As noted earlier, California AB 2058 recently failed to pass the Senate Public Safety Committee. This is the bill to make it a crime to pay registration workers on a per-registration card basis. The bill, in its more recent form, has not passed either house, and since the Senate Public Safety Committee is not scheduled to meet again this year, the bill seemed dead.

However, employees of the legislature say that the Senate President, Darrell Steinberg, still intends to use whatever parliamentary tools are available to him to revive the bill, whether the contents of the bill are placed in another bill or not. However, no action is expected until mid-August.

According to this news story, Michigan can cancel the September 5 primary in the 11th U.S. House district if only one person files in the Republican primary and/or the Democratic primary. So far no Democrat has announced any intention to run, and one of the two Republicans may withdraw to save the cost of holding the special primary. The special election is for a term that would last only two months.

Several Massachusetts newspapers are reporting that independent Seth Moulton could conceivably be elected to the U.S. House this year. Although the Democratic primary is not until September 6, it is too late for Moulton to get on the Democratic primary ballot. If he is going to be an independent, he needs 2,000 valid signatures by July 31. See this story and this story.

It is certain that the incumbent Democrat, John F. Tierney, will be the Democratic nominee. He is the only person who is on the Democratic primary ballot for that seat. However, as the news stories explain, he has lost support recently.

The ability of an independent candidate to get on the November ballot as late as July 31, or even later, is one of the advantages of an election system that does not use “top-two open primary” rules. If Massachusetts had a top-two open primary, it would be too late for anyone to enter the race this late in the election year.