On March 29, Louisiana Senate Bill 18 passed the Senate Governmental Affairs Committee unanimously. This was quick action, since the legislature has only been in session since March 27. The bill only applies to congressional elections. It would let each party decide for itself whether to invite independents into its primary.

The current system is the “top-two” system, with the first round in November and the run-off in December, in which parties do not actually nominate candidates. Instead, all candidates run on a single ballot, and the top two finishers compete later if no one got 50% in the first round. Sometimes this results in two Democrats in the run-off, or two Republicans. Louisiana officials have decided this sytem puts the state at a disadvantage, since sometimes its members of Congress don’t arrive until all other states have already sent their newly-elected members. Therefore, the best committee assignments aren’t available.

On March 27, a Missouri Democrat filed a lawsuit against the Secretary of State, because she refused to let him appear on the Democratic primary ballot for U.S. House, 7th district. The Secretary of State refused to accept his candidacy because the Democratic Party of Missouri said the candidate, Glenn Miller, is a white supremacist (Miller accepts this designation as accurate). Miller v Missouri Secretary of State, 06-5032-cv-SW.

A few states empower political parties to reject a member or a candidate in that party’s own primary, if the member or candidate is not in sympathy with party principles. However, Missouri has no such law. Therefore, the state will need to establish that there is a common law right for political parties to exclude, something that will probably be difficult to do. This case may create an interesting precedent.

Illinois State Senator James Meeks said over the weekend that he will attempt to create a new party, and be its gubernatorial candidate, this year. He is not only a State Senator, but pastor of Chicago’s Salem Baptist Church, which has 26,000 members. When he was elected to the State Senate in 2002, he won as the nominee of the Honesty and Integrity Party, so presumably that would be the name of his party. However, he is also running for re-election to the State Senate as a Democrat. If he goes ahead with his gubernatorial run, he would need to withdraw from his re-election race. Petitioning for third party petitions starts on March 28. Other petitions that will be circulating starting that day are the Green and Constitution Party statewide petitions.