On April 14, the Nevada Secretary of State’s omnibus election law bill, AB 81, passed the Assembly Legislative Operations and Elections Committee. However, the bill was amended so that it doesn’t injure ballot access. The bill no longer raises filing fees. Also, the bill no longer moves the petition deadline for new parties from May to April. The bill now goes to the Senate.
On April 14, the Arizona House passed HB 2177 by a vote of 40-16. It requires the national committees of political parties to submit documents on presidential candidate eligibility, in order for that party’s presidential candidate to appear on the Arizona ballot. The bill had already passed the Senate, so it is on its way to the Governor, who is a Republican. Here is the text of the bill.
The national committee must furnish a long-form birth certificate, showing the name of the hospital in which the candidate was born. There are provisions for presidential candidates who do not have such a document, however. The bill does not impose any duties on independent presidential candidates, or write-in presidential candidates, or even the presidential nominees of parties that got on the ballot by petition that year. The national committees must also furnish documentation that its presidential nominee has lived in the United States for at least 14 years, another requirement contained in Article II of the Constitution.
The bill says nothing about vice-presidential nominees, but Arizona is one of two states that doesn’t print the names of vice-presidential nominees on the ballot anyway. The other such state is North Dakota. This year, the Arizona legislature did pass a bill to show the names of vice-presidential nominees on the general election ballot. It is HB 2335, and it passed on April 12. But despite the likelihood that future Arizona ballots will show the name of vice-presidential nominees, HB 2177 does not require any documents on eligibility for vice-presidential candidates.
Dr. Michael S. Kang, who is both a political science professor and a law professor at Emory University, has recently published “Sore Loser Laws and Democratic Contestation” in the Georgetown Law Journal, volume 99, p. 1013. The paper is 64 pages and can be read at this link.
The paper concludes the “sore loser” laws are poor public policy, and that the two major parties would be substantially less polarized if these laws were repealed. This is a political science paper, even though it is published in a law journal. The paper does not discuss constitutional problems with sore loser laws that relate to candidates for Congress, but such constitutional problems certainly exist. “Sore loser” laws for Congress cannot be reconciled with the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in U.S. Term Limits v Thornton, 514 U.S. 779 (1995).
Every serious person who supports “top-two” election systems ought to read this paper.
Ballot Access News printed issues from 1987 are now available, at the link to past print issues on the right upper corner. Thanks to Michael Ravnitzky and Eric Garris for doing the work.
On April 14, the Vermont House passed SB 31 on second reading. This is the National Popular Vote Plan bill. It had passed the Senate on February 23. It will probably pass the House on third reading Friday or Monday. See this story. UPDATE: on August 15, the bill passed the House on third reading, 85-44.
