The Utah legislature has passed SB 27 and sent it to the Governor. It is an omnibus election law bill proposed by the State Elections office. It makes two minor improvements in ballot access law: (1) it deletes the requirement that independent presidential candidates must file their declaration of candidacy in person; (2) it sets an independent presidential petition deadline of August 15.

The 1994 session of the legislature had accidentally repealed the deadline for the independent presidential petition. This lead to confusion, because then most people read the election law to mean that the independent presidential petition deadline was in March, when independent candidates for other office are due. Even the Federal Election Commission was confused, and published a chart of independent presidential petition deadlines that said the Utah deadline was in March.

The repeal of the requirement that independent presidential candidates must file in person is partly due to Gloria La Riva, presidential candidate of the Party for Socialism and Liberation last year. She had complained about the requirement, and the State Elections office took her complaints to heart. No other state had ever had such a requirement.

On February 11, the U.S. Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs passed S.160 by a vote of 11-1. It permanently expands the size of the U.S. House, and gives the District of Columbia its own member of the U.S. House. It also temporarily gives a new seat to Utah.

Three Republican Senators were present at the Committee voting session. Senators Susan Collins (Maine) and George Voinovich (Ohio) voted “Yes”. Senator John McCain voted “No.” Three other Republican Senators were not there, but they said they would have voted “No” if they had been there. They are Tom Coburn (Oklahoma), John Ensign (Nevada), and Lindsey Graham (South Carolina). Thanks to Rick Hasen for this news.

California holds a special election for the vacant 51st district State Senate in Los Angeles County on March 24. Six Democrats, one Peace & Freedom Party member, and one Republican are running. Since two of the Democrats are incumbent Assemblymembers, it is extremely likely that no one will get 50% of the vote. In that case, there will be a run-off on May 19 between the Peace and Freedom nominee, Cindy Henderson, and the Democrat who gets the most votes in March, and the lone Republican. The district is overwhelmingly Democratic. The seat is vacant because Senator Mark Ridley-Thomas resigned to become a Los Angeles County Supervisor.