On June 24, the First Circuit upheld a Massachusetts law that says the initiative process cannot be used to pass a new law pertaining to religious institutions. The same court also upheld a companion law, that the initiative process cannot be used to pass a new law mandating financial aid to private schools. The plaintiffs had wanted to circulate an initiative, providing for public funding for private schools. Wirzburger v Galvin, 04-1625.
Ohio’s Sub. HB 3, which (among other things) would provide that voters may register into particular parties on their voter registration forms, is likely to be tabled for the remainder of the summer.
Sub. HB 3 is an election law omnibus bill, but currently it has no ballot access improvements in it, even though three of Ohio’s ballot access laws are currently being litigated in the U.S. Court of Appeals, 6th circuit. Perhaps when the bill is taken up again in September or October, some of the ballot access problems can be addressed in the bill.
On June 20, Florida’s Governor signed HB1567, which (among other things) clarifies the definition of “national political party”. A “national political party” can place its presidential nominee on the general election ballot with no petition, but the law in the past did not define “national political party”. The new law says it is a party that is on the ballot in at least one state other than Florida.
Rick Jore, Constitution Party candidate for the Montana legislature last year, was initially declared elected, until the State Supreme Court unseated him by ruling that 6 somewhat irregular ballots that had been counted for him were too ambiguous to be counted at all. Later the Montana Supreme Court ruled that Jore was responsible for paying over $15,000 in attorneys’ fees of the Democratic candidate. This, despite the fact that Jore had not sued anyone. He has just received editorial support from one of Montana’s biggest newspapers.
There are two bills in North Carolina to reduce the number of signatures needed for an independent candidate for statewide office. H 1115 passed the House on May 17. It lowers the number of signatures for a statewide independent from 2% of the number of registered voters (approx. 100,000) to 2% of the last gubernatorial vote (69,734).
A better bill, H88, which lowers the statewide independent requirement to about 17,500, and also lowers the new party petition to the same number, has not made any headway lately but could still pass.
