The Washington legislature’s 18th district is a safely Republican district. Earlier this year, the incumbent for one of the two State House seats in that district said she would not run for re-election. Soon after, six Republicans announced that they would run for the seat (House Seat 18-1). Each Washington state legislative district elects two House members. The two contests are separate from each other on primary and general election ballots. Candidates either file for seat (1) or seat (2). The voters elect one candidate in the 18-1 contest, and one candidate in the 18-2 contest.

Republican Party officials have begun to worry that if there are six Republicans in the primary, the party may lose the seat. Washington is one of two states that uses the top-two system, in which only the two candidates who get the most votes in the primary may be on the general election ballot.

In November 2008 the vote on this seat had been 60.0% for the Republican and 40.0% for the Democrat. Filing doesn’t close until June. If two Democrats file, and there are six Republicans and two Democrats on the August 2010 primary ballot, it is highly likely that the two Democrats will place first and second, leaving no Republican on the November ballot. So a district that leans Republican could have no opportunity to elect a Republican in November, except by write-in vote. See this story. Republican Party officials will wait until they know if two Democrats will file. If two Democrats do file, the party will then undertake an informal process to limit the Republican field. Thanks to Krist Novoselic for the link.

On May 6, the U.S. Court of Appeals, 3rd circuit, rejected a case filed in 2008 by Chuck Baldwin, presidential nominee of the Constitution Party that year. Here is the 8-page decision in Baldwin v Cortes, 09-2227.

The Pennsylvania election code says that minor party and independent candidate petitions are due in early May in presidential election years. However, the state does not enforce this deadline. The Libertarian Party and the Communist Party had both sued Pennsylvania in 1984, arguing that the petition deadline is unconstitutional. The state felt it could not defend the May deadline, so it signed a consent decree promising to accept petitions until August 1. But, in all those 26 years, the legislature has never amended the election code to put the August 1 deadline in the law.

In 2008, a U.S. District Court in Ohio ordered the Secretary of State to put the Libertarian Party, and the Socialist Party, on the ballot with no petition. The basis was that Article II of the U.S. Constitution says only state legislatures (not “states”) can write election laws for presidential elections. Because Ohio’s ballot access law had been held unconstitutional in 2006, and the legislature had not replaced it, the Secretary of State had drafted emergency regulations cutting the number of signatures in half. The court in Ohio said only legislatures can write ballot access restrictions, and left Ohio with no petition requirement for new parties. So, in 2008, when the Constitution Party didn’t finish its Pennsylvania petition until August 26, and the state rejected its petition for being late, the party filed a lawsuit, hoping to use the Ohio precedent to avoid being subject to the August 1 deadline.

The 3rd circuit says, “Unlike the Ohio Secretary of State in Brunner, here the Secretary of the Commonwealth promulgated no new rule. Instead, the Secretary merely enforced a rule that had been in place by court-approved consent decree since 1984.” The 3rd circuit decision does not actually say whether it agrees with the theory used in Ohio.

On May 5, the South Carolina Senate Judiciary Committee passed H3067, which ends the ability of two political parties to jointly nominate the same candidate. This bill has passed the House over a year ago, on March 3, 2009, but had been dormant since then, until May 5, 2010. The Committee also amended the bill to make it effective in 2011, so even if it passed the Senate, it must return to the House for concurrence in the amendment.

A parallel bill in the Senate, S334, has not made any headway.

Because the committee vote was not unanimous, the bill is not likely to advance further. The session will probably end in two or three weeks. Senator Brad Hutto, a Democrat, opposed it.