On January 24, the Indiana Senate unanimously passed SB 233. The bill reverses a law passed in 2011. The 2011 law said if only one person is running for an office, that office should be removed from the ballot. That law was very unpopular, and in several counties, courts ordered local elections officials to leave all offices on the ballot, whether there was only a single candidate or not. It seems very likely that the 2011 law will soon be repealed.
Indiana State Senator Mike Delph (R-Carmel) has introduced SB 405, which requires candidates for Congress to have lived in Indiana at least five years before the election year. Article One of the U.S. Constitution sets forth the requirements for membership in Congress, and the only reference to residency is that an individual live in the state “when elected.” Under U.S. Term Limits v Thornton, the U.S. Supreme Court decision that struck down term limits for members of Congress, the bill would be unconstitutional.
The Pennsylvania Department of Elections says that as of January 20, 2012, there are 38,220 registered Libertarians in Pennsylvania. This is the highest number of registered Libertarians in Pennsylvania history, and is doubly surprising because the state removed the party as a choice on the voter registration formseveral years ago, because it had lost its status as a “political party.” Not only that, it didn’t even appear on the statewide ballot in 2010, because its statewide petition was challenged and the party then withdrew that petition to avoid court costs of $110,000. For the past few years, voters who want to register in the Libertarian Party have had to check the “other” box and write in “Libertarian.”
The number of registered Libertarians in past tallies in Pennsylvania has been (each date is of October): 1994 4,408; 1996 14,435; 1998 23,095; 2000 30,248; 2002 not available; 2004 34,003; 2006 36,070; 2008 36,509; 2010 38,035.
On January 23, a subcommittee in the Virginia House passed HB 55, which would move the 2016 primary for office other than President from June to March. This would enable the state to save money by having a single primary, instead of two primaries. However, it would force minor party and independent candidates (for office other than President) to file their petitions by March instead of by June.
In other Virginia legislative news, the bills to provide write-in space in primaries have not made any headway. Also, one of the bills to establish registration by party (HB 1051), and to let parties close their primaries, was tabled on January 23. However, other bills to do the same thing are still pending.
On January 20, the Virginia legislature passed HB 251, which draws new boundaries for U.S. House districts. However, the bill cannot go into effect until the Governor signs it, and until the U.S. Justice Department approves it, which could take months.
Petitioning in Virginia cannot proceed for President, or U.S. Senator, until the U.S. House districts are known. This is because statewide petitions, both for the primary and the general election, have a distribution requirement, and must carry the signatures of 400 voters in each U.S. House district. Also, general election presidential petitions must include the name of the candidates for elector, and one elector must live in each district.
HB 736 has been introduced, to move the Virginia non-presidential primary from June 12 to August 21, in response to the fear that district boundaries won’t be known for a while. Also, HB 1151 has been introduced, to provide that U.S. Senate petitions can circulate using the old districts. However, neither of these bills offers any relief for minor party and independent presidential candidates. Although the law says presidential petitions can start to circulate on January 1, in reality, they can’t start to circulate yet. It is surprising that the legislator who introduced HB 1151 didn’t include presidential petitions in his bill. See this story about the two bills.
