On February 21, the Maryland House Ways and Means Committee filed an unfavorable report on HB 2. This is the bill to raise Maryland’s candidate filing fees. Currently, the highest fees are $290.
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On February 18, the Kentucky Senate passed SB 151, after amending it. The original bill provided for partisan elections in even-numbered years to elect the Kentucky Public Service Commissioners. The Senate amended the bill to provide that the idea should be studied by the Legislative Research Commission.
On February 22, Illinois Representative Jim Watson (R-Jacksonville) introduced HB 2854. It eliminates mandatory petitioning for candidates who pay a filing fee of 1% of that office’s annual salary. It applies to all candidates, whether they are running in a partisan primary, or whether they are independent candidates, or the nominees of unqualified parties. Thanks to Christina Tobin for this news.
Currently, the only states that allow all candidates to use a filing fee instead of a petition to get on any ballot are Louisiana, Florida, and Oklahoma (and in those latter two states, independent presidential candidates can’t choose the filing fee option). However, a majority of states now make it possible for candidates to get on a partisan primary ballot with no petition, if they pay a filing fee.
Thanks to IndependentPoliticalReport for this link to the transcript of the February 15 debate in New York city, “The two-party system is making America Ungovernable”. Debating the affirmative were David Brooks and Arianna Huffington. Debating the negative were Zev Chafets and P. J. O’Rourke.
None of the debaters mentioned ballot access laws. Zev Chafets, who is based in Israel, seems unaware of any ballot access problem in the United States. On page 38 he says, “Anybody can join a party in this country. Anybody could run for office in this country.” The truth is, in Georgia, if one is not a Republican or a Democrat, one cannot run for U.S. House of Representatives in a regularly-scheduled election. Many have tried to get on the ballot, all have failed, since the law was toughened in 1964.
On Febrary 22, many of New Hampshire’s largest daily newspapers ran stories about Florida’s apparent reluctance to move its presidential primary away from mid-January. For example, see this story. If Florida sticks to mid-January, then New Hampshire’s primary will be in early January, as it was in 2008.