On March 27, thirty-six South Carolina House members introduced HB 5081, which tells the major political parties that if they hold a presidential primary in South Carolina, it must be at least a week earlier than any other southern state presidential primary for that same party. The bill defines “south” to include Missouri, West Virginia, Kentucky, Oklahoma, plus the eleven states that are always considered southern states.

This is a peculiar bill. If it is enacted, and one of the two major parties doesn’t want to obey it, there is a fair chance a court would rule that the law can’t be enforced on an unwilling political party. In South Carolina, parties administer their own presidential primaries, and collect the huge filing fee (this year, the Republican filing fee was $25,000 for candidates who announced early, and $35,000 for those who announced later). The two major parties don’t even necessarily hold their presidential primaries on the same day. However, taxpayers do pay for most of the administration of these presidential primaries. Thanks to Frontloading HQ for the news.

See this story, which says that recently, Louisiana Secretary of State Tom Schedler tweeted that he doesn’t have authority to determine if presidential candidates meet the constitutional qualifications, and to remove them from the November ballot if they don’t meet the constitutional qualifications. Scroll down to the paragraph headed, “Couillon.”

It is true that in 1972, Louisiana printed the name of Linda Jenness on the November ballot as the Socialist Workers Party presidential candidate. She was age 33 at the time, and the Socialist Workers Party made no secret of that. The SWP in 1972 tried vigorously to defend the policy of letting it run an under-age presidential candidate. The party argued that the Twentieth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution provides for instances at which the voters elect someone who doesn’t meet the constitutional qualifications. Thanks to Bill Van Allen for the link.

On March 28, the news broke that California Assemblyman Nathan Fletcher is changing his registration from “Republican” to “independent”. He is not running for re-election. Instead, he is running for the non-partisan post of Mayor of San Diego. He has been one of the four whips of the California Republican Assembly caucus.

Recently the San Diego Republican Party endorsed someone else for Mayor of San Diego. The election for Mayor is June 5, 2012, and if no one gets at least 50%, a run-off will be held in November. The Mayoral race has four candidates. Besides Fletcher, one is a Democrat and two are Republicans.

The last California independent legislator was Assemblyman Juan Arambula, of Fresno, who switched from the Democratic Party to independent status in June 2009. He did not run for re-election in 2010 because he was term-limited. Before that, the last independent in the California legislature was Audie Bock, who switched from being a Green, to being an independent, in late 1999. The last person actually elected as an independent to the California legislature was Quentin Kopp, re-elected as an independent in 1990 and 1994.