On May 10, the Delaware Senate passed HB 11, which tells parties that they cannot nominate non-members. The vote was 16-2. Delaware legislators seem to have little awareness that the U.S. Supreme Court said in 1986 in Tashjian v Republican Party of Connecticut that it would violate the First Amendment freedom of association clause for a state to tell a party that it can’t nominate a non-member. Also, on March 31, 2011, a U.S. District Court in New Mexico struck down New Mexico’s law that tells parties they can’t nominate non-members.

The two Senators who voted “No” are both Democrats. They are George Bunting and Robert Venables.

According to this story, the U.S. District Court Judge who has the case over whether Carl Lewis should be on the Democratic primary ballot of June 7, 2011 (for State Senate, 8th district) may rely on a federal jury to decide the issue. This makes it appear that the court is still pondering whether or not Lewis meets the 4-year in-state residency requirement, as opposed to deciding whether the 4-year residency requirement violates the U.S. Constitution. This is peculiar, because the state courts have already decided that Lewis has not been a resident of New Jersey during the last four years.

UPDATE: see this story about the court hearing.

On April 24, the California Senate passed SB 205, which makes it illegal to pay voter registration workers on a per-registration card basis. All the newly-qualifying parties in California since 1970 have qualified for the ballot by persuading voters (equal to 1% of the last gubernatorial vote) to register into the party. All of these efforts have involved paying workers a certain amount of money for each voter registration for that party. If this bill is signed into law, that method for getting on the ballot will be illegal. SB 205 passed on a party-line vote, with all Democrats voting “yes” and all Republicans voting “no.”

On May 9, the California Senate passed SB 168, which makes it illegal to pay circulators on a per-signature basis, if they are working on initiative, referendum, or recall petitions. On the same day, the Senate passed SB 448, which forces circulators of those kind of petitions to wear a button that tells whether they are paid or volunteer. These bills also passed on party line votes, with all Democrats voting “yes” and all Republicans voting “no.”