According to this newspaper story of February 16, New York city Mayor Mike Bloomberg is working hard to win permission to enter the Republican Party primary when he runs for re-election this year. The story also says he is interested in the Working Families nomination.
In a related development, according to this February 17 newspaper story, Bloomberg has given $1,200,000 to the Independence Party in the last six months. See the 4th paragraph.
New York will soon hold a special election to fill the vacant U.S. House seat, 20th district (Hudson Valley).
Qualified parties choose nominees in special elections by party meeting. The Republican and Conservative Parties have already nominated Jim Tedisco. The Democratic and Working Families Parties have already nominated Scott Murphy. The Independence Party state committee will nominate someone on February 22, but that party is expected to cross-endorse either the Democrat, or the Republican, or else have no candidate at all.
Only one petitioning candidate is likely to qualify. He is Eric Sundwall of the Libertarian Party. He will need 3,500 valid signatures, to be gathered in only 12 days. His petitioning period will probably start on February 23, although that is not completely certain. The date of the special election is also not yet formally determined.
On February 17, the Virginia Senate Privileges & Elections Committee passed HB 2642. However, the Committee unanimously deleted the part of the bill that bans paying petition circulators on a per-signature basis. The remainder of the bill concerns deleting deceased voters from the voter registration rolls, a non-controversial subject. Thanks to Bill Redpath for the news.
Recently, two election law bills have been introduced in the West Virginia legislature that are clearly unconstitutional.
Senators Robert Williams (D-Bridgeport) and Robert Plymale (D-Ceredo) have introduced SB 271, to require declared write-in candidates to pay a filing fee. West Virginia previously had a filing fee requirement for write-in candidates, but it was declared unconstitutional in 2000 in Phillips v Hechler, 120 F.Supp.2d 587. The “Phillips” was Howard Phillips, Constitution Party presidential candidate, who had been told his write-ins would not be counted unless he paid the $2,500 filing fee. Phillips then sued and won.
Delegates Ron Fragale, Tim Miley, and Richard Iaquinta have introduced HB 2052, which says that no one who has ever been convicted of a felony in the courts of West Virginia “or any other court” (which would even include foreign courts) may be elected to any public office. This bill, if enacted, would be unconstitutional as applied to federal office. The U.S. Constitution does not permit the states to add to the qualifications that are listed in the U.S. Constitution.
On February 16, the Indiana State Senate Elections Committee passed SCR28, asking the Legislative Council to do a 2-year study of whether Indiana should move its presidential primary from May to an earlier month. Indiana’s presidential primary has been in May starting in 1920. In 1916 it had been in March.
