On June 3, Minnesota’s Governor signed HF 1481, which provides a third means for a party to obtain or keep “qualified status”.
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The veto of Colorado HB 1147 (the bill liberalizing the rules on who can be a petition circulator) has revived a pending lawsuit in federal court, Koehler v Davidson, 04B-1377. The lawsuit challenges Colorado law that won’t let anyone circulate a petition outside his or her home district. The plaintiffs wants to help get a Democratic candidate on the primary ballot, by carrying his petition, but they live outside the district. The judge had put the suit on hold since he knew the legislature was in the process of repealing the restriction. But now that the bill has been vetoed, the lawsuit will proceed.
HR 1316, a campaign finance bill, passed the US House Administration Committee on June 8. It is co-sponsored by Rep. Mike Pence (R-Indiana) and Rep. Albert Wynn (D-Maryland). It will probably receive a vote in the full House in July.
Current law controls the amount of money an individual can give to political parties in support of that party’s federal campaigns. Current law sets these limits for every two-year period: $53,400 to the national committee of a political party; $53,400 to the same party’s senate campaign committee; and $53,400 to the same party’s house campaign committee. Also, the same individual can give $20,000 to a state political party for use in federal races.
However, current law says the combined total that an individual can give in a two-year period to all these party committees is capped at $101,400. HR 1316 removes this cap. Therefore, if someone as wealthy as Ross Perot were financing the birth of a new political party, that individual (if the bill passes) could give $1,180,200 to that new party for federal campaign activity, instead of only $101,400, in a 2-year period.
On June 9, the US Court of Appeals, 1st circuit (Boston) will hear Laffey v Begin, 05-1750. The issue is whether state and federal campaign laws can be used to force a public official to give up his talk radio show. The Rhode Island Board of Elections ordered Stephen Laffey to stop being a radio talk show host, on the grounds that he is Mayor of Cranston and a potential (but undeclared) candidate for U.S. Senate next year. The Board claims that since the radio station doesn’t charge him for being a talk show host, the station is making an in-kind campaign contribution to him. On May 18, the US District Court had refused to issue a temporary injunction that would have kept the Mayor’s show on the air. The Mayor is a conservative Republican.
On June 7, the Louisiana House Governmental Affairs Committee passed SB 53, but in a drastically different form. SB 53 in its latest incarnation changes the state’s congressional elections to a semi-closed primary system, a big change from the current system.
Senator Cleo Fields, author of SB 53, introduced it earlier this year as a bill to set up semi-closed primary elections in congressional elections, and in that form, it passed the Senate Governmental Affairs Committee. But then he changed the bill into a version of the “top-two” system (but with a timing difference), and in that form it passed the House last month. Now the bill is back to its original version. If it passes the House in this latest version, it will then need to go back to the Senate to see if the Senate concurs.