On May 5, California AB 1396 passed the Assembly Elections Committee unanimously. It deletes state laws that tell the Democratic Party how to be organized. It also provides that the party will keep a copy of its rules on the internet.
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On May 4, Washington’s Governor Christine Gregoire signed HB 1517. It permits ex-felons who still owe fines or restitution payments to register to vote. However, if they fall behind on their payments, they can lose their status as registered voters. Under the old law, ex-felons making monthly payments to pay off fines or restitution to victims had to wait until they had finished their payment, before registering to vote.
Louisiana Representative Wayne Waddell (R-Shreveport) has introduced HB 776. It would deprive qualified parties of their own primary if they have fewer than 40,000 registered members.
Other states, over recent decades, have also changed their laws to eliminate primaries for small qualified parties. However, in those other states, the new law let small qualified parties nominate by convention. Louisiana’s HB 776, by contrast, leaves them no legal means to nominate candidates. If HB 776 were to pass, individual members of ballot-qualified parties would pay their filing fees and go straight to the November ballot, and if two members of the same small qualified party filed for the same position, they both would appear on the November ballot. Such a result would split that party’s vote. Thanks to Randall Hayes for this news.
The Tulsa Beacon, April 30 issue, has this editorial, advocating that either political parties should pay for their own presidential primaries, or that the Oklahoma presidential primaries should be abolished and replaced with caucuses. The editorial notes that it costs the taxpayers $300,000 per presidential election year for the state to hold presidential primaries. The Tulsa Beacon is a print weekly.
This year, the Arizona legislature has not passed any bills, because the Senate has done nothing except work on the state budget. According to this news story, one legislator is predicting that the state budget will be approved by May 8. In that case, the legislature could turn to non-budget bills, including election law bills. They include a bill to set an August deadline for independent candidate petitions, and a bill to give political parties the right to invite independents into their presidential primaries, and a bill to make it illegal to pay petitioners on a per-signature basis.