On June 4, the Louisiana House unanimously passed HB 420, which extends the deadline for an independent presidential candidate to file his or her slate of presidential electors. Existing law requires this to be done by the first Tuesday in September, but the bill changes that to the Friday after the first Tuesday in September. The bill also makes the deadline for qualified parties to file their elector slates less ambiguous.
On June 3, the Massachusetts Joint Committee on Election Laws held a hearing on three bills to make it more difficult for initiatives to get on the ballot. As it usual in Massachusetts, the committee did not take any action on the hearing day itself.
Witnesses from these groups testified against all three bills: Public Interest Research Group (PIRG), Common Cause, Citizens for Limited Taxation, the Family Institute, and Citizens in Charge. The only group in favor of the bills was the Teachers Union, but the Teachers Union witness merely said that the committee should read his written testimony, and did not otherwise speak.
The three bills are H559, H571, and H572. H571 would require paid circulators to wear a signboard with all of this information in 14-point type size: (1) the circulator’s name; (2) the circulator’s employer; (3) the name of the group who hired the employer; (4) the statement “I am being paid $ (insert amount) for each signature I collect.” Anyone not wearing the sign would be subject to a fine of $500, and his or her employer would be subject to a fine of $5,000.
H572 would make it illegal to pay initiative circulators, something that the U.S. Supreme Court already ruled to be unconstitutional.
On June 4, Maine LD 1041 made some headway. The House passed it on First Reading on Consent. LD 1041 changes the way a party remains on the ballot. Existing law requires it to poll 5% for the office at the top of the ballot at either of the last two elections. The bill would change this. A party would remain on the ballot as long as it continued to have 10,000 registered members who vote in each general election.
The only ballot-qualified party in Maine besides the Democratic and Republican Parties is the Green Party, which has approximately 31,000 registered members. Three-fourths of them voted in the November 2008 election. If the bill passed, chances are overwhelming that the Green Party would remain a qualified party even if it didn’t run anyone for Governor in 2010.
LD 1041 does not change the method by which a group becomes a qualified party. If LD 1041 were to become law, it would still be true that a group could become a qualified party by sponsoring a candidate for Governor or President who then polled 5% of the vote. Alternatively, a group can become a qualified party if it submits a petition signed by 5% of the last gubernatorial vote.
Thanks to Green Party Watch for this link to an in-depth article about the Maine Green Party in DownEast.com, a well-known magazine that covers Maine.
The Green Party in Maine is the nation’s strongest state unit of any nationally-organized minor party. The Maine Green Party, and the New York Conservative Party, are the only parties that have managed to poll at least 5% of the vote four times in a row for Governor, in all the years since World War II ended. The Minnesota Independence Party has polled over 5% for Governor three times in a row, and might add a fourth instance in 2010. One must go all the way back to the 1940’s to find other minor parties (either one-state parties, or nationally-organized parties) that polled 5% for Governor four times in a row.
In 2008, four Green Party nominees for the state legislature outpolled their Republican opponents. Those Green candidates were William Linnell for State Senate, and for the House, Michael Hiltz, Daniel Jenkins and Sandy Amborn.
The June 3 issue of the Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania Post-Gazette has this article about new revelations in the ongoing investigation of “bonusgate”. That is the common Pennsylvania term for the 2004-2006 incidents in which state employees, on state time, did political work for the Democratic Party, including substantial work on challenging the Ralph Nader petition in 2004 and the Green Party petition in 2006. Thanks to Larry Otter for the link. The new revelations concern attempts to destroy evidence, including destroying state computers and disks of e-mails.
