On April 2, the Minnesota House State & Local Government Committee defeated HF 512 on a tie vote, 8-8. HF 512 is the National Popular Vote Plan bill. Democrats have a majority on that committee but not all Democrats voted for it. An identical Senate bill, SF 446, is still alive in the Senate.
The Georgia legislature adjourned Friday night, April 3, a few minutes before midnight. On the last day the House passed SB 86. It requires people who are registering to vote to submit either a birth certificate or, if the person was born in a foreign country, documents showing the person was born a citizen, or naturalization documents.
Although a great deal of work was done in the last six months to find a sponsor for Georgia ballot access reform, no bill was introduced in the 2009 session.
On the last day of the session, HB 848 was introduced, to move the presidential primary from February to March. Of course the bill could not be acted upon, having been introduced so late, but the bill will be introduced again in 2010. The Democratic National Committee hopes to move all presidential primaries and caucuses that choose delegates from February to March, except for the four states that have special permission to be earlier than March. Thanks to Joshua Putnam for the news about HB 848.
New York state held a special election on March 31 to fill the vacant U.S. House seat, 20th district. About half of the absentee votes still haven’t been counted. But so far, the results are: Murphy and Tedisco each have 77,225 votes. The election board hasn’t released the number of blank votes, or write-in votes, or absentee ballot votes cast for Eric Sundwall, the Libertarian who was on the absentee ballots but not the regular ballots.
The breakdown by party so far is: Murphy, Democratic line, 66,648; Independence Party line, 6,902; Working Families line, 3,675. Tedisco, Republican line, 65,967; Conservative line, 11,258. Thanks to Bill Van Allen for these figures.
As had been previously reported here, last month the 1st circuit ruled against a plaintiff-candidate in Massachusetts who had been arrested for petitioning for himself on an interior post office sidewalk. The 1st circuit had ruled last month that the postal regulation against “campaigning” on interior post office sidewalks is constitutional. The 1st circuit had also equated “campaigning” with petitioning.
On April 3, the plaintiff asked for a rehearing. His brief points out that courts are not supposed to think up rationales for a restriction on free speech that the government itself had not presented as a rationale for that restriction. The 1st circuit decision had talked extensively about the post office’ history of involvement with partisan politics, in the years before 1970. Then the 1st circuit had assumed that since the post office since 1970 has tried to avoid any appearance of partisanship, therefore it is necessary to have a ban on “campaigning” on its interior sidewalks. The federal government’s briefs defending the regulation had never used that rationale for the regulation.
The long-awaited bills in Congress for public funding of Congressional candidates have been introduced. In the House, the bill is HR1826, sponsored by John B. Larson (D-Ct.) and 12 co-sponsors so far. In the Senate it is S752. Unlike past bills on this subject in Congress, the bills treats all candidates alike, regardless of party or independent status. However, write-in candidates may not qualify. House candidates qualify for public funding by raising at least 1,500 contributions from their district. The total raised privately must equal at least $50,000. Contributions between $5 and $100 count for this purpose. Thanks to IndependentPoliticalReport for news of the bills.
