According to this article of May 26, the Texas legislature will not pass any bill this year to require voters at the polls to show government photo-ID. The session is very close to adjourning. The bill is SB 362.
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On May 26, Oklahoma Governor Brad Henry signed SB 800, which lets people who plan to circulate an initiative submit a description of their initiative for public scrutiny before they gather the signatures. Anyone who wishes to challenge the initiative’s subject matter, or the description of the initiative that will appear on the petition, must challenge early in the process.
Still pending on the Governor’s desk is HB 2246, which expands the period for collecting signatures for initiatives from 90 days to one year.
On May 26, the Illinois Senate Rules Committee passed HB 723, the bill to make it more difficult for ballot-qualified parties to nominate someone after the primary is over.
On May 7, the New Mexico Libertarian Party, and the New Mexico Green Party, jointly filed a lawsuit in federal court against many ballot access laws, regulations and impediments. Woodruff v Herrera, cv-09-449. The case was assigned to Judge William Johnson, a Bush Jr. appointee. Alan Woodruff, the first-named plaintiff, was nominated for U.S. House last month by the Libertarian Party.
The lawsuit challenges New Mexico laws that require an unqualified party to submit one petition to qualify itself, and then separate petitions for each of its nominees. It challenges the Secretary of State’s refusal to make the nominee petitions available until October of odd years. It challenges the Secretary of State’s arbitrary practice (which started in 2006) of omitting a “straight-ticket” device on general election ballots for any parties except the Democratic and Republican Parties.
Also, it challenges the fact that qualified major parties may substitute new nominees if their original nominee dies, whereas qualified minor parties don’t enjoy the same right; it challenges the habit of always listing the major parties first on the ballot; it challenges the law that requires a party to either qualify statewide, or not at all; it challenges the “see-saw” effect, which inadvertently requires much higher petition requirements in mid-term years than in presidential years (because petition requirements are based on a percentage of the number of votes cast in the previous election, and presidential elections always have higher turnout).
One of the plaintiff-candidates, Daniel Fenton, is not a registered voter, and the lawsuit challenges his inability to become a candidate for Congress. New Mexico is in the 10th circuit, and the 10th circuit already ruled in 2001 that states cannot require candidates for Congress to be registered voters.
Here is the 26-page Complaint.
On May 26, U.S. District Court Judge Stephan P. Mickle, a Clinton appointee, struck down Florida campaign finance laws that force groups that spend money to discuss candidates in various types of written or electronic communications to register with the government within 24 hours, appoint a campaign treasurer or custodian of the books, designate a depository, make regular reports of expenditures, and disclose contributors. The plaintiffs are the Broward Coalition of Condominiums, the University of Florida College Libertarians, the National Taxpayers Union, and various officers of those organizations. The case is Broward Coalition v Browning, 4:08cv445, northern district.