According to Garland Favorito, one of Georgia’s leading ballot access activists, HB 949 is not dead, and will receive a vote on the House floor on Monday, March 5. The bill eases petitioning requirements for independent candidates, and the nominees of unqualified parties, by approximately 25%. UPDATE: this post turned out not to be true. See the newer post made on March 5.
On February 20, the Arizona House passed a carelessly-written bill to make presidential primary ballot access more difficult. Currently, presidential candidates only need to file a declaration of candidacy and demonstrate that they have a committee promoting their candidacy in Arizona.
HB 2379 requires one of three methods to get a presidential candidate on a primary ballot: (1) 1,000 signatures of party members; or (2) evidence that the candidate has qualified for primary season matching funds; or (3) evidence that the candidate is on the ballot in at least 20 other states. UPDATE: if the candidate is seeking the nomination of a party with fewer than 50,000 registrants, any voter (regardless of partisan affilation) could sign.
In 2012, Arizona’s presidential primary was tied for being fifth earliest in the nation. When the Arizona presidential primary filing deadline passed, there weren’t even 20 other states that had determined which presidential primary candidates were on the ballot. Alternative (3), above, is thus utterly impractical. Also, a newly-formed party could not possibly have presidential primaries in as many as 20 states, because there are only 14 states in which it is possible for a newly-formed party (one formed in the odd year before a presidential election) to have a government-administered presidential primary.
Alternative (2), eligibility for primary season matching funds, is also not practical for a state with a primary as early as Arizona’s. When the filing deadline passed for getting on the presidential primary in Arizona, no one had yet qualified for primary season matching funds.
On February 27, the Senate Judiciary Committee voted to hold action on this bill, so maybe it will be amended to make it more rational.
On March 2, the Virginia Senate passed HB 736, which moves the congressional and local office primary from June to August. The bill must now return to the House, because the Senate made an amendment. The bill also moves the petition deadline for independent candidates, and the nominees of unqualified parties, from June to August.
Jon Huntsman has been disinvited from a lavish fundraiser for the Republican National Committe. According to this story, the reason is that Huntsman said publicly a few days ago that the nation needs a new political party. Thanks to Rick Hasen for thee link.
Scotusblog is the nation’s leading blog for U.S. Supreme Court news. For many years, it has reviewed all cert petitions, and then it chooses “petitions to watch”. This watch list consists of cases that Scotusblog believes have a fair chance to be accepted by the U.S. Supreme Court. On March 2 Scotusblog identified Libertarian Party of North Dakota v Jaeger as the “petition of the day”, and the blog will keep the case on its “petitions to watch” list.
