On January 30, the New Hampshire Senate Election Law Committee passed SB 36 by a 4-1 vote. It would eliminate the straight-ticket device and provide that the state use an “office-group” ballot (one without party colums or rows).
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On February 2, the Virginia House Privileges and Elections Committee passed HB 3157 by 16-6. The bill requires minor party and independent candidates (for all office except president) to pay filing fees of 2% of the annual salary of the office. This would be $3,300 for Congress.
The sponsor says the bill is needed because Virginia’s November ballots will be too crowded in the future, because last year the legislature let cities choose to hold their municipal elections in November. The sponsor is misreading the unanimous U.S. Supreme Court decision Lubin v Panish, 415 US 709 (1974). That decision said that filing fees are unconstitutional unless they are needed to keep the number of candidates running for any particular office from being too large. Page 715-716 of the Court’s decision makes this clear. It says, “That laundry list ballots discourage voter participation and confuse and frustrate those who do participate is too obvious to call for extended discussion.” But then it says, “Rational results are not likely to be reached if the ballot for a single office must list a dozen or more aspirants.”
In other words, the evil the Court was worried about was too many candidates for a particular office, not a ballot that is too long because it has too many offices listed on it.
Virginia’s November 2006 ballot only had 2.6 candidates on the ballot in the average U.S. House race (a total of 29 candidates ran for US House, and Virginia has eleven seats, so 29 divided by eleven equals 2.6). No US House race had more than 4 candidates. Virginia state legislative elections are even more uncrowded; the average number of candidates on the general election ballot for that office is always under 2 candidates per race. Virginia keeps its general election ballots uncrowded by having fairly stiff petition requirements, combined with a very restrictive definition of “political party” (one that polled 10% of the vote at either of the last two elections). There is no need for filing fees in the general election. It is therefore possible that a court would find this bill unconstitutional if it passes.
On January 23, the Federal Election Commission announced that the new limit for an individual’s contribution to a federal candidate had increased from $2,100, to $2,300. These limits rise automatically with inflation. A contribution can be made twice during an election year, once in the primary season and once in the general election season.
Congressman Tom Tancredo (R-Colorado) set up a Committee last month to explore his chances of seeking the Republican presidential nomination. The treasurer of that committee is Ken C. McAlpin, and his New Hampshire chair is Shelly Uscinski. Both were active in Pat Buchanan’s Reform Party presidential campaign in 2000. However, a spokesperson for the Tancredo committee says Tancredo absolutely will not run for president in 2008 unless he is the Republican nominee.
It had already been known that the U.S. Supreme Court conference of February 16 would be considering 3 different election law cases (the conference is where the Court decides which cases to hear). But now a fourth case has been added to the February 16 conference. It is Initiative & Referendum Institute v Herbert, 06-534. The issue is whether a state that has the initiative process can “fence out” initiatives on one particular narrow topic and require that initiatives on that one subject need a 2/3rds vote to pass (when all other statutory initiatives only need a majority). Utah has such a provision for initiatives dealing with wildlife.