On September 11, the California legislature sent SB 34 to Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger. He has until October 12 to sign or veto it. It makes it illegal for initiative circulators to be paid on a per-signature basis. The Governor vetoed an identical bill last year.
Normally California Governors must sign or veto bills within 12 days. But Governors have more time for bills sent in the period when the legislature adjourns, such as this bill.
New York city held partisan primaries on September 15. Although it is rare for incumbent City Councilmembers to lose their bids for re-election, four Democratic members were defeated for re-election in the primary. Three of them were defeated partly because Working Families Party activists campaigned against them. See this New York Times article, which says that 350 WFP paid activists spoke to over 62,000 voters during the campaign.
On September 16, the Massachusetts Election Law Committees in both houses passed HB 656. The bill now goes to each chamber of the full legislature, where it will be taken up on September 17. The bill lets the Governor appoint someone to fill U.S. Senate vacancies as soon as they occur, although the appointee would only serve until the special election is held.
On September 15, Duke University’s Political Union heard from Political Science Professor Michael Munger, speakling about the Libertarian Party, minor parties in general, and the North Carolina ballot access laws. See this story. Munger actually understated his case. North Carolina’s petition for new parties, and for statewide independent candidate petitions, for 2010 and 2012 is 85,379 valid signatures, not 70,000. North Carolina is one of only four states in which Ralph Nader never has appeared on the ballot (the others are Oklahoma, Indiana and Georgia). A decision about the constitutionality of North Carolina’s law is expected from the State Court of Appeals, any day now.
Two Indiana University School of Law Professors, Michael J. Pitts and Matthew D. Newmann, have tentatively published a research paper that finds that in November 2008, 1,039 Indiana voters showed up at the polls but were not permitted to cast a normal ballot because they lacked government photo-ID. These 1,039 voters did cast a provisional ballot, but only 137 of those provisional ballots were counted. The other 902 provisional ballots were never counted because the voter never returned to the county seat during the next few days after the election with adequate ID.
The 26-page paper can be read most easily by using the link from the September 16 posting in ElectionLawBlog.com. The paper is on the Social Science Research Network (http://papers.ssrn.com) but one must register to read papers there, so it is less work to use the ElectionLawBlog link.
The paper is important, because when the U.S. Supreme Court upheld Indiana’s government-photo ID law on April 28, 2008, the Court only upheld it on its face. No plaintiffs in the case lacked adequate ID. The Court left open the possibility of an “as-applied” challenge if such plaintiffs ever surfaced. The paper is easy to read and understand and is enjoyable to read. The authors were required to get data from each of Indiana’s 92 counties, because the state does not make such data available. Thanks to Rick Hasen’s ElectionLawBlog for the link.
