On March 16, the Tennessee House State & Local Government Committee amended HB 3060 to permit a candidate to file simultaneously as an independent candidate, and as a declared write-in candidate in a partisan primary for the same office.

If the candidate then lost the primary, he or she could still run as an independent candidate. See this story, which explains the motivation for the bill. The Speaker of the House is a Republican, but he is considered a traitor by his own party, because he became speaker with the votes of all the Democrats in the House, plus his own vote. As speaker, even though he is a Republican, he has appointed an equal number of committee chairs from each of the two major parties. The Republicans, in retaliation, had announced that he would not be allowed to file for re-election in the Republican primary this year. But if the bill is signed into law, he could be a write-in in the Republican primary. Since no other Republican has yet announced plans to run in his district, he could surely win a Republican primary as a write-in candidate. And if some other Republican does file for that primary, and defeat him, he can still run in that district as an independent.

On March 16, the California State Court of Appeals changed the wording somewhat for the ballot description, and the ballot pamphlet description, of Proposition 14. The Court deleted the word “reform” and substituted “change”. Also, the Court deleted the fiscal impact statement that it isn’t possible to know whether the proposition will increase the costs of election administration. It restored the Legislative Analyst’s original opinion that the Proposition would not significantly increase costs to administer elections.

The new language on the ballot will be, “Elections. Increases Right to Participate in Primary Elections. Changes the primary election process for congressional, statewide, and legislative races. Allows all voters to choose any candidate regardless of the candidate’s or voter’s political party preference. Ensures that the two candidates receiving the greatest number of votes will appear on the general election ballot regardless of party preference. Fiscal Impact: No significant net change in state and local government costs to administer elections.”

The Court said it was replacing “reform” with “change” because “There appears to us little doubt that inclusion of the word ‘reform’ is misleading insofar as it reflects an inherent value judgment that there is a need for ‘reform’ of the existing electoral process.”

The ballot pamphlet (but not the ballot) will include five bullet points:

1. Encourages increased participation in elections for congressional, legislative, and statewide offices by changing the procedure by which candidates are selected in primary elections.
2. Gives voters increased options in the primary by allowing all voters to choose any candidate regardless of the candidate’s or voter’s political party preference.
3. Provides that candidates may choose not to have a political party preference indicated on the primary ballot.
4. Provides that only the two candidates receiving the greatest number of votes in the primary will appear on the general election ballot regardless of party preference.
5. Does not change primary elections for President, party committee offices and nonpartisan offices.

On March 15, several groups that desire to qualify initiatives for the ballot filed a lawsuit against several Colorado laws. The lawsuit attacks the requirement that initiative circulators live in Colorado. It also attacks a Colorado law that says circulators must attend a training class, and still another law that at least 80% of any pay to a circulator must not be connected to how many signatures the circulator obtains.

The case is Independence Institute v Buescher. Thanks to Paul Jacob for the news.