On March 31, the Missouri Senate Financial, Governmental Organizations and Elections Committee held a hearing on HB 1310. That bill moves the independent candidate petition deadline from late July to March. It does not exclude presidential independents. For that reason, the bill is clearly unconstitutional under Anderson v Celebrezze, and also McCarthy v Kirkpatrick.

Barbara Woodruff, chair of Show Me Independents, testified against the bill and furnished each Senator with a copy of the U.S. Supreme Court decision Anderson v Celebrezze. The bill’s sponsor did not try to argue that his bill would be upheld. He merely stated that he doesn’t want anyone running against him, and not having to declare a candidacy until July of the election year. The Committee will decide later whether to pass the bill or not.

On April 1, both the Constitution Party and the Independent Party submitted their petitions to be on the New Mexico ballot. The Independent Party is composed of supporters of Ralph Nader. The Associated Press reported on the Independent Party, but did not mention the Constitution Party, even though both petitions were submitted at approximately the same time.

New Mexico requires 2,794 signatures to qualify a new party. The Independent Party turned in 6,747 signatures, and the Constitution Party turned in approximately 4,700 signatures.

The last time a party did this petition was in 2006, when the Libertarian Party qualified. It took the Secretary of State several months to check the signatures. This time, the Secretary of State’s office says it will be much quicker.

The New Mexico Green and Libertarians are on the ballot automatically in 2008.

California State Senator Alan Lowenthal has introduced SB 1322, which deletes some state laws that discriminate against members of the Communist Party. California’s Constitution, Article 20, says that no one may run for either partisan office or non-partisan office, if that person is a member of the Communist Party, or has been within the last 5 years. The Lowenthal bill does not try to repeal that. It does repeal statutes that bar party members from being public school teachers, and statutes that require organizations that want to meet in a public school to sign an affidavit that they are Communist “fronts”.

The bill has a hearing on April 2 in the Senate Education Committee. If SB 1322 passes, it will probably then be possible to repeal various California election laws that also single out Communist Party members. California is one of only six states that has such election laws. The others are Illinois, Arkansas, Kansas, Arizona, and Pennsylvania. None of these laws are enforceable. In 1974 the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that they violate the First Amendment, in a case called Communist Party of Indiana v Whitcomb. The decision was unanimous.