On October 26, an Arizona Superior Court ruled that a ballot measure that would de-fund public funding should not appear on the ballot next year. The legislature had placed it on the ballot. It was removed from the ballot because Arizona, like almost all states, says that ballot measures cannot encompass more than a single subject. The ballot measure would have de-funded public funding for Arizona state office, and also done the same to the public funding for the City of Tucson. Although the decision says the idea of de-funding public funding for both the state and Tucson is a single subject, the flaw in the measure is that it requires Tucson to turn over all the money in its public funding account to the state treasury, and the state’s taking the city’s money is a separate subject. Here is the 4-page decision.

Legislative leaders suggested they may not appeal, and instead would pass the measure all over again early in 2012, without the flaw. See this story. The case is Arizona Advocacy Network Foundation v Bennett, Maricopa County cv 2011-9646.

It has now been almost four weeks since Pennsylvania Senate Majority Leader Dominic Pileggi introduced SB 1282 in the Senate. This is the bill to provide that each U.S. House district would choose its own presidential elector. The bill has not moved out of the Senate State Government Committee, even though it was given a hearing on October 4. This suggests that the sponsor knows the bill would be unlikely to pass the legislature, and has given up on it.

The Wisconsin legislature is currently considering SB 116, a bill with the major purpose of moving the primary (for office other than President) from the first Tuesday in September to the first Tuesday in August. Unfortunately, the bill also moves the petition deadline for a new party from June 1 to April 1. And the bill does not relax the current requirement that makes it illegal to circulate this petition in an odd year. Therefore, if the bill passes in its current form, the petition for circulating this petition would shrink from five months to three months. Furthermore, that petitioning period would be almost entirely in winter, when weather can inhibit petitioning.

The bill has passed the Senate, but has been amended in the Assembly. The Assembly will probably pass it next week and then it returns to the Senate for another vote.