On November 7, a lower state court in Michigan ruled that it is unconstitutional for the state to hold presidential primaries for the two major parties and then give the list of participants only to those two major parties. Grebner v State of Michigan, Ingham County Circuit Court. Judge William Collette ruled from the bench at the conclusion of the hearing. A quick appeal is virtually certain. Thanks to Thomas Jones for this news.
Ballot Access News
Edited By Richard Winger
Wednesday, November 7, 2007
From My Blogs In
BlueHampshire.com / thenewhampshireprimary.com / NHInsider.com
-Jim Splaine
Now More Options For
New Hampshire’s Presidential Primary Date?
Well, well! A Michigan County Circuit Court Judge ruled that part of the recently-passed law in that state setting their primary on Tuesday, January 15th is unconstitutional. What luck.
Why luck? Well, Michigan Democrats are meeting tonight (Wednesday) to decide if they want to move their event — perhaps a caucus — to an earlier time, such as Tuesday, January 8th, or to keep on January 15th, or to move to a latter date. This ruling could encourage them to stick with January 15th at the earliest, and to not try to piggyback on New Hampshire at all.
But the real luck comes in having the Michigan Republicans re-think what they’re going to do. They could try to get the Michigan Legislature and Governor to re-enact a bill creating a January 15th Primary, OR they could decide their own event is going to evolve into a caucus for that date, or later. Or, they could appeal the court ruling, but time is running out for them.
IF the Michigan Republicans do stick to January 15th or go even later, and the Democrats don’t try to go any earlier themselves, it would give our Secretary of State a number of new options — he could set our primary for Tuesday, January 8th, Wednesday, January 9th, Thursday, January 10th, or even Friday, January 11th. Our state law requiring him to hold our primary at least “…7 days or more…” before a “similar” election would give him that flexibility. Plus, he could announce a firm date very soon.
Every day later after January 8th that we hold our primary adds 24 hours for candidates to campaign here following the Thursday, January 5th Iowa Caucuses. That allows candidates who don’t do well in Iowa to recover, and those who do well there to further make their case and get a second up-close-and-personal look-over by New Hampshire voters.
Previous recent decisions by the Nevada Democrats to stick to Saturday, January 19th instead of moving up, and by the Iowa Democrats and Republicans to hold their caucuses on Thursday, January 3rd instead of January 5th or 7th, were vital. That gives us these good options for the second week of January.
Perhaps all the discussion during the past month about the possibilities of “The December Option” did some good in getting those out-of-state powers-who-be to move some of their schedules around to give New Hampshire some room. Now a court judge from Michigan gives us a dose of luck as well.
If all this holds, United States Senator Carl Levin is out of the running as my selection of “Person Of The Month,” and that county court judge is in the running. I’ll have to find out his name.
None of their sports teams are among my favorites, but today I’m cheering “Go Michigan!”
Jim Splaine
NH State Representative
Portsmouth & Newington
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