It seems likely that no state legislature this year will pass a bill, requiring presidential candidate birth certificates as a condition of ballot access. The Missouri bill that had contained such a provision, SB 282, passed the legislature today, but a few days ago a conference committee deleted the “birth certificate” part of the bill.

The Oklahoma bill, SB 91, has passed both houses, but the two versions differ. The version in one house accepts a certified copy of the birth certificate, but the version in the other house demands an original. The Conference Committee members were named on May 5, but they have not met, and it is likely the Oklahoma legislature will only be in session for another week.

As reported previously, the only state legislature that passed one of these bills had been Arizona, but the Governor had vetoed it. It seems somewhat plausible that when President Obama produced his birth certificate earlier this month, that took some of the interest away from these bills.

Carl Lewis, former Olympic track gold-medal winner who is trying to run for the New Jersey State Senate this year, does not know yet whether he will be on the November 2011 ballot in the 8th district. However, his name will be on the June 7 primary ballot. No other Democrat is running, so he will win the primary by default, barring an extremely unlikely write-in campaign against him.

He does not know if he can be on the November ballot because the New Jersey Constitution requires candidates for the State Senate to have been residents of the state for the past four years. He voted in California in 2009 and the New Jersey state courts have already ruled that he was not a resident of New Jersey during the past four years. But he is in federal court arguing that the New Jersey Constitutional provision violates the U.S. Constitution. The federal case will not be decided until after the primary.

This newspaper story describes bills in the Maine legislature to eliminate or curtail public funding for candidates for state office. The bill to repeal the program has already been defeated in committee, although the sponsor will try to put a measure on the 2012 ballot asking voters if they wish to repeal it. However, the article also mentions polling data which suggest that a large majority of voters, including Republicans as well as others, support the program.