Washington state Representative Christopher Hurst (D-Enumclaw) has introduced HB 1860. It says that political party committeemembers should run for office on the presidential primary ballot. Last month, a U.S. District Court had ruled that forcing political parties to elect their committeemembers at the top-two primary violates freedom of association, because states cannot force political parties to let outsiders choose their party officers.

At the Washington state presidential primary, held in February, each major party has its own separate presidential primary ballot, and voters must sign in as members of one of those particular parties in order to participate. Thus, the constitutional infirmity is cured if party officers are elected at the presidential primary.

The bill also cancels the presidential primary unless both major parties agree, no later than September 1 of the year before the presidential election, to choose all of their national convention delegates at the presidential primary. Thanks to Josh Putnam for news about this bill.

On February 3, California State Senator Ellen Corbett (D-San Leandro) introduced SB 168, which makes it a crime for anyone to pay anyone else to circulate an initiative, referendum or recall petition, if the circulator is being paid per signature, “directly or indirectly.” The penalty for the person who pays is a fine of up to $25,000 and one year in prison. The penalty for the circulator is a fine up to $1,000 and up to six months in prison.

New Mexico Senator Linda Lopez (D-Albuquerque) has introduced SB 403, a 130-page bill of election law changes. The bill is backed New Mexico elections officials. It includes a few improvements in the ballot access laws. It changes the filing deadline for independent candidates from the day after the primary (which is in early June) to the day that is three weeks later than the primary. For presidential independents, the existing New Mexico law has the earliest petition deadline of any state except Texas.

The bill also lowers the number of signatures to qualify a new or previously unqualified party, in midterm years. Current law says the petition needs signatures equal to one-half of 1% of the last vote cast. The bill changes that to the last vote cast in a gubernatorial election year. Because turnout is always higher in presidential years than mid-term years, this eases the number of signatures for a party that is qualifying in a midterm year. For example, in 2010, a party needed 4,151 signatures, but if this bill had been in effect in 2010, the requirement would have been 2,796 signatures.

The bill also specifies that the petition to create a new qualified party must be available from the Secretary of State’s office at any time. Past Secretaries of State have withheld the petition form, even though there had been no law authorizing that behavior. The bill’s author is Chair of the Senate Rules Committee, the Committee that handles election law bills. Thanks to Carol Miller for the news about the bill’s introduction.