On February 19, the Nebraska Senate (the only house in the Nebraska legislature) overrode last week’s gubernatorial veto of LB 39. As a result, it will soon be illegal for anyone to circulate a petition in Nebraska, unless they are Nebraska residents. Also it will be illegal to pay people to circulate a petition if they are paid per signature.
According to this story, a group of Michigan Democratic activists has begun agitation to set up caucuses this year, so that Michigan Democrats could win back their delegation to the Democratic National Convention.
According to this story in the Philadelphia Daily News, the Pennsylvania extension of the filing deadline for candidates running in the primary benefited ten delegate candidates (pledged to Hillary Clinton) who otherwise would have failed to get on the ballot. Pennsylvania requires a petition signed by 2,000 signatures for presidential candidates to appear on a presidential primary ballot. In addition, candidates for Delegate each need their own petition (within any particular U.S. House district) of 250 signatures.
Pennsylvania elects 103 delegates to the Democratic national convention. According to the story, 10 Clinton delegates would have failed to get on the ballot, except that on the filing deadline, Governor Ed Rendell extended that deadline another two days. He said the extension was due to bad weather. Thanks to Larry Otter for the link. Even given the extension, Clinton did not manage to file a full slate.
The Personal Choice Party, as expected, submitted a petition to re-qualify for the Utah ballot on February 15. Assuming it has enough valid signatures, and also assuming the Libertarian Party has enough valid signatures, there will be 5 fully-qualified parties in Utah this year (the Constitution Party did not need to petition this year, due to its high vote in 2006).
The Personal Choice Party only exists in Utah. Its ballot logo is the famous “smiley-face”. In 2004, its first year of existence, it ran Charles Jay for president.
Parties that did not qualify as full parties can still place nominees on the November ballot this year, using the independent candidate procedure, which permits a partisan label. The Green Party used that method in Utah in 2000.
On February 15, the U.S. Supreme Court considered whether to take two election law cases. However, when the orders list came out on February 19, there was no resolution of either one.
The first is Bartlett v Strickland, 07-689, a case from North Carolina over redistricting. The second is Citizens United v Federal Election Commission, 07-953, a case against part of the McCain-Feingold law on campaign finance. The Court will probably announce next week whether it will hear these two cases.
The Court did not issue any full opinions on February 19, but is almost certain to do so on February 20.
