Joe Mathews, co-author of “California Crackup” and author of the leading biography of Arnold Schwarzenegger, has this column in Fox and Hounds blog. The column praises the idea the electronic signatures on initiatives should be valid. Mathews rebuts the idea that this would lead to a glut of ballot measures appearing on the ballot. Mathews is an expert on the initiative process, and last year organized a national conference on the initiative process worldwide. Thanks to Thomas Jones for the link.
On April 5, Detroit elected members of Citizens’ District Councils in non-partisan elections. The city has 19 districts for this office, and each district elects six members every year, for three year terms. Each council has 18 members.
Matt Erard, a leader of the Socialist Party, was elected this year in the Downtown District. The election was not suspenseful, because only five candidates’ names appeared on the ballot. Erard had been a Socialist Party nominee for Congress in 2010, but did not get on the ballot; and he had been on the ballot as a Green Party nominee for the legislature in 2008.
Since last year, the Socialist Party has been asking the Michigan Supreme Court to hear its ballot access lawsuit. The court still hasn’t said whether it will hear the case. The application has been pending in the court for twenty weeks. The party challenges the law that requires almost twice as many signatures for a new party to get on the ballot, compared to the number of votes an already-established party needs to remain on the ballot.
On April 14, the Texas Senate passed SB 100, by Senator Leticia Van de Putte (D-San Antonio). As amended, the bill leaves the Texas primary in early March. But it moves the runoff primary from the 2nd Tuesday in April, to the 4th Tuesday in May. The motivation for the bill is the federal law that requires overseas absentee ballots to be mailed no later than 45 days before any election. The existing system can’t cope with that requirement, because the existing system has too little time between the primary and the runoff primary.
The bill has some inadvertent effects on various deadlines for candidates. If this bill becomes law, the petition deadline for an independent candidate for any office except President will move from May 14 to June 21. That, of course, is helpful to independent candidates who are not running for President. But, oddly, the petition deadline for an independent presidential candidate would continue to be May 14. This is because, under the existing law and under the bill as well, the petition deadline for independent candidates for office other than President is tied to the date of the runoff primary. But the independent presidential petition is not. It is difficult to believe that any court would uphold the constitutionality of a state law that says independent presidential candidates must submit their petition (which requires 80,778 signatures) by May 14, yet the petition deadline for independent candidates for other statewide office (who need 49,799 signatures) would be 38 days later. The U.S. Supreme Court said in Anderson v Celebrezze said ballot access for presidential candidates who run outside the major parties must be easier than ballot access candidates for other office. If SB 100 passes, Texas will have that completely backwards.
SB 100 also moves the deadline for all non-presidential candidates to file a declaration of candidacy from January 2 of the election year, to the third Monday in December of the year before the election. This deadline even applies to independent candidates (but not presidential independent candidates). If this passes, Texas will be the only state in the nation that requires an independent candidate to file a declaration of candidacy in the odd year before an election year. The only other state that ever required an independent candidate for any office to file anything in the odd year before the election year had been Illinois, which had once required non-presidential independent candidates to file a petition in December of the year before the election. But that deadline was held unconstitutional in 2006 in Lee v Keith, 463 F.3d 763 (7th Circuit).
SB 100 passed the Senate on second reading and third reading on the same day. Normally the Constitution forbids bills to pass without at least one day between second reading and third reading, but a legislative chamber has the authority to waive that rule. Senator Jeff Wentworth (R-San Antonio) objected to passing the bill so speedily. He said if the normal rule were followed, the news of the bill passing second reading would give the public a chance to find any flaws in the bill before the bill passes third reading. Thanks to Jim Riley for the news about HB 100.
On April 16, the Tennessee Republican Party Executive Committee rejected a proposal that the party should work toward getting a closed primary for itself. See this story. Tennessee has never had registration by party. On primary day, any voter is free to choose any party’s primary ballot.
At the May 2011 Canadian parliamentary election, the average district will have slightly more than 5 candidates on the ballot. Here is a link to an official list of the candidates. There are 308 districts, and 1,587 candidates. Thanks to Thomas Jones for the link.
Canadian ballot access laws treat all candidates equally. Each candidate needs 100 signatures and a filing fee of $1,000 (Canadian dollars, of course). The ballot access laws do not depend on the candidate’s party or lack of partisan affiliation.