On June 18, California Senate Bill SB 1322 passed the Assembly Education Committee. It had already passed the Senate. It removes several laws that discriminate against members of the Communist Party, such as a law making it illegal for a member of that party to work for a public school. Although this is not an election law bill, if it passes, it may be easier to repeal similar California election laws in the near future. SB 1322 passed the Assembly Education Committee on a party-line vote, with all Republicans on that committee voting “No.”

For the first time in the history of public funding for presidential elections, a major party has declined to accept general election public funding. The system has existed starting with the 1976 presidential election. The decision was made by Barack Obama. By turning down $80,000,000 in public funds, this year’s Democratic presidential campaign is free to spend as much money as it can raise privately.

In past years, there hasn’t been enough money to promptly pay primary season matching funds (which have the lowest priority, when there isn’t enough money in the fund to pay all obligations). The Democratic Party’s decision of June 19 means that there will now be no shortage of funds for the primary season matching program. Assuming the FEC gets a quorum very soon, primary season funds for Ralph Nader should be available quickly. Cynthia McKinney is also striving to qualify for primary season matching funds.

Arizona assumes independent candidate petitions are valid, if they have more than the legal minimum number of signatures and have no obvious other flaw. June 18 was the last day for anyone to file challenges to any Arizona independent petition. Ralph Nader was the only independent presidential candidate who filed this year. No one challenged his petition.

By contrast, in 2004, his petition was challenged, and was found to lack enough valid signatures. Arizona is the second state in which Nader has qualified for the ballot this year and in which he did not succeed in getting on in 2004; the other one is Hawaii.

The current Arizona independent candidate law was written in 1993. Nader is the first independent presidential candidate to successfully use the law. It required 21,759 valid signatures this year.