According to this story, the Connecticut House Government Administration & Elections Committee is not likely to pass HB 5528, a bill to revamp the state’s public funding program.

The existing law provides for extra public funding for certain publicly-funded candidates. The existing law gives extra public funding when opponents spend a great deal of privately-raised money. But the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in the Arizona Free Enterprise PAC case that such extra public funding is unconstitutional. In response, HB 5528, a proposal by Governor Dan Malloy, eliminates the extra public funding, but says contribution limits for publicly-funded candidates would be relaxed.

The problem with that idea is that it seems to run afoul of the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in Davis v FEC, which ruled that a federal law, relaxing contribution limits for congressional candidates who have opponents who spend more than $350,000 of their own money on their own campaign, is unconstitutional. The Committee heard testimony that the Governor’s proposal wouldn’t be constitutional, and probably won’t pass the bill in its existing form.

On March 22, Americans Elect submitted its petition for party status to the South Dakota Secretary of State. The requirement is 7,928 valid signatures, and Americans Elect submitted 15,609. The Libertarian Party qualified in South Dakota a few weeks ago. The Constitution Party is racing the clock to finish its South Dakota petition. The deadline is March 27.

On March 8, the New Hampshire House defeated HB 1595 by a vote of 136-178. It would have said that independents could still vote in primaries, but if an independent chose to vote in a party primary, he or she would then be deemed to be a member of the party whose primary ballot had been chosen, for at least three months. Under current law, an independent may vote in primary without becoming a member of that party.