Cecil Bothwell, a city councilmember in Asheville, North Carolina, had announced several months ago that he would be an independent candidate for U.S. House in 2012. However, according to this April 26 story, he has changed his mind and will run instead in the Democratic primary.
Major Timothy F. Johnson, retired, vice-chair of the North Carolina Republican Party and founder and chair of the Frederick Douglass Foundation, has endorsed HB 32, now pending in the North Carolina legislature. The bill cuts the number of signatures for a statewide independent or a newly-qualifying party from 85,379 signatures, to 10,000. The bill has been discussed twice in meetings of the House Election Law & Campaign Finance Committee, and will probably pass out during May. For more about Johnson, see here.
The bill is also supported by the League of Women Voters, the ACLU, and Common Cause of North Carolina.
Oklahoma must change the timing of its non-presidential primaries, because of the 2009 federal law that requires states to mail overseas absentee ballots at least 45 days before any election. Oklahoma’s current law provides too little time between the primary (for office other than President) and the runoff primary. Two bills deal with the problem. HB 1615 moves the first primary to June, and moves the petition deadline for newly qualifying parties to March 1. SB 602 abolishes the runoff primary and puts the (non-presidential) primary in late August. Neither bill has made any headway in the last twelve days. The deadline for one of these bills to pass through the second house of the legislature is April 28. Probably the legislature will choose between these two approaches on Wednesday, April 27.
Meanwhile, on April 25, the legislature passed HB 1614, which moves the presidential primary from February to March. Thanks to Frontloading HQ for that news.
The South Carolina Republican Party has set a filing fee to appear on next year’s presidential primary ballot at $25,000 if the candidate pays by May 3, or $35,000 for candidates who pay later. The primary itself is expected to be in February 2012. As of mid-day April 26, no candidate has paid yet.
The 2011 session of the South Carolina legislature still has not finalized the state budget, so it is not certain whether the taxpayers will pay for administering the primary, or whether the party will, or whether both will help pay for it. In 2008 the state government paid for the primary administration, and the party turned over the filing fees to the state treasury. Before 2008, the party paid for the administration of the presidential primary.
Fox News is hosting a Republican presidential debate in Greenville, South Carolina, on May 5, at 9 p.m. Candidates must have paid the filing fee in order to be admitted to the debate, and must have filed with the Federal Election Commission. Also, they must be at or above 1% in public opinion polls. The party and Fox News say they expect Ron Paul, Rick Santorum, Newt Gingrich, Buddy Roemer, and Tim Pawlenty, to participate. However, none of those candidates has met all the requirements for participation in the debate yet. Some observers believe the debate will be postponed.
The Pennsylvania Bar Association is holding hearings on the possibility that it will work for a revision of the Pennsylvania Constitution, according to this story. The Bar Association is concerned that redistricting currently is in the hands of the legislature, and is also concerned about the Pennsylvania system for electing judges on a partisan basis.
Pennsylvania has no statewide initiative process, so there isn’t much anyone can do to obtain either of these reforms, without working for constitutional revision.
