An earlier posting said that the chair of the Texas House Elections Committee had refused to schedule a hearing on HB 2280, the bill to eliminate the “primary screen-out”. Happily, he has changed his mind, and set a hearing for Wednesday, April 4. “Primary screen-out” means making it illegal for a primary voter to sign a petition for an independent candidate or a new party.
An earlier posting said that the chair of the Texas House Elections Committee had refused to schedule a hearing on HB 2280, the bill to eliminate the “primary screen-out”. Happily, he has changed his mind, and set a hearing for Wednesday, April 4. “Primary screen-out” means making it illegal for a primary voter to sign a petition for an independent candidate or a new party.
On March 30, Colorado SB 83 passed the Senate on 2nd reading. It is expected to pass on third reading on April 2. It permits any adult citizen to circulate any type of petition (except that primary petitions would still need to be circulated by party members). Current law does not permit anyone to circulate a petition unless the circulator lives in the district.
The bill also lets qualified minor parties nominate anyone they wish (if the candidate meets the Constitutional qualifications for the office, of course). Current law doesn’t permit qualified minor parties to nominate someone who has been a member of another party during the past year. This is discriminatory, since qualified major parties are not subject to the restriction.
The bill has been amended to include other election law matters. For example, it permits parolees to register to vote.
The Maryland House is expected to pass SB634/HB148 on Monday, April 2. These are identical bills to implement the “National Popular Vote Plan”. On March 30, the House defeated all the amendments that had been introduced to sidetrack the plan, such as bills to simply study the plan.
On March 30, the Illinois State Senate passed SB733, which lowers petition requirements for independent candidates, and for the nominees of unqualified parties. Existing law requires statewide candidates to get 25,000, but the bill drops this to 5,000. Existing law requires district and county candidates to submit petitions of 5% of the last vote cast, but the bill drops this to approximately one-half of 1% (the formula is complicated and not easy to describe precisely). The bill passed unanimously. Now it goes to the State House. Thanks to Dan Johnson-Weinberger for this news.
If the bill becomes law, then every state except Alabama and Georgia will have some procedure for a new party to get its US House nominees on the November ballot for US House, that is equal to, or easier than, a petition of 2% of the last vote cast (although in some cases, as in Oklahoma, they couldn’t have the party label printed on the ballot).
