On February 17, the South Dakota Senate State Affairs Committee defeated SB 175. This is the bill that would have provided that independent voters may vote in any party’s primary. Current law lets each qualified party decide for itself whether to let independents vote in its primary.
On February 22, the Kansas Senate tentatively approved SB 128, the bill to suspend the presidential primary in 2012. No roll call vote was taken. The bill will receive a final vote on February 23. The Secretary of State asks for the suspension because he estimates the primary will cost the state $1,321,122 and the money is not in the state budget. UPDATE: as expected, the Senate passed the bill on February 23.
Kansas has frequently suspended its presidential primary in the past for fiscal reasons. The only years Kansas has actually held a presidential primary have been 1980 and 1992.
Although California Congresswoman Jane Harman is expected to resign her seat on February 28, no one may even start to file papers to run in the special election until she does resign. However, polls are already being commissioned to measure the voter appeal of two candidates expected to run in the special election, Janice Hahn and Debra Bowen. See this story.
On February 22, the Vermont Senate passed SB 31 on second reading, by a vote of 20-10. The bill will probably receive third reading in the Senate on or by February 25. SB 31 is the National Popular Vote Plan bill.
West Virginia Delegate Mike Manypenny (D-Taylor) has introduced HB 3248, to change the definition of a qualified political party from a group that received 1% for Governor in the last election, to a group that received 1% of the vote for any statewide race in the last election. The bill complements a similar bill in the Senate, SB 417. Thanks to Jeff Becker for this news. The House bill does not contain any provision for a party to also be qualified if it has a certain minimum number of registered members, as the Senate bill does.
The vote test would only apply to regularly-scheduled elections, so this year’s special gubernatorial election would have no effect on party qualification. That is also the case under the existing law.
If HB 3248/SB 417 pass, the Constitution Party would be ballot-qualified, because it got 1.21% for U.S. Senate in 2010. The Mountain Party would continue to be ballot-qualified; it got 1.92% for U.S. Senate last year.
