Missouri Legislature Might Move Presidential Primary to One Week After New Hampshire's Presidential Primary

Posted on by March 18, 2011
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Under current Missouri law, the 2012 presidential primary will be in early February. The two major parties have said they won’t recognize primaries that early, except for the New Hampshire and South Carolina presidential primaries. So Missouri Senator Kevin Engler introduced SB 282, to move Missouri’s presidential primary to March.

However, on March 16, the Missouri Senate voted for an amendment to the bill, to move the presidential primary to one week after the New Hampshire primary. The vote on the amendment was 16-14. Senator Engler opposed the motion. In effect, his bill has been altered against his wishes. The bill will be on third reading in the Senate next week. In the meantime, HB 503 in the House sets up a March presidential primary, and has passed all the House committees, but is not set for a vote in the House.

In 2008, the New Hampshire presidential primary was on January 8. No one knows when it will be in 2012. The New Hampshire Secretary of State has authority to set the date, without input from the legislature. Thanks to Frontloading HQ for this news.

Illinois Bill to Ban "Sore Losers" Advances

Posted on by March 18, 2011
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On March 17, the Illinois House Election & Campaign Reform Committee passed HB 2009 unanimously. It says that anyone who ran in a primary, but who is not nominated, is then barred from running in the same election year as an independent nominee, or the nominee of another party, for any office. The bill also pertains to people who win their primary but then withdraw as the nominee of the party whose primary they had won.

This bill would have barred Scott Lee Cohen from running as an independent candidate in 2010 for Governor. He had won the Democratic nomination for Lieutenant Governor in February 2010, but then had resigned that nomination. Then he had become an independent candidate for Governor and had polled 135,705 votes (3.64% of the total vote cast) in November. The bill would also have blocked John B. Anderson from running for President as an independent in 1980 in his own state, Illinois. He had filed to run in the March 1980 Illinois presidential primary, and in April 1980 he had withdrawn from the Republican contest and declared as an independent. He got on the ballot in November 1980 in all 50 states.

However, the bill liberalizes who can run in a partisan primary. Current law seems to bar anyone from running in a presidential primary if he or she voted in the primary of another party in the preceding year, or ran in the primary of another party in the preceding year. But HB 2009 deletes those restrictions.

Maine Bill to Relax Party Organizational Requirements Passes Committee

Posted on by March 18, 2011
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The Maine legislature’s Joint Standing Committee on State and Local Government has passed LD 142 unanimously. Current law says a qualified party must hold county caucuses in every county in the spring of even-numbered years. The bill, as originally introduced, abolished this requirement. However, the bill has been amended, to say that a party must hold such county caucuses in at least twelve of Maine’s sixteen counties. The amended bill will be helpful, because it frees relatively small qualified parties from having to be organized in some of the smallest counties. Maine’s smallest-population county, Piscataquis, cast fewer than 10,000 votes for President in November 2010.

New Mexico Senate Passes Ballot Access Bill

Posted on by March 18, 2011
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On March 17, the New Mexico Senate passed SB 403 unanimously. It is an omnibus election law bill initiated by the organization of County Clerks, and contains a few ballot access improvements: (1) it moves the independent candidate petition deadline from early June to late June; (2) it lowers the number of signatures to qualify a new party in mid-term years, from one-half of 1% of the last presidential vote to one-half of 1% of the last gubernatorial vote; (3) it says that the blank petition forms for the petition to qualify a new party must be available at all times.

If the bill had been in effect in 2010, minor parties would have needed 2,796 signatures instead of 4,151 signatures. Even if this bill passes, New Mexico has other ballot access problems. The worst is that even after a minor party submits a petition to qualify itself, then it needs petition for each of its nominees (except presidential nominees). Also, the petition deadline for a new party petition is in April.