On March 19, the Alabama House passed HB 541, which changes Alabama primaries from open to closed. The vote was 69-32. Now the bill moves to the Senate.
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On March 17, the Hawaii Senate Judiciary Committee passed HB 1716. The bill had already passed the House. It says that a party that has been ballot-qualified at least eight years may remain on the ballot indefinitely as long as it runs at least one candidate every other election, and keeps its list of officers current with the state elections office.
Other states with a similar policy are Idaho and South Carolina.
Here is the 20th in a series of Election Law Roundups from Walter Olson of the Cato Institute.
On March 18, the Michigan Senate passed SB 697, which lowers the number of signatures for statewide independent candidates from 30,000 to 15,000. The old requirement had been declared unconstitutional several years ago, so in the meantime, the court had imposed 12,000 signatures.
Also on March 18, the Senate passed SB 693, which moves the non-presidential primaries from August to May. Fortunately Michigan does not tie the primary date to the deadline for petitions for new parties or independent candidates, so the bill has no impact on those filing deadlines.
According to this story, Antonio Villaraigosa, who has been excluded from the California gubernatorial debate of March 24, will sue the debate organizers if the organizers don’t expand the list of invited candidates.
Villaraigosa is a former Speaker of the California Assembly and a former two-term Mayor of Los Angeles. His attorney is Eric George of Los Angeles.