On April 25, the Montana legislature forwarded SB 270 to the desk of Governor Brian D. Schweitzer. It moves the petition deadline for non-presidential independent candidates, and petitions for the nominees of unqualified parties, from June to March.

Please ask Governor Schweitzer to veto SB 270. His fax is 406-444-5529. His e-mail is governor@mt.gov. His postal address is State Capitol, Helena Mt 59620. He must act by May 5.

The only argument in favor of this bill is that since Democrats and Republicans must file declarations of candidacy in March to run in the June primary, therefore all others ought to act in March as well. But the “equal treatment” argument is fallacious. Candidates running in primaries don’t need petitions. Statewide independent candidates in Montana need 5,000 signatures. Forcing them to submit these petitions in March requires them to petition in winter. Furthermore, non-presidential independent candidate petitions deadlines are unconstitutional, if they are that early. Similar deadlines, for office other than president, have been invalidated in Alabama, Alaska, Arkansas, Indiana, Kansas, Kentucky, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Missouri, Nevada, New Jersey, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, and South Carolina. Even Montana’s old March deadline was invalidated in a Montana lower state court in 1990, which is why the legislature moved it to June in 1991. The Montana Supreme Court then ruled that the plaintiff who filed the 1990 lawsuit didn’t have standing to complain about the deadline, so there was no final judicial opinion in a higher court in Montana.

On April 25, the Alabama House Constitution & Elections Committee passed HB 407. It says that the state’s presidential electors shall be elected proportionately. Alabama currently has 9 electoral votes. If the bill had been in effect in 2004, it would have meant that President Bush would have received 6 electoral votes and Senator Kerry would have received 3 electoral votes (based on the popular vote percentages for each).

On April 25, the U.S. Supreme Court heard oral argument in Federal Election Commission v Wisconsin Right to Life. According to the Associated Press, “a majority of the Supreme Court appears to be skeptical of restrictions on campaign ads.” Observers said it was the most energized U.S. Supreme Court argument so far this term. Every justice except Justice Clarence Thomas asked a question. There will be voluminous news media coverage of the argument throughout all major media later today and in print tomorrow morning. For an amusing eye-witness account by Allison Hayward, see here. To read the 72-page transcript of the oral argument, see here.

On April 24, Maryland Governor Martin O’Malley signed SB 488, which lets ex-felons register to vote.

On April 24, the Florida Senate Ethics & Elections Committee passed SB 960 by a 3-2 vote. It moves the presidential primary from March, to one week after the New Hampshire primary. That could create a January 29 primary, or even an earlier primary, depending on what New Hampshire does.

The bill also outlaws vote-counting machines with no paper trail.

However, the bill was amended to toughen the rules for groups that carry on voter registration drives, thereby causing Democratic legislators, and many interest groups, to say they will now fight the bill. In 2005, Florida had passed a bill imposing huge fines on groups that carry out voter registration, if they don’t get all the forms turned in quite soon after they have been filled out. But the 2005 law made an exception for political parties. In 2006, a federal court had issued an injunction against the law, citing the discriminatory treatment given to political parties. The 2007 amendment to SB 960 removes the exemption given to political parties, and reduces the fines.

On April 24, the Colorado House State, Veterans and Military Affairs Committee passed SB 83. The bill lets qualified minor parties nominate someone, even if that person has not been a registered member of the party for the past year. This provision of the bill gives qualified minor parties the same flexibility that major parties in Colorado already enjoy. The bill also lets people circulate a petition for a candidate for district or local office, even if those circulators don’t live in that district or local jurisdiction. Another part of the bill, to let parolees register to vote, was deleted from the bill. Opponents said this part of the bill violates the State Constitution, and that the policy change can only be made by amending the State Constitution.

As expected, on April 24, the Arizona House passed SB 1430, which makes the deadline for independent candidates and new parties worse. See the April 23 posting for more detail.

On April 25, MySpace.com and Mark Burnett announced that they will team up to produce a new Internet/Television show, similar to other reality shows, for potential independent candidates for president. Mark Burnett produced Survivor, The Apprentice, The Contender, Rock Star INXS, among other hit “reality” TV shows.

It is thought that Wayne Allyn Root (who is seeking the Libertarian presidential nomination) has been aware of this coming development, and plans to participate.

The show will immediately begin to search for a host TV network. It expects to begin searching for applicants in September 2007. The show would air in early 2008. The winner would receive a prize of $1,000,000, but the money could only be used for political activity. The show will be interactive, meaning that viewers and MySpace users would give feedback to the contestants and together would determine the winner.

A somewhat similar attempt was tried in 2003, called “The American Candidate.” However, the producers of that show were intimidated into banning actual candidates from participating in the show, because of fear of the federal campaign finance laws. “Independent” is resolute that it will not buckle under and that it wants actual candidates to participate. “The American Candidate” was supposed to have run on the Fox TV network, but in the end Fox dropped it and it only ran on Showtime.

All three briefs have now been filed in the U.S. Supreme Court in Kidwell v City of Union, Ohio, no. 06-1226. The issue is whether government can spend public tax dollars to advertise for or against an initiative. The 6th circuit had ruled 2-1 that governments may spend such money. The next stage is that the U.S. Supreme Court will decide whether or not to take the case.

On April 23, a U.S. District Court in Tallahassee, Florida, decided that a jury trial will be held starting June 18, 2007, to help determine who are the legitimate national officers of the Reform Party. The case is Reform Party USA v O’Hara, 4:05cv426. The lawsuit was filed in 2005 by Charles Foster, Ruben Hernandez and Beverly Kennedy in the name of the Reform Party, against three other groups which hold themselves out to be the national officers of the Reform Party.

This lawsuit is probably the first lawsuit in U.S. history in which a court will determine who the national officers of any political party are. There have been hundreds of lawsuits over the centuries to determine who the state party officers are, of various state parties, major and minor. But as far as is known, this is the first such lawsuit over national party officers. Thanks to Jerry Heinemann for this news.