On June 7, the California Assembly passed AB 583 by 45-34. It provides for public funding for elections for state office. It is moderately discriminatory against minor party members, and severely discriminatory against independent candidates. The bill was amended so that it would only apply to three offices in 2010: Governor, one State Senate race, and one Assembly race.
On June 7, the Delaware House Administration Committee passed HB 177. It outlaws fusion. Under current law, fusion is legal in Delaware, and had been used in 2006 in one state legislative race.
If this bill is eventually signed into law, Delaware will follow in the footsteps of Arkansas, which had had legal fusion for decades, but no one ever used it. In 1996 the Arkansas Reform Party jointly nominated a legislative candidate who was also the Republican Party nominee. That reminded the Arkansas legislature that fusion was legal. So, the following year, the legislature abolished it. Another state that recently abolished fusion is South Dakota.
The Missouri legislature adjourned without passing any bills to alter ballot access. The bills to force independent candidates to file a declaration of candidacy in March (even though their petition isn’t due until July) all failed. That is good news.
Unfortunately, the bill to fix the drafting error in the new party petition also failed to pass. The law on how new parties get on the ballot was substantially improved in 1993. Unfortunately, due to a drafting error in 1993, the law still says that new party petitions must include a list of presidential elector candidates. This is peculiar, because the law also says that a party chooses all its candidates, for all office, by convention after it turns in its petition. This development is bad news for the Missouri Constitution Party, since its party petition (currently being circulated) doesn’t include the names of any candidates for presidential elector. It is possible that the Secretary of State might overlook this, since everyone agrees that the requirement is an inadvertent error.
On June 3, a lower Alaska state court upheld Alaska’s new definition of “political party.” Green Party of Alaska v State, 3AN-05-10787. The same judge had granted an injunction on February 8, 2006, leaving the Green Party on the ballot through November 2006. But in June 2007, she wrote that she had to uphold the new definition of “political party”, because the Alaska Supreme Court had upheld the old definition of “political party” on November 17, 2006. It doesn’t logically follow that just because the old definition is constitutional, that the new definition is constitutional (after all, the new definition is tougher than the old one), but the result wasn’t surprising. The Green Party will not appeal to the State Supreme Court.
The old definition of “political party” was a group that had either polled 3% for Governor, of which had registration equal to 3% of the last gubernatorial vote.
The new definition of “political party” was passed in 2004. As with the old definition, it provides a registration alternative and a vote test alternative. The new registration test is more severe than the old registration test. The new registration test is 3% of the last vote cast. Since there is a much higher turnout in Alaska, and in all states, in a presidential year than in a mid-term year, this boosts the registration test approximately 25% in years after a presidential election, compared to the years before a presidential election.
The 3% vote test alternative in the new definition of “political party” is also more difficult. Whereas the old definition only required the vote test to be met every 4 years, the new definition requires it to be met every 2 years. The office to which the new 3% vote test applies is Governor in the mid-term years, and U.S. Senator in presidential years. If U.S. Senator isn’t up in a particular presidential election year, then the U.S. House race is used.
The Green Party was not in a good position to challenge the voter registration alternative in the new vote test, since it has never had registration equal to 3% of either the vote cast in a gubernatorial year, much less in a presidential year.
When the Green Party filed this case in 2005, it was in a good position to challenge the vote test part of the new law. It had polled almost 4% for U.S. House, but less than 1% for president and U.S. Senate. It had argued that the vote for any statewide race should count (in Alaska, U.S. House is a statewide race). But that argument was moot after the November 2006 election, because the Green Party didn’t poll 3% for any statwide race in 2006.
On June 6, the California Senate passed SB 924. It directs the Secretary of State to put an advisory question on the February 2008 presidential primary ballot, on whether the President should end the U.S. occupation of Iraq. As far as is known, no state’s statewide ballot has ever carried a question of this type. The vote was 23-11. No Democrat opposed it, and no Republican supported it.
