The Newark, New Jersey Star-Ledger has this editorial, advocating that the New Jersey legislature legalize fusion, the ability of two parties to jointly nominate the same candidate.
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On Thursday, April 27, the Montana House Administration Committee passed SB 565, the bill to drastically increase ballot access restrictions on minor parties and independent candidates. A different version of the bill had already passed the Senate. It increases the presidential independent petition from 5,000 signatures to 15,000 signatures. It increases the petition for a newly-qualifying party from 5,000 signatures to 5% of the number of voters who voted in the last election, which would be 30,604 signatures. It makes the same increase for non-presidential independent candidates.
It raises the number of votes needed for a party to remain ballot-qualified from 5% of the winning gubernatorial candidate’s vote, to 5% of the total number of votes cast.
It makes the distribution requirement for the petition to qualify a party much more difficult.
The Committee chair had said on April 26 that he would not hold a meeting on April 27. But then the Speaker of the House ordered him to hold the meeting, so the meeting was conducted with no public notice, in violation of the rules. No opponent of the bill was present. It is known that the vote was 10-8, with two Republicans and all the Democrats voting against the bill. UPDATE: here is a news story about the committee vote, although it erroneously says the petition to create a new party requires 5% of the winner’s vote in the last gubernatorial election. Actually the law requires 5,000 signatures.
Two New Jersey primary candidates have asked the U.S. Supreme Court to hear their case concerning slogans that appear on New Jersey primary ballots. Mazo v Way, 22-1033. The issue is a 1944 New Jersey law that restricts the content of ballot labels in primary elections. New Jersey, unlike any other state, permits primary candidates to choose a label of up to six words that conveys the candidate’s political stands. But New Jersey forbids those slogans from containing the name of any individual unless that individual consents to have his or her name used. Also forbidden is any mention of a New Jersey corporation, unless the corporation gives consent. The lower courts upheld the restriction.
Here is the cert petition. Thanks to ElectionLawBlog for this news.
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 26, the Florida Senate passes SB 7050, an omnibus election law bill. The bill includes a provision repealing the “resign to run” law for presidential and vice-presidential candidates. Assuming the bill is signed into law, this means Governor Ron DeSantis can run for president in 2024 without the fear that he would be forced to resign as Governor in January 2025, even if he had not been elected president or vice-president.
Very few states have “resign to run” laws. They put office-holders who are in the middle of their terms at risk of losing their current job if they run for another job and fail to win it.