On January 26, the Utah House passed HB 50, which ends the listing of political parties on the state income tax form. The purpose of listing the parties on the state income tax form is to enable taxpayers to choose to send $2 to the political party of their choice. The vote to repeal that program was 51-20. Fifteen of the seventeen Democrats in the House opposed the bill, but only five Republicans opposed it. The five Republicans who opposed ending the program are Representatives Edwards, Last, Nielson, Pitcher, and Powell.

According to this story, the bill’s sponsor, Representative John Dougall (R-American Forks) is motivated not because there is anything intrinsically wrong with the program, but because he favors keeping the system by which parties nominate candidates in Utah. Utah is the only state in which no one can get on a primary ballot unless the candidate first receives a substantial vote at a party convention. That system is under constant attack. Dougall thinks that it is easier to defend the convention system if the income tax option is eliminated. He says then it will be easier to argue that political parties are entirely private entities. However, he is not proposing to end taxpayer funding for party primaries.

The Democratic Party reived $32,886 from the program last year; the Republican Party received $46,276; Libertarians received $3,282; the Constitution Party received $3,060. Utah is one of the few states with a substantial budget surplus.

Besides the Missouri election law bill mentioned in the preceding post, several other interesting election law bills are pending in the Missouri legislature. HB 1183, by Representative Mark Parkinson, a Republican, would cancel the Missouri presidential primary now set for February 7. The bill was introduced on January 5, but the fact that it has not made any headway at all shows that it has no chance of passing. If it were being taken seriously, it should already have passed. The rationale for the bill is that the Missouri Republican 2012 presidential primary is just a “beauty contest” and Republicans choose their delegates to the national convention in caucuses in March. Of course if the bill had passed, it would also have canceled the Democratic, Constitution and Libertarian presidential primaries. Thanks to Josh Putnam of Frontloading HQ for news of this bill.

Representative Mike Colona, a Democrat, has introduced HB 1415, to restore the straight-ticket device to Missouri general election ballots.

Representative Tony Dugger, a Republican, has introduced HB 1036, which provides that general election ballots would no longer carry a party logo for any party. A “party logo” is a cartoon-like drawing showing the emblem of each party. The bill’s author introduced the bill at the request of county election officials. They say that some voters draw a circle around one party’s logo, and then leave the remainder of the ballot blank. Election officials guess that such voters think the logo is a straight-ticket device, but in reality they are just depositing a blank ballot. Removing the logo should cure the confusion. The bill has already passed the House Elections Committee and has a hearing in the House Rules Committee on January 30.

On January 27, a U.S. District Court Judge in Albany, New York, issued an opinion, setting the date of New York’s 2012 primary for congressional office on the fourth Tuesday of June, which will be June 26 in 2012. The state is free to decide whether to move its primary for state and local office to that date, or to leave it in September. The case is U.S.A. v State of New York, 1:10-cv-1214.

The basis for the decision is that a June date better protects the interest of overseas absentee ballots. The deadline for candidates running in a congressional primary to submit petitions will be April 26. The state hasn’t even drawn the U.S. House district boundaries. It is now somewhat plausible that the legislature will ease the petitioning burden for primary candidates, at least for 2012. Thanks to Tony Roza for this news.