On March 1, the California State Court of Appeal issued a ruling in Fuller v Bowen, C065237. The decision refuses to decide if the California Constitutional provision, requiring candidates for the legislature to have lived in their district for at least one year before running, violates the U.S. Constitution.

The decision says the court will not reach that issue, because courts don’t have jurisdiction to determine if legislative candidates meet the constitutional requirements. Only the legislature can do that. The decision does not mention the recent decision of the New Jersey Supreme Court that held courts do have jurisdiction in such cases. See this news story about the decision.

According to this news story, Hawaii elections officials have determined that the Americans Elect petition for party status has enough valid signatures. Thanks to Bill Van Allen for the link.

A Georgia bill to modestly improve ballot access has been killed, because Rep. Mark Hamilton (R-Cumming), chair of the House Governmental Affairs Committee, is angry that minor party and independent candidates are saying the bill’s improvements aren’t good enough. See this story.

Georgia now requires a petition of 5% of the number of registered voters for district and county office. The Secretary of State’s Advisory Commission early this year recommended lowering that to 5% of the last presidential vote, and put that idea into HB 949. That represented a 25% cut in the required signatures. But now the other parts of HB 949 have been moved into HB 899, and HB 949 will be left to die. According to the story, Representative Hamilton didn’t like people advocating instead for HB 494, which removes all mandatory petitions and lets the filing fee requirement be the only barrier to November ballot access for independents and minor party candidates.