Both houses of the Alabama legislature have passed bills to move the state’s presidential primary from June to February. The House passed HB 51, and the Senate passed SB 527. On Monday, April 17, the last day of the session, one or the other houses is likely to pass the bill that the other house already passed.

If so, this will continue to trend toward earlier presidential primaries, combined with later national conventions. The major parties are responsible for this trend, even though it damages the major parties. When presidential primaries in February determine the identity of each party’s presidential nominee, yet these candidates are not officially nominated until August or September, that leave a huge amount of time in which groups who don’t like either party’s choice may begin to settle on a presidential candidate from outside the major parties.

On April 11, the 6th circuit refused Ralph Nader’s request for a rehearing en banc in his Michigan ballot access case. Nader had appeared on the Michigan ballot in 2004 as an independent, but he had preferred to be listed as the Reform Party nominee. But the Michigan Reform Party was split, and only one set of party officers nominated Nader; the other set said the party didn’t wish to run any presidential candidate. The Michigan Secretary of State refused to decide which set of state party officers was legitimate, and left all Reform Party nominees off the ballot. Nader had sued, arguing that the Secretary of State had a duty to decide, but the court had ruled against him. He had asked for a rehearing in January, but that has now been denied.

State Senator Ben Westlund, independent candidate for Oregon Governor, has raised $450,000, and his petition is being circulated by 300 volunteers. He needs 18,356 signatures of registered voters who abstain from the May primary, and is thought likely to succeed. He is about to launch a TV ad for himself, emphasizing that Oregon last elected an independent as Governor in 1930. That candidate, Julius Meyer, is considered by historians to have been a successful governor who helped restore the state’s budget and economy.