On February 2, Nebraska bill LB 399 passed the Government, Military and Veterans Affairs Committee. It repeals the county distribution requirement for statewide non-presidential independent candidates. It replaces it with a congressional district distribution requirement. The bill makes no change in the total number of signatures needed, 4,000.

The existing law, since 2007, has required 50 signatures from each of one-third of the counties in the state. The bill deletes that and says the petition needs 750 signatures from each of the three U.S. House districts. A lawsuit against the county distribution requirement is pending in federal court, but if the bill passes, that part of the lawsuit will be moot. The same lawsuit also challenges the ban on out-of-state circulators, and of course that part of the lawsuit will continue to be active.

On February 18, the U.S. Supreme Court conference considered whether to hear the case from Illinois on the special U.S. Senate election last year, to fill President Obama’s U.S. Senate seat. The 7th circuit ruled last year that the 17th Amendment required Illinois to hold a special election on November 2, 2010, to fill the last two months of that term. The special election was in addition to the election for the regular 6-year term for that same seat.

The case is really two cases. The state argues that it should not have been forced to hold that special election. And former U.S. Senator Roland Burris argues that, given that the election was being held, it was unconstitutional to limit access to the ballot in the special election, to only the candidates who were on the ballot for the 6-year term election. The cases are Burris v Judge, 10-367, and Quinn v Judge, 10-821. The state of Louisiana filed an amicus brief on the side of Illinois, and twelve other states joined the brief. That brief is neutral on the question of which candidates should have been allowed on the ballot.

Massachusetts has been holding presidential primaries since 1912, but Secretary of State William Galvin has told the legislature that the legislature should either increase the appropriation for his office, or else it should pass a bill ending the presidential primary. He suggested the state could use caucuses. See this story from Frontloading HQ, the blog that is the best source of news about the dates of presidential primaries and caucuses.