On September 26, California Governor Jerry Brown signed many bills, and vetoed a few bills. But he did not act on three interesting election law bills: (1) SB 202, which says statewide initiatives cannot be placed on primary ballots; (2) SB 205, which makes it illegal for voter registration workers to be paid on a per-registration card basis; (3) SB 397, which makes it possible for people to register to vote on-line.
Ballot Access News erroneously omitted the Oregon data, on how money each political party receives from state income tax check-off forms, when it published this data in the September 1, 2011 print edition. The Oregon legislature, in 2009, provided that state income tax forms should make it easy for a taxpayer to send a small contribution to any qualified party.
During 2010, the parties received these amounts: Democratic $15,698; Republican $5,160; Pacific Green $1,203; Independent Party $722; Working Families $615; Libertarian $498; Peace Party $390; Constitution $225.
During 2011, so far, the parties have received these amounts: Democratic $16,395; Republican $4,507; Pacific Green $957; Independent Party $705; Progressive Party (formerly named Peace Party) $432; Working Families $429; Libertarian $390; Constitution $201. Thanks to Dan Meek for the information that Oregon now has a tax check-off to benefit political parties. Fourteen states have such a program, although Idaho has abolished it starting next year.
On September 26, New Jersey bill A3777 was signed into law. It moves the presidential primary from February to June. The bill has no effect on petition deadlines for minor party or independent candidates. Thanks to Frontloading HQ for this news.
On Friday, September 23, a jury was finally chosen in the case known as People v Haggerty, the case involving the 2009 election for Mayor of New York city. See this story. Mayor Bloomberg contributed more than $1,000,000 to the Independence Party. It appears he expected the party to give the money to John Haggerty (which it did, apparently), and that he expected Haggerty to use the money to pay people to watch the polls on election day, and perhaps to challenge certain kinds of voters. Haggerty allegedly took the money but did not perform the service. The mayor may have used the Independence Party because the money was coming from Bloomberg’s own personal funds, instead of from his campaign treasury. This method of moving money would have delayed disclosure of the expenditure.
The Tampa Tribune has published this editorial, condemning the part of Florida’s new election law that makes it impossible for political parties to nominate someone who was a member of another party at any time during the year preceding the filing deadline.
Oddly enough, the editorial says the law was motivated by Republican anger that former Republican Governor Charlie Crist ran for U.S. Senate in 2010 as an independent candidate. However, the new law does not restrict who may be an independent candidate. Crist was a registered Republican when he filed as an independent, and the new law does not prohibit that.
