Washington State Senator Eric Oemig has introduced SB 5536, which provides that the primary stage should use Ranked Choice Voting to determine which two candidates qualify for the November ballot. The bill has a hearing on Tuesday, February 10, at 1:30 pm in the Senate Committee on Government Operations and Elections. Here is a link to the bill.
On February 8, the Tennessee Republican Party expelled the Speaker of the House of Representatives, Kent Williams, from the party. See this story in the Memphis Commercial Appeal. Now, unless the party takes him back, he must run for re-election in 2010 as an independent (or, possibly as a Democrat, should he become a Democrat).
Tennessee does not have registration by party. It seems likely that the speaker is the first Independent to head up a state legislative body in the United States in decades, perhaps since before World War I. There are now 49 Republicans, 49 Democrats, and one independent in the Tennessee House.
California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger is expected to call a special statewide election for various questions concerning the budget. If he does, that ballot will also include a vote on the Public Funding bill the legislature passed last year. See this Los Angeles Times story. Even though the Public Funding bill did not alter the state constitution, a vote of the public is needed to implement it, since it alters campaign finance laws that themselves had once been approved by an initiative. In California, laws passed by initiative cannot be changed by the legislature without another vote of the people.
Last year’s public funding bill discriminates against independent candidates, by requiring them to get twice as many qualifying contributions (to be eligible for any public funding whatsoever), compared to Democrats and Republican candidates.
Newsday newspaper’s February 9 has this article about the statewide conference of the New York Conservative Party.
It is somewhat plausible that the U.S. Supreme Court will put the Arizona ballot access case on its conference of February 27. The case is Brewer v Nader, 08-648. The issues are the early June petition deadline for independent candidates, and the state’s ban on out-of-state circulators. The Court has heard from both sides on whether it should take the case. The next conference for the Court is February 20, but Brewer v Nader is not on that conference. After that, the next conference is February 27.
