Although the Minnesota House has passed a bill making the definition of a qualified party more severe, the Senate appears to have doubts about that idea. The House version of the omnibus bill, HF 1830, raises the vote test from 5% to 10%. But the Senate version of the omnibus bill, SF 3230, no longer does. Instead it has a new provision saying that in party primaries, no one can get on the ballot unless he or she has some support with the party organzation, or unless he or she submits a primary petition.

Under current law, no one needs a petition to get on a primary ballot. The whole idea of raising the vote test from 5% to 10% was because Democratic legislators believed that the two Marijuana Parties, which had qualified party status in the past (one of them still does) were being invaded by insincere candidates in their primaries, who didn’t care about legalization of marijuana but just wanted to be on the November ballot to attract votes that otherwise would mostly go to Democratic nominees.

The new alternate idea of requiring primary candidates to have some support with the party leaders, or to submit a primary petition, would solve the perceived problem with the marijuana parties. Then there would be less motivation for the legislature to eliminate such parties by raising the vote test for qualified status.

On April 25, the Texas Senate passed SB 1705 on second reading, which means it is extremely likely to pass third reading very soon. It requires all parties to nominate by primary, except for newly-qualifying parties. The vote was 17-13, with Republicans in favor and Democrats opposed. An amendment to make the bill effective in 2026, instead of 2024, was defeated.

The bill would require the Libertarian and Green Parties to nominate by primary instead of convention. In Texas, parties must administer their own primaries, which means finding primary polling places and staffing them. Parties are reimbursed for their costs, but the burden is still substantial.

For most of the twentieth century, the Texas Republican Party nominated by convention because it didn’t feel capable of administering statewide primaries for itself. Election administration experts have recommended that states not provide primaries for small qualified parties because they are a waste of taxpayer dollars. In particular, Dr. Joseph P. Harris of U.C. Berkeley, considered the nation’s leading expert on election administration starting in the late 1920’s, until his death in the early 1980’s, held this view, which he published in his book, “A Model Direct Primary System” in 1951.

Although the Montana bills to make ballot access for minor parties and independents more restrictive have repeatedly been tabled, they are not dead. On April 24, the deadline for such bills to pass out of committee in the second house was extended from April 25 to April 28, to give the bills more time to pass.