In California, a “political body” is a group that has expressed intent to qualify as a party using a voter registration drive. The Secretary of State’s website always lists such groups. On April 7 the Secretary of State finally added No Labels to its list. The party had requested political body status two weeks ago. Here is the Secretary of State’s list.
The Billings Gazette has this op-ed opposing SB 566, which would use a top-two system for just one office in 2024, U.S. Senate. The op-ed is also signed by Sid Daoud, the chair of the Montana Libertarian Party, and Gary Buchanan, the only independent candidate who was on the ballot for any congressional race in Montana in 2022.
On April 6, North Dakota Governor Doug Burgum, a Republican, vetoed HB 1273. This is the bill that bans charter cities and town from using Approval Voting and also Ranked Choice Voting for elections for their own officers. Fargo, the largest city in the state, uses Approval Voting. No place currently uses Ranked Choice Voting.
On Friday, April 7, the House will consider whether to override the veto. See this story. Thanks to Daniel Ong for the link.
On March 30, the Idaho House killed SJR 101a. It would have made it more difficult to qualify a statewide initiative, by requiring the petition to contain the signatures of 6% of the voters in every legislative district. It had passed the Senate.
In the House, the vote was 39-31. Even though it got more “yes” votes than “no” votes, it lost because it required two-thirds of the legislators to vote in its favor.
On April 5, the Hawaii House Finance Committee passed SB 1005 unanimously. It sets up a presidential primary. The bill has already passed the State Senate. Hawaii is one of the few states that has never before had a government-administered presidential primary.
