Bills will be introduced on Monday, Feb. 12, in both houses of the Washington legislature, to make all elections except presidential elections non-partisan. The bills are being energetically promoted by the Grange. In the past, the Grange has been able to influence a majority of legislators in Washington state to carry out its wishes, on election law matters.
On February 8, the Federal Election Commission voted 6-0 to approve the Green Party’s submission, setting up the Green Party Senate Campaign Committee. The advantage to any political party to having an FEC-recognized Senate Campaign Committee (or a House Committee), is that individual donors can give far more money to such a committee than they can to any particular candidate for Congress.
Until today, no other political party has ever had an FEC-recognized Campaign Committee for either house of congress, except for the Republican and Democratic Parties.
The FEC recognizes 8 national political committees (Democratic, Republican, Constitution, Green, Libertarian, Natural Law, Reform and Socialist). The Libertarian Party has been thinking about setting up FEC-recognized congressional committees for some time, but has not acted on the idea.
Colorado law says a major party can nominate anyone it wishes, regardless of how long the candidate has been a member of that party. But qualified minor parties cannot nominate someone who has been a member of another party at any time during the preceding year. The Colorado Libertarian Party is challenging this disparate treatment in state court. The case is pending in the State Court of Appeals. However, it appears somewhat likely that the Secretary of State will address this problem in his omnibus election law bill, SB 83, in the next few days. If the legislature cures the problem, the lawsuit will be dismissed.
On February 6, the National Popular Vote plan passed the Senate Judiciary and Labor Committee by a vote of 5-0. The bill is SB 1956. The committee has four Democrats and one Republican.
Montana SB 290 (the National Popular Vote plan for presidential elections) passed the State Senate Administration Committee on February 5, by a vote of 9-2. The committee has 6 Democrats and 5 Republicans. Both “no” votes were cast by Republicans. It is significant that most of the Republicans on the Committee voted for the bill. Since the Committee has eleven members and the Senate has only 50 members, it is likely that the bill will now pass the Senate. The sponsor, Senator Rick Laible, is a Republican.
