South Carolina Election Commission Restricted Ability of Convention Parties to Nominate Freely, Last Year

Posted on by May 2, 2009
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Ballot Access News has just learned that the South Carolina Election Commission adopted a policy in 2008 that does not permit political parties that nominate by convention to nominate anyone who didn’t file a declaration of candidacy with that party in the early spring.

South Carolina law does not have any such requirement, and permits parties that nominate by convention to choose nominees as late as August of an election year.

It is possible that one of South Carolina’s ballot-qualified parties will file a lawsuit against this new policy, during 2010.

Florida Legislature Adjourns Friday Night, May 1

Posted on by May 1, 2009
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As this post is being written, the Florida legislature only has a few hours before adjournment. None of the bills making it illegal to pay initiative petition circulators on a per-signature basis are moving. They are H7149, H497, and S956.

It is possible there will be a special session of the Florida legislature after the regular session adjourns, however.

South Carolina House Only Has Three Weeks Remaining

Posted on by May 1, 2009
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The South Carolina House of Representatives, for the remainder of this calendar year, will only sit between May 12 and June 4. The House will not sit during the first half of May, so as to save the taxpayers money.

As a result, hostile election law bills pending in the South Carolina legislature are less likely to pass. In particular, the curtailed session increases the odds that H 3746 will not pass. That is the bill to make it more difficult for independent candidates to get on the ballot. The bill makes it illegal for primary voters to sign an independent petition; it restricts signers to signing for only one independent candidate; it says newly-registered voters can’t sign for an independent; and it forces independent candidates to file a declaration of candidacy early in the year.

Another bill less likely to pass (even though it has already passed the House) is H 3067, to ban fusion.

Mississippi Initiative Proponents File Lawsuit over Distribution Requirement

Posted on by May 1, 2009
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The Mississippi Constitution, article 15, sec. 273, contains the procedure for initiatives to change the state Constitution. That part of the Constitution was written in 1992, when Mississippi had five U.S. House Districts. The Constitution says, “The signatures from any one congressional district shall not exceed one-fifth of the total number of signatures required to qualify an initiative petition. If an initiative petition contains signatures from a single congressional district which exceed one-fifth of the total number of required signatures, the excess number of signatures shall not be considered by the Secretary of State.”

The problem with that is that after the 2000 census, Mississippi lost one of its U.S. House seats, so that it now only has four. No one has even tried to circulate an initiative petition since 2000, except that now State Senator Joey Fillingane wants to circulate an initiative. The Attorney General said that the signatures should be collected from each of the U.S. House districts that formerly existed, but which don’t exist any longer. That seems peculiar, so Senator Fillingane, an attorney, has filed a lawsuit in state court to get a court ruling on how the State Constitutional requirement for a distribution requirement for signatures can be squared with the fact that the Constitution assumed there would be five districts, and yet there are no longer five districts.

The case is Fillingane v Hosemann, G2009-399-O/3, Hinds Co. Chancery Court.

First Circuit Won't Rehear Del Gallo Post Office Sidewalk Case

Posted on by May 1, 2009
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On April 28, the First Circuit refused to re-hear Del Gallo v Parent, 08-1511. The original decision, issued on February 25, equated petitioning for a candidate on interior post office sidewalks with “campaigning”, and then went on the uphold the Post Office regulation against campaigning on postal interior sidewalks. The ACLU will decide soon whether to appeal this to the U.S. Supreme Court.

Meanwhile, the case against a separate postal regulation against petitioning on interior sidewalks is still pending in the U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C. That case is Initiative & Referendum Institute v US Postal Service, and it was filed in the year 2000.