Three U.S. Senators had said earlier this week that they would introduce a bill for public funding of congressional campaigns on Thursday, March 26. However, the bill has been delayed, and will probably be introduced next week. Thanks to Rick Hasen’s ElectionLawBlog for the news.
Former U.S. Senator Lincoln Chaffee of Rhode Island, who served as a Republican until he was defeated for re-election in 2006, is said to be planning to run for Governor as an independent in 2010. The news was first reported on TV station WRNI. Thanks to Gene Berkman for the news.
This New York Times story says that Mayor Bloomberg is now assured of receiving the nomination of the Independence Party of New York city. Those leaders, Fred Newman, Jackie Salit, and Lenora Fulani, had originally been opposed to re-nominating Bloomberg in this year’s mayoral primary, because those leaders had been opposed to overturning city term limits. Thanks to Bill Van Allen for the link.
On March 24, Utah SB 27 was signed into law. Among other things, it makes modest improvements to ballot access. It deletes the requirement that independent presidential candidates must file in person. No other state had had such a law. The new law allows the candidate to choose someone else to file for him or her. In 2008, Gloria La Riva had complained about having to buy an expensive plane ticket just so that her petition and paperwork could be filed by her personally.
Also, the law now has a statutory deadline for independent presidential candidates to file, August 15. The old petition deadline for independent presidential candidates had been accidentally repealed in 1994. This had lead to confusion, since many people believed that the deadline was in March (which is the petition deadline for independent candidates for office other than president). The state had been permitting such independent presidential petitions to be filed as late as September 1, but it is always good to have such deadlines written into the statutes themselves.
Bills have been introduced in both houses of the Minnesota legislature to establish guidelines for use of Instant Runoff Voting by cities and other governmental units that may wish to use IRV to elect their own officers. They are SF 1820 and HF 2052.
