Texas Legislative Committee Hears Testimony Against Imposing Filing Fees for Convention Nominees and Independent Candidates

Posted on by March 7, 2011
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On March 7, the Texas House Election Committee heard testimony on HB 418, the bill to charge filing fees for independent candidates, and candidates nominated by convention. Minor parties nominate by convention in Texas, and only the Democratic and Republican Parties have primaries. The committee heard testimony from members of the Constitution Party, Green Party, and Libertarian Party, all opposing the bill. The committee consensus then seemed to be to leave the bill pending in committee. Thanks to Robert Butler for this news.

Recall Petitions Launched Against Half of Wisconsin State Senators

Posted on by March 7, 2011
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This article says that recall petitions have been launched against sixteen Wisconsin State Senators, eight Republicans and eight Democrats. The recall petition needs the signatures of 25% of the number of people who voted in November 2010 within that district. The article says that this number ranges from 11,817 signatures in the district which had the fewest voters in 2010, to 20,973 in the district that had the most.

The November 2010 vote in Wisconsin for Governor was 2,158,974. It is estimated that Wisconsin has 4,200,000 people eligible to register to vote. Wisconsin has 33 State Senate districts, so the average district has 127,273 persons who are registered, or who could register. Thanks to Politico for the link.

Montana Hearing Set on "Faithless Presidential Electors" Bill

Posted on by March 7, 2011
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The Montana House State Administration Committee will hold a hearing on SB 194 on March 8. This is the bill, written by the Commission on Uniform State Laws, to provide that each party, and any independent presidential candidate, must submit twice as many candidates for presidential elector as that state has votes in the electoral college. Half would be designated presidential electors and half would be designated alternate presidential electors. If a presidential elector voted against his or her party’s nominee for President in the electoral college, that elector would be deemed to have resigned and the alternate would vote instead.

The Commission on Uniform State Laws also seems to have succeeded in getting this bill introduced in Indiana, Nebraska, and Washington, although none of the bills in those states have made any headway so far, except that the Nebraska bill has had a hearing. The Washington bill, HB 1950, is dead for this year.