Bills have been introduced in the Tennessee legislature to add a question about party membership on the voter registration form. They are SB 1144 by Senator Joey Hensley (R-Hohenwald), and HB 1045 by Representative Kelly Keisling (R-Byrdstown).

The bills also provide that in the 2024 primary, every voter would be asked about joining a party. Then, starting in 2026, primaries would be closed; only registered party members would be able to vote in a party primary.

Tennessee has never had partisan registration. That is true of most southern states.

On February 23, the Kansas House passed HB 2086. Among other things, it requires declared write-in candidates to pay the same filing fee that candidates on the ballot must pay.

Courts in California, Maryland, and West Virginia have ruled that it is unconstitutional to require write-in candidates to pay filing fees. The only legitimate purpose of filing fees is to prevent ballots from being too crowded, according to the unanimous U.S. Supreme Court decision Lubin v Panish. Write-in candidates’ names aren’t printed on ballots, so there is no legitimate rationale for filing fees for write-in candidates.

On February 17, the Eighth Circuit issued an opinion in SD Voice and Cory Heidelberger v Noem, 21-3195. It strikes down the South Dakota petition deadline for initiatives, which is one year before the election. The decision is by Judge L. Steven Grasz (a Trump appointee), and is also signed by Judge James B. Loken (a Bush Sr. appointee) and Judge Raymond Gruender (a Bush Jr. appointee). Here is the 16-page opinion.

The opinion is probably the most significant lawsuit win for the initiative process since the First Circuit decision last year that struck down Maine’s residency requirement for initiative circulators. There had never before been any federal court decision that held the petition deadline for an initiative can be too early.

The plaintiff is a Democrat who is active in placing initiatives on the ballot. He will probably next work on an initiative to repeal the sales tax on groceries.

The decision notes that South Dakota uses random sampling to check the validity of initiatives, and in the past has been able to validate an initiative petition in only two days, using random sampling. Of course, even in states that use random sampling, there are times when the random result is so close that the state must then check all the signatures. Thanks to Robbin Stewart for this news.