Back on January 7, 2011, the Kentucky Senate passed an interesting bill to move the presidential primary from May to August. It is SB 4. However, it cannot pass, because the House Elections Committee never set it for a hearing, and that Committee doesn’t expect to meet again this year.
Yale Law Professor Bruce Ackerman has this short article in Foreign Policy, which advocates that Egypt switch to a parliamentary system from a presidential system. Ackerman also seems to imply that Egypt should use proportional representation, although he does not make this explicit. Iraq uses a parliamentary system combined with proportional representation.
Colorado campaign finance laws permit an individual to donate $400 to a candidate for the legislature who is nominated by primary. Almost always, only Democrats and Republicans are nominated by primary in Colorado. The statute also says no one can give more than $200 to a legislative candidate who is nominated by convention, or by petition. Generally, independent candidates are nominated by petition; minor party candidates are nominated either by convention or by petition.
Last year, independent write-in candidate Kathleen Curry filed a federal lawsuit, arguing that the U.S. Constitution does not permit a state to discriminate against her, and other non-major party candidates, by limiting contributions to her to only half as much money as the limit on Democratic and Republican candidates. She filed the case in U.S. District Court. However, on September 16, the U.S. District Court Judge ruled that perhaps the Colorado statute violates the Colorado Constitution. He asked the Colorado Supreme Court to answer that question. On February 4, 2011, the Colorado Supreme Court agreed to do so.
The Colorado Constitution, Article 28, section 3, says, “No person…shall make to a candidate committee…aggregate contributions for a primary or a general election in excess of…$200 to any one state senate or state house of representatives…candidate committee.” The statute, however, says someone can contribute $400 to a legislative candidate who went through the primary process. The donor can give $200 during the primary season and another $200 in the general election season. But it also lets a donor give $400 during the primary season, although that donor can then no longer give anything to that candidate in the general election season. And the statute lets a donor give $400 during the general election season to a candidate, if that donor had not contributed to that candidate during the primary season.
If the Colorado Supreme Court rules that the statute is not consistent with the State Constitution, then the federal court won’t need to make a decision about whether the statute violates the U.S. Constitution. The name of the case in both courts is Riddle v Ritter. The first-named plaintiff, Joelle Riddle, is someone who wanted to contribute $400 to the candidate-plaintiff, Kathleen Curry. All the briefs in the Colorado Supreme Court are due by late April 2011.
On March 1, the Kentucky House Elections, Constitutional Amendments, and Intergovernmental Affairs Committee defeated SB 41 by a vote of 5-4. This is the bill that provides that independent voters may vote in the primary of their choice. If the bill were to pass, Kentucky would then have a semi-closed primary. That is the term for a primary in which party members can only choose the primary ballot of the party they are registered into, but an independent may vote in any party’s primary. These terms have been defined in several U.S. Supreme Court decisions, as well as political science books, such as “Voting at the Political Fault Line.” UPDATE: the vote was partisan, with all Republicans voting “Yes” but only one Democrat voting “Yes.” The Committee has six Democrats and four Republicans. Bills need a majority to pass, so the bill needed six votes. The vote was five “Yes”, two “No”, and three not voting. Not voting in Committee is the same as voting “No.”
Most reporters don’t know these definitions, so the stories about SB 41 refer to it as an open primary bill. An open primary is a primary in which all voters are permitted a free choice of which party’s primary ballot to choose.
The Pacific Green Party of Oregon didn’t run any statewide candidates in 2010, so it can only be on the ballot in 2012 if it gets its registration up to one-half of 1% of the state total by mid-2012. Just prior to the 2010 election, one-half of 1% was 10,332 registrants, and at that time the Pacific Green Party had 8,710 registrants. Therefore, the party, to be safe, need another 2,000 registrants.
The party has printed up 10,000 copies of a brochure designed to encourage voters to register into the party. The party will be distributing them in various ways, especially at places where large numbers of people congregate. Thanks to Blair Bobier for this news.
The party did have four candidates for U.S. House in 2010, and they averaged almost 2% of the vote. The Oregon vote test is 1%. However, the Oregon vote test, for statewide status, only applies to statewide candidates.