The Tennessee Senate had been scheduled to vote on SB 935 on April 7, but the vote has been postponed until April 14. The is the bill that makes miniscule improvements to the state’s procedure for ballot access for new and minor parties. The existing law is void because it was held unconstitutional last year.
California Assemblymember Ben Hueso has amended AB 651. The bill no longer requires initiative, referendum, and recall petition circulators to wear badges that say the name of the circulator’s employer. However, the bill still requires employers of circulators to register with the Secretary of State, pay an annual fee, and provide the Secretary of State with copies of the instructions for circulators. Thanks to Mark Seidenberg for this news.
Georgia Secretary of State Brian Kemp has announced the times and places for the first two meetings of his Georgia Elections Advisory Council. These meetings are an opportunity for members of the public to attend and express ideas for changing state election laws.
The first meeting is on Wednesday, April 27, at 10 a.m., in the Georgia Capitol, room 341. The second meeting is on Wednesday, May 25, at 1 p.m., at the Savannah Marriott Riverfront Hotel, 100 General McIntosh Boulevard, Savannah.
A similar advisory body in Florida had many meetings around that state during 1998. At every public meeting, people appeared to express the idea that Florida should reform its ballot access laws. No meeting was held without that issue being raised. The advisory body in Florida accepted the message, and placed ballot access reform on the November 1998 ballot, and the measure passed with 65% of the vote. Florida mandatory petitions for minor parties, and independent candidates (except presidential independents) were eliminated by that vote.
Georgia also has very high filing fees, and advocates in Georgia ought to appear at these meetings and advocate an end to mandatory petitions for all candidates seeking access to the general election ballot. The Georgia law for minor party and independent candidates for U.S. House is so bad, no one has complied with that law since it was re-written in 1964. The law requires a petition signed by 5% of the voters in the district; high filing fees; limited time in which to collect the signatures; notarization of all petition sheets; and the need for the candidate to pay the filing fee before the petition is due, so the candidate can’t even know if he or she is wasting the money.
On April 6, bills were introduced in each House of Congress to provide for public funding for candidates for Congress. The Senate Bill only deals with candidates for U.S. Senate and is S.750. The House bill only deals with candidates for U.S. House and is HR 1404.
The bills do not discriminate on the basis of the candidate’s partisan affiliation or lack of affiliation. The bills therefore resemble the Maine and Arizona public funding laws, and are very different from Connecticut’s public funding law.
The sponsor of the Senate bill is Senator Dick Durbin (D-Illinois). The Senate bill has 12 co-sponsors. The sponsor of the House bill is Representative John Larson (D-Connecticut). It has 46 co-sponsors.
Supporters of the bills have set up a web page, http://fairelectionsnow.org. The web page suggests that the wording on the bills is identical to similar bills in 2009, S.752 and HR 1826. The Library of Congress doesn’t have the wording of the new bills posted yet. The web page set up by the supporters of the bill contains a factual error; the web page says Senator Arlen Specter is a co-sponsor, but he is no longer a U.S. Senator.
On April 6, the Washington State Senate passed SB 5119 by a vote of 34-15. It cancels the May 2012 presidential primary. Most Republican Senators voted against the bill. Also on April 6, a similar bill, HB 1324, passed the Washington House State Government and Tribal Affairs Committee.
If the legislature approves this bill, that will leave unresolved the question of whether elections for party office can continue to be held. A U.S. District Court had struck down the existing law, requiring that Precinct Committee Officers of the qualified major parties be elected by all the voters in November. The leading alternate plan to repair the system had been to move these elections to the presidential primary. A bill to put these elections on the presidential primary ballot, HB 1860, had passed the House on March 5. A Senate committee then considered the bill but has not advanced it.
