Delaware has one of the nation’s most rigid laws on when and how voters may change political parties. Current law does not permit voters to change parties in the zone that is 90 days prior to any primary, or the zone that is 90 days prior to a general election. Senator David Sokola (D-Newark) has introduced SB 9, to reduce the zone to only 20 days before a primary or a general election.
Five Greens have filed petitions to be on the party’s primary ballot for U.S. House of Representatives, Illinois 5th district. The primary is on March 3. Each Green needed 30 valid signatures to qualify for the Green primary ballot. The five candidates are Alan Auguston, Mark Fredrickson, Deb Gordils, Matt Reichel, and Simm Ribeiro. The 5th district seat is vacant because Rahm Emanuel resigned his Congressional seat to become Chief of Staff to President-Elect Barack Obama.
Several proposed state constitutional amendments have been introduced in the Arizona legislature, dealing with how legislators are elected. Currently, Arizona has 30 legislative districts. Each district elects one State Senator. Also, each district elects two State Representatives. The ballot for State Representative says “Vote for Two Candidates” and each party is permitted to run two candidates.
HCR 2006 would provide that the state will have 60 State Representative districts in the future, with each district electing one member.
HCR 2007 would provide that the State Constitution should no longer specify that the House has 60 members. Instead, the Constitution would say that there must be a state House district for each 100,000 population. Therefore, as Arizona gains population, the size of the House would grow.
HCR 2003, a rival idea, also pertains to State House elections. It would simply provide that candidates for State House would file either for Position “A” or Position “B”. Although each district would continue to elect two House members, each district would have separate elections for the two members. First the voters would choose a candidate for Position “A”; then they would vote for Position “B”.
If the legislature passes any of these changes, the voters would then vote on the proposal.
Separate from that, SB 1006 would move the Arizona primary from early September, back to mid-September. If that bill passed, it would automatically improve the petition deadline for independent candidates by a week, although even then, Arizona would still have the nation’s 2nd earliest independent presidential petition deadline.
Arizona State Senator Jack W. Harper (R-Surprise) has introduced SB 1053. It would require all candidates to submit an affidavit of citizenship, and also to append documents that provide proof of citizenship.
Alaska State Representatives Kyle Johansen (R-Ketchikan) and Charisse Millett (R-Anchorage) have introduced HB 36. It would make it illegal for initiative circulators to be paid on a per-signature basis. Also it would make it illegal for initiative circulators to circulate more than one initiative at once.
