Both the California State Senate Elections Committee, and the California Assembly Committee, had been expected to meet on Tuesday, July 7. Many election law bills of interest were on their agendas.

However, because of the California budget crisis, it is likely that both hearings will be cancelled. The legislature is not in session July 3-July 5, although legislative leaders continue negotiating a budget over that weekend. Assuming no budget will be in place on July 7, all non-budget legislative hearings are cancelled.

Bills of interest include AB 909, to provide that independent voters should be told at the polls on primary day that they may choose to vote in the Democratic, Republican or American Independent primaries; AB 1121, on letting 10 non-charter cities or counties use Instant Runoff Voting for their own elections; AB 6, on requiring firms that pay petition circulators to register with the Secretary of State; and SB 34, to outlaw paying circulators per-signature. All these bills had been set to be heard in one of the two committees on July 7.

Also stalled is AB 1396, to deregulate the Democratic Party’s internal structure. It has passed the Assembly and the Senate Elections Committee, but won’t receive a vote on the Senate floor until the budget is settled.

Atlanta TV station 11 has this report on Cynthia McKinney’s status in Israel. The story is also being covered in USA Today.

The District of Columbia city council is responsible for writing election laws for the District. On July 13, at 11 a.m, a committee of the Council holds a hearing on Bill 18-345, the “Omnibus Election Reform Act of 2009”. The hearing is at the John A. Wilson Building, 1350 Pennsylvania Avenue, in room 120. Instructions for people who wish to testify are here.

The bill can be seen here. It makes ballot access worse, in Title IX of the bill, which starts on page 17. Title IX is titled “miscellaneous”. It says that the Board will be entitled to impose filing fees in the future, with the amount to be determined by regulation. Currently, ballot access in the District is by petition. It is not reasonable to impose fees and petitions. The purpose of either filing fees, or petitions, it to keep the ballot uncrowded. If D.C. wants to impose filing fees, it should provide that they are substitutes for a petition, not in addition.

D.C. presidential ballot access is among the most difficult in the nation. The law requires a petition signed by 1% of the number of registered voters. The only states with no method for the presidential candidate of an unqualified party, or an independent presidential candidate, to get on the ballot, other than a petition that difficult, are California, Georgia, Indiana, North Carolina, Oklahoma, and Wyoming.

In 2008, only one presidential petition in the District succeeded, that of Ralph Nader. The Green Party was already ballot-qualified so Cynthia McKinney was on the ballot with no petition needed.