The Florida bills to make it illegal to pay petition circulators on a per-signature basis (for initiatives) have cleared all committees. S956 passed the Senate Ethics and Elections Committee on April 16, and the identical CS/HB497 passed the House Economic Development Council on April 17. The bills include many other provisions as well, and are each 81 pages. Yet the committees only allowed a few minutes of testimony. Already the bill is receiving criticism; see this editorial from St. Petersburg’s daily newspaper, the Petersburg Times, April 19 issue. Thanks to Rick Hasen for that editorial link.

The Independence Party in the Hudson Valley region of New York is trying to regularize and systemize decisions on which major party candidates to cross-endorse. The Independence Party organizations in Orange, Ulster, Sullivan and Dutchess Counties have a specific platform, concerning local and state government issues. The four county parties will endeavor to only cross-endorse Republican or Democratic nominees whose views reflect the Independence Party’s local platform. For more information, see this story in the Times Herald-Record of Middletown, New York, published April 18. Thanks to Bill Van Allen for the link.

Oklahoma bills must pass out of both houses of the legislature by the end of the day, April 23, if they are to have a chance of being enacted. Bills that have passed both houses by that date need not be identical in both houses; there is still time after April 23 for conference committees and additional votes. The ballot access reform bill, HB 1072, will receive a vote in the Senate on or before April 23. If it passes in the Senate, then it will go to a conference committee. As amended by the Senate Committee, it lowers the number of signatures for a previously unqualified party from 5% of the last vote cast, to 3% of the last gubernatorial vote cast. Even if it passes, Oklahoma will still have the nation’s most difficult mandatory petition requirement for ballot access for parties. Although Maine, Minnesota, Rhode Island, and California have petitions higher than 3% of the last midterm vote cast, the Maine, Minnesota, Rhode Island and California petition procedures are alternative methods for qualifying a new party, not mandatory procedures.