Florida Republican Party State Chair Says Florida Presidential Primary Will be in February 2012

Posted on by April 23, 2011
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On April 21, Florida Republican Party state chair David Bitner delivered a talk in which he said Florida will have its presidential primary in 2012 before any other state, except for New Hampshire and South Carolina. That would mean holding the Florida primary in February, because many other states will hold presidential primaries the first week in March. See this story.

Florida’s omnibus election law bill contains a provision letting the Secretary of State choose the primary date, but he must choose a date in the first three months of the year.

New Hampshire Democrats have responded by criticizing the New Hampshire Republican Party state chair for not denouncing the Florida Republican Party’s intents, even though Florida is not proposing to go earlier than New Hampshire. See this Politico story.

Washington State Legislature Passes Bill, Moving Primary to Early August

Posted on by April 23, 2011
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On April 14, the Washington state legislature passed SB 5171, which moves the primary for all office from late August to the first Tuesday in August. The deadline for candidates to file in that primary in 2012 (assuming the Governor signs the bill) will be May 18.

One of the disadvantages of top-two systems is that they close off all routes to the November ballot very early, because they do not provide any means for anyone to be on the November ballot unless that person has run in a primary. Thus, no one will be able to enter a Washington state partisan election beyond mid-May (except as a write-in candidate), almost six months before the election itself. Before 1977, Washington state had a route to the November ballot as late as mid-September.

Brief Filed in New Mexico State Court in Lawsuit on Ballot Access and Order of Parties on Ballot

Posted on by April 23, 2011
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On April 14, this brief was filed by the plaintiffs in Whitaker v Herrera, a case pending in state court (2nd district), cv-2010-13274. The case was filed by the Green Party of New Mexico, and some candidates, including an independent candidate and a major party candidate. It challenges: (1) the number of signatures for candidates, which are discriminatory and arbitrary; (2) the late June petition deadline for write-in candidates and independent candidates; (3) the April petition deadline for new parties; (4) the law on which parties get listed first on the ballot, which says that major parties have a random chance for the top line, but minor parties are always lower on the ballot than the major parties. The lawsuit also attacks the law because independent candidates are always on the bottom line.

The part of the lawsuit on the number of signatures for candidates especially focuses on the fact that the law requires independent candidates to get three times as many signatures as minor party nominees.

Florida House Bill 1355 Restricts Who Can Be Nominated by Political Parties for All Offices

Posted on by April 22, 2011
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Florida HB 1355, passed by the House on April 21, is 157 pages long. Among the changes is a provision that does not permit political parties to nominate anyone for any partisan office (other than president or presidential elector), if that person had been a registered member of another political party at any time during the year before filing to run for office.

The bill makes no exception for new parties. Therefore, a new party, formed in an election year, would not be permitted to have any nominees who had been members of another party for 18 months before the election. This part of the bill, if signed into law, would almost certainly be held unconstitutional. Similar laws in Oklahoma and Nevada were invalidated, as applied to new parties. The Oklahoma case was Crussel v Oklahoma State Election Board, 497 F Supp 646 (1980); the Nevada case was Long v Swackhamer, 538 P 2d 587 (1975). If a law like this had been in effect in 1854, the Republican Party would have been severely handicapped, because a great deal of Republicans elected that year had been Whigs or Democrats or Free Soilers immediately before the Republican Party was formed.

Courts in New Mexico and Colorado have ruled that it is unconstitutional for a state to tell a party that it can’t nominate a non-member. The Colorado case was Colorado Democratic Party v Meyer (1988); the New Mexico case was Woodruff v Herrera (2011).