On April 21, Americans Elect submitted the paperwork to qualify as a political party in Florida. This is an action Americans Elect would have been doing in Florida eventually, in any case. However, the filing was done earlier than it would have been otherwise. If HB 1355 is signed into law and Americans Elect (or possibly other parties as well) brings a lawsuit against the new law, it may be legally advantageous that Americans Elect had already been qualified, when the new, drastic ballot access restriction took effect.

Recall petitions have now been filed against five Republican State Senators, and three Democratic State Senators, in Wisconsin. See this story, which also indicates that some of the petitions are being challenged. Elections officials are asking for emergency appropriations to cover the cost of checking the petitions.

On April 21, the Florida House passed HB 1355 on a party-line vote, 79-37. All Republicans who voted, voted “yes”; all Democrats who voted, voted “no.” Among other things, the bill says that qualified parties may not place a presidential nominee on the ballot unless they (1) are recognized by the Federal Election Commission as a “national committee”; or (2) submit a petition signed by a number of voters equal to 4% of the last presidential election vote cast. Furthermore, the petition would need the signatures of 4% of the presidential vote cast in each of half the state’s U.S. House districts. The party would need to pay to have this petition checked. The petition is due July 15. The bill does not even say what should be on the petition, and it is impossible to know if the presidential and vice-presidential candidates’ names need to be on the petition.

It is impossible for a newly formed political party to be recognized as a “national committee” by the Federal Election Commission as early as July 15 of its first year of existence. The FEC does not grant that recognition until after a party has participated in a presidential election, and also participated in a congressional election with candidates in multiple states. The only exception was the Natural Law Party, which was recognized on September 21, 1992. Significant minor political parties that never received FEC recognition as a “national committee” include the New Alliance Party (which placed its presidential nominee, Lenora Fulani, on the ballot in all states in 1988), Barry Commoner’s Citizens Party (which requested national committee status but did not obtain it), the Communist Party, the Socialist Workers Party, the Populist Party of the 1980’s and 1990’s (which requested national committee status and did not obtain it), and the Working Families Party. Significant minor parties that did not receive FEC recognition as a national committee until after the party was several years old include the Reform Party in the period before 1998, and the Green Party in the period before 2001. Also, Americans Elect, which may become a very significant new political party in 2012, would not be able to obtain FEC recognition until 2013 at the earliest, and would not be able to obtain it even then unless it had had candidates for Congress in 2012.

The newspapers of Florida, with the exception of the Tampa Tribune, have not even mentioned the ballot access change in newspaper stories about the bill.