On April 1, the U.S. Supreme Court will consider whether to hear Nader v Nago, 10-728, the Hawaii ballot access case. This is the case, filed in 2004, that challenges the number of signatures for an independent presidential candidate in Hawaii, which is approximately six times as many signatures as needed for an entire new political party with its own primary. Nader argues that Hawaii is discriminating against independent presidential candidates, relative to new political parties, because there can’t be any good reason for requiring so many more signatures for independent presidential candidates.

The state claims the disparity is justified because when a new party gets on the ballot, the presidential candidate of that newly qualifying party still must worry whether that party will nominate him or her or not. Also, Hawaii points out that a party has the burden of holding a national convention. Hawaii requires qualified parties that place a presidential nominee on the ballot to participate in a national presidential convention, but Hawaii has no rules requiring the national convention to be a large gathering. In 2008, when Nader created the Independent Party in Hawaii to take advantage of the easier rules for parties than for independent presidential candidates, that party’s “national convention” was just a handful of people.

On the evening of March 16, the Oklahoma House passed HB 1615, which moves the primary (for office other than President) from July to June, and which also moves the deadline for the petition to create a ballot-qualified party to from May 1 to March 1. The same bill, SB 602, had passed the Senate on March 8. Therefore, the idea has effectively passed the legislature.

The bill also says that a group must have started its party petition in the odd year before the election. Oklahoma requires that groups give notice when they begin to circulate the party petition, and the bills say this notice cannot be given during an even-numbered year (except very late in that year, when the petition would be too late for that election year).

Meanwhile, HB 1058, the bill to lower the number of signatures for the petition to recognize a new party, has not moved since it passed the House Rules Committee. It will probably receive a vote in the House on Thursday, March 17. It must pass the House on March 17 or it is dead. Since this is the deadline for House bills to pass the House, the House is expected to be in session until late into the evening.

The Massachusetts Joint Election Laws Committee will hear HB 1830 and SB 13 on March 23, Wednesday, at 1:30 p.m. These are identical bills to increase the number of signatures for a statewide initiative from 3% of the last gubernatorial vote, to 7% of the last gubernatorial vote. Currently, the Massachusetts statewide initiative process to change ordinary laws requires fewer signatures (as a percentage of the state’s population) than any other state.

The Massachusetts initiative process was used successfully in 1990 to qualify an initiative that cut the number of signatures for statewide minor party and independent candidates from approximately 50,000 signatures, to 10,000 signatures. Probably that measure could never have qualified for the ballot if Massachusetts had had a 7% requirement for initiatives. Thanks to Carla Howell for this news.