Of course, the Justice Department is free to change its mind about Kinston, and let the city have non-partisan elections. The U.S. Court of Appeals decision deals only with standing, and sends the case back to the U.S. District Court to adjudicate the merits of the case. Thanks to Rick Hasen for the link.
