On July 2, the Missouri Secretary of State’s office announced that the Constitution Party petition has the required 10,000 signatures needed for ballot access. The Constitution Party is the only party likely to submit a successful petition in Missouri this year. It is likely that independent Ralph Nader will also meet the requirement. The Libertarian Party had already been on the Missouri ballot automatically.
On June 30, the Committee for a United Independent Party asked the U.S. District Court in Idaho to intervene in Idaho Republican Party v Ysursa. The lawsuit, filed in April, seeks to force the Idaho state government to administer a primary system for the Republican Party that excludes non-members. The intervenors acknowledge that the Idaho Secretary of State will do a good job of defending the law, but also ask the Court to permit the intervention, so that the interests of independent voters will be considered. The Committee for a United Independent Party is usually known by its acronym, CUIP, and is headquartered in New York.
Representative Kerry Benninghoff (R-Bellefonte) is circulating his ballot access bill among all members of the State House, asking for co-sponsors. It would abolish mandatory petitions for all candidates, and provide a choice of paying a filing fee. No fee would be higher than $2,000. The bill applies equally to candidates seeking a place on a primary ballot, and candidates seeking a place on the general election ballot. UPDATE: thanks to Ken Krawchuk for pointing out that I mis-read the bill. The bill provides higher filing fees for independent and minor party candidates than for Democrats and Republicans. That provision of the bill would be unconstitutional, under the recent U.S. Supreme Court decision Davis v FEC. The Court said that states cannot have different contribution limits for different candidates for the same office. It follows logically that states can’t have different filing fee amounts for different candidates for the same office either.
The bill already has several co-sponsors. After that process of seeking co-sponsors is complete, probably by July 18, the bill will receive a bill number.
On June 30, the California Assembly passed SB 37, the National Popular Vote Plan bill. It has passed the State Senate in 2007. The vote in the Assembly was 45-30.
The California legislature had also passed the idea in 2006, but Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger had vetoed it. Later this summer, the bill will return to the Senate for another vote, because a miniscule change was made in the wording while the bill was in the Assembly. This was so the sponsor of the bill, Senator Carole Migden, can completely control the timing of when the bill gets to the Governor. Since the bill doesn’t have enough support to survive a gubernatorial veto, there will be a serious attempt to persuade the Governor to sign it this year. One argument to persuade him is that if the National Popular Vote Plan really makes headway, it will be easier to amend the U.S. Constitution along the lines of U.S. Senator Bill Nelson’s SJR 39. And if the move to amend the Constitution gathers steam, it should be possible to put into the same Amendment a repeal of the provision that makes Schwarzenegger ineligible to be president. The Electoral College, and the requirement that the president be natural-born, are both in Article II, sec. 1.
The Institute of Government Studies has released this report on how California could provide for petitioning via computer. The report specifically is concerned with qualifying initiatives with electronic signatures, instead of paper signatures. The report, by Walter Baer and Roy Ulrich, is here. Thanks to ElectionUpdates for the link.
