One of Germany’s states, Bremen, has recently lowered the voting age to sixteen. See this story. The article says Austria had previously lowered the voting age to sixteen. Thanks to Sam Harley for the link.
6
On Sunday, May 29, the Texas legislature passed SB 100. It leaves the date of the primary in March, but moves the runoff primary from April to the fourth Tuesday in May. Because the current law says independent candidate petitions (for office other than President) are due 30 days after the runoff primary, this moves the independent candidate petition deadline from May to June. In 2012 the petition deadline will be June 24.
Oddly, though, the independent presidential petition deadline will be May 14, because the code section governing that deadline is in a separate place and it not tied to the date of any primary or runoff primary. Assuming the bill is signed into law, it will be very likely that an independent presidential candidate will win a lawsuit against the May 14 deadline. There is no state interest in requiring an independent presidential candidate to submit a petition forty days before the petition for other independent candidates. Even without this discriminatory aspect, the presidential deadline is so early that it appears to violate the U.S. Supreme Court decision Anderson v Celebrezze.
SB 100 also moves the deadline for non-presidential candidates to file a declaration of candidacy from early January of the election year, to the second Monday in December of the odd year before the election year. That deadline applies to independent candidates, minor party candidates, and major party candidates. No other state has anything remotely similar, as applied to independent candidates. The whole point of having procedures for independent candidates is to give voters an alternative if the primaries produce unsatisfactory nominees. But the filing requirement makes the emergence of a new candidate legally impossible.
The Socialist Party will holds its presidential nominating convention in Los Angeles, October 14-16, 2011. The location is the Holiday Inn at the Los Angeles Airport. The hotel is at the corner of Century and La Cienega Boulevards. Thanks to Stewart Alexander for this news.
On May 27, Colorado Governor John Hickenlooper signed SB 189, which moves the primary from August to June. It also moves the qualifying deadline for an indepedendent presidential candidate, or the presidential nominee of an unqualified party, from late June to early June. And, it moves the petition deadline for a group to submit a petition to become a qualified party from March to January.
The petition deadline change for groups to become qualified parties is somewhat ameliorated by the fact that an unqualified party can still place nominees on the November ballot, with the party label, via candidate petitions that are due in June. However, the new earlier deadline for presidential independent candidates would likely be unconstitutional under Anderson v Celebrezze. Lower courts have invalidated petition deadlines for presidential candidates, in June, in five states, and there are no decisions since Anderson v Celebrezze upholding an independent presidential deadline in June.
Ironically, the current Secretary of State, Scott Gessler, represented the Socialist Party’s presidential candidate, Walt Brown, in a 2004 lawsuit filed by Brown against the July 4 deadline, and he won that case on statutory grounds. Yet now that Gessler is Secretary of State, instead of an attorney in private practice, he supported moving the deadline to early June. Thanks to Josh Putnam of Frontloading HQ for the news that the Governor signed the bill.
Gatewood Galbraith’s campaign says it now has 5,000 signatures on its petition to be on the Kentucky ballot as an independent candidate for Governor on November 8, 2011. See this story. The signatures aren’t due until August, and the drive will continue until it has 10,000. He had been the Reform Party nominee for Governor in 1999 and had polled 15.4%. He will be the only person on the ballot this year (assuming he has enough signatures) for Governor, other than the Democratic and Republican nominees. We know this is true because Kentucky requires a declaration of candidacy in April for petitioning candidates for state (but not federal) office. Galbraith is the only candidate for Governor who filed such a declaration.
In 2010, Kentucky had been one of only five states with only major party nominees on the statewide ballot. The 5,000 signature requirement is not terribly difficult but Kentucky is a state in which the minor parties traditionally don’t get on the ballot in the odd-year gubernatorial election years. There has never been a Constitution Party, or Libertarian Party, or Green Party, nominee on the ballot for Governor of Kentucky. Currently the Libertarian Party is circulating a petition for State Treasurer.