On April 28, the Minnesota House Government Operations & Elections Committee passed HF 495, the bill for the National Popular Vote Plan. The committee has a Republican majority, but only one legislator voted against the bill.
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On April 27, Arizona Governor Jan Brewer signed HB 2335. It says that vice-presidential nominees’ names should be printed on November ballots. As a result, North Dakota is the only state which does not print the names of vice-presidential nominees on November ballots.
HB 2335 had started out as a bill to also delete the names of presidential elector candidates from the November ballot, but the idea of removing the names of presidential elector candidates from the ballot faced political opposition. Many candidates for presidential elector, for the major parties, are state legislators, and they apparently enjoy seeing their names on the ballot in their role as presidential elector candidates.
On April 28, the Tennessee Senate, which had been set to debate the ballot access bill that day, postponed that bill until May 5. The Senate bill, SB 935, has seven amendments pending, some of which lower the number of signatures needed for a new party to get on the ballot. One amendment proposes 10,000 signatures, and another amendment proposes 6,000. This is the sixth time the Senate has postponed consideration of the bill. It was originally on the consent calendar for March 21, but was removed. Since then it has been scheduled for the regular calendar on March 24, March 29, April 7, April 14, and April 28, but each time it was postponed to a future day.
The House has already passed a companion bill that leaves the number of signatures at 2.5% of the last gubernatorial vote (40,042 signatures). The legislature must pass some bill on this subject this year, because the existing law was held unconstitutional last year.
As noted earlier, on March 30, a U.S. District Court Judge in South Carolina ruled that the Republican Party cannot close its primary to non-members, on the grounds that the party is always free to nominate by convention if it wishes. On April 27, the Republican Party filed a brief with the U.S. District Court, asking for clarification of the March 30 ruling. The party believes that the March 30 ruling is unclear on whether the challenged law is constitutional on its face, or constitutional as applied. Also, the party makes the case that the ruling is unclear on whether it is just a denial of injunctive relief, or a judgment that the case is now over in that court. A response from the state is due on May 16. Until these ambiguities are settled, it is not possible to know if the party will appeal. The case is The Greenville County Republican Party v State, 6:10-cv-1407.
One of the Indiana legislature’s omnibus election law bills has been amended again, so that now, if current Republican Secretary of State Charlie White is removed from office, the office will go to the Democratic nominee. White is fairly likely to be removed soon, because he registered at a precinct at which he didn’t live, and also voted in that precinct. The existing law, which would continue to be in place if the bill passes, says the office goes to the candidate who came in second, which, of course, is the Democratic nominee.
HB 1242 had been amended in the Senate to change the law on succession, and to say that when most state offices become vacant, the Governor may fill the vacancy. But on April 26 the House had rejected that amendment. Now, the bill’s author, Representative Kathy Richardson, is amending the bill again to keep the new succession rules but to make them effective at a point in the future, so that the change won’t apply to the 2010 Secretary of State race. See this story. Thanks to Rick Hasen for the link.