On June 25, Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal signed HB 292. It ends partisan primaries for Congressional elections. All candidates for Congress will run on a single primary ballot in November. Usually someone gets over 50%, and there is no other election. But if no one gets 50%, there will be a runoff in mid-December.
Ballot Access News
Edited By Richard Winger
Any lawsuits being filed by the usual suspect party hack gangs ???
P.R. and App. V. — ONE election.
This is great! This is the closet thing to getting back to what George Washington and many of our founding fathers wanted – a political system where the people voted for persons – not parties.
I wish such an election process would become a reality in all 50 states. Then 3rd party candidates and Independents (who are serious) will get off their dead “butts” and act like real candidates for public office.
We’ll have a much better form of government if such could become a reality.
Does anyone know if there any difference between this and the previous system, and does this apply for this coming election, or not until 2012 (or any vacancy that occurs before then)?
The general election, if necessary, will be on the first Saturday in December. This will be either 25 days (3 out of 7 elections) or 32 days after the open primary, and never later than the 7th of December.
Louisiana uses special ballots for military and overseas voters. The ballot package sent to the voter includes 4 envelopes, 2 of which are return (mail) envelopes for the primary and the general election, and 2 of which are ballot envelopes for the two elections.
The special ballots include the names of all primary candidates and permits the voter to rank the candidate. If the general election is held, the vote will be counted for the higher ranked of the two candidates.
For the congressional elections in 2008 (and in 2010) the ballot package had to include up to 6 envelopes, for handling the two congressional primaries and the general election. Which ballots were sent was conditional on the candidate running, their parties, and the registration of the voter. The Secretary of Stare in 2008 provided a chart showing which ballots were to be sent to each voter. Extremely complicated.
Now that California has eliminated the partisan primaries they could easily move their primary to September or even October.
#3 It takes effect on January 1, 2011 and it does apply to special elections.
When Louisiana switched back to party primaries for congressional elections, they had to add a bunch of election code to handle it, since all other elections continued to used the open primary. So the new legislation rips all that out.
So the pre-2008 law handled both congressional and other elections. The law for 2008 and 2010 had separate provisions for congressional elections, but continued to use the existing law for other elections. And for 2011, the separate provisions for congressional elections are removed, and they go back to using the same system for all elections.
Now the main difference between congressional elections and other elections are the dates. Louisiana conducts most of its statewide elections and legislative elections every 4-years in the odd year before the presidential election (2007, 2011, etc.) The open primary and general election are in October and November on Saturdays. The November date is not on the first Tuesday after the first Monday, but a Saturday in mid-month. Any special elections are made to conform to the regular election.
In even years, when there is a congressional election, the open primary will be on the first Tuesday after the first Monday, and the general election, if necessary, on the first Saturday in December. Any special elections, etc. are made to conform to this schedule. But for the most part, the even year election is almost entirely for federal offices, with just a few others thrown in.
#4: So the election that will be held on the first Tuesday after the first Monday in November of even-numbered years will be a “primary”???? I suppose that includes the presidential election?? (Maybe we should start referring to the December meeting of the presidential electors as a “general election.”)
In reality, the first round in Louisiana is the general election, and the second round, if necessary, is a runoff general election (no matter what the state law calls those rounds).
Assuming that the “top two” is upheld: I predict that California and Washington state will have to hold the first round of their congressional elections on the first Tuesday in November. It will be interesting to see whether they also move the first round of their elections for non-federal offices to November; if not, they would have to have three elections, with the runoffs for non-federal offices being held on the first Tuesday in November.
If WA and CA do wind up with a three-round process, I assume that any presidential primaries– which will be partisan– could be held on the same day as the first round for non-federal offices.
#2: Some of the Founding Fathers criticized the concept of political parties, but almost all of them participated in parties.
“I wish such an election process would become a reality in all 50 states. Then 3rd party candidates and Independents (who are serious) will get off their dead ‘butts’ and act like real candidates for public office.”
It’s amazing that so many independents like the “top two,” since they will rarely have the opportunity to elect an independent to office. The final choice will almost always be one Democrat and one Republican, two Democrats, OR two Republicans. And the small parties will ultimately cease to exist.
#5: HB 292, of course, will have to be precleared under Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act (as California’s Prop. 14 also will). Both will have smooth sailing.
Anytime Louisiana has a choice, it holds elections on Saturdays. The 2002 runoff between Sen. Mary Landrieu and Suzanne Terrell (R) was held on Saturday, December 7.
Re my last paragraph in #6: California had its 2008 presidential primaries in February, and Washington state has the first round of its “top two” in August. CA’s Prop. 14, of course, puts the first round of the “open primary” in June.
Since June and August are too late to have an impact on the presidential nominating process, CA and WA will likely hold their presidential primaries (or caucuses) earlier in the year.
If the two states are having to hold the first round of their congressional elections in November, the earlier presidential primaries would increase the likelihood that they would move the first round of their non-federal elections to November.
#6 Under Louisiana law the first election is the primary, and the 2nd the general.
A State may use a runoff to appoint its presidential electors. So if Louisiana so chose, it could have a primary and a general presidential election for those as well, along with a presidential preference primary.
There is nothing in Foster v Love that would indicate that a FTATFMIN election with two candidates would violate the federal statute. It does say that the election in November should be the final decision, except when it fails to make a decision.
I don’t know what daughter of Love v Blanco said, because the opinion was never published. But that case was not appealed.
And of course, Congress is free to amend the law – either to mandate Top 2 Open Primaries for all states, or to permit their use.
Remember that a concern in 1845 and 1872 was the practice of pipelining, where voters would cross a state line to vote in a second election. There was not voter registration at the time, so a voter could swear that they were a resident.
With the current primary schedule, this practice is quite practical. In certain states, a voter can even say that they intend to move to the State in the future and vote.
If a State wanted to disenfranchise 18 YO; and newly naturalized citizens; and newly re-enfranchised felons; and new residents to a State or district, one way to do this would be to hold early elections that were decisive. Arguably, this violates the 14th, 15th, and 26th amendments.
Remember California tried combining the presidential primary and general primary in March, and ended up with a non-partisan San Diego mayoral election where there was such a long gap between the primary and the general election, that people treated it as an entirely new election.
California used to have a May presidential primary and an August primary. They were consolidated in the 1940s (perhaps related to WWII) and then moved to June. They later moved the primary to March in presidential years, oscillating between March and June. When they went with the February presidential primary, they realized how stupid it would be to have other primaries in February, and split the primaries – but apparently didn’t realize that August or September would be better.
The Democrats in Washington refuse to use the presidential primary results, so Washington could possibly just scrap the presidential primary.
Under federal law, the Louisiana congressional election in November (under the newly passed bill) is “the election”. All of us can probably agree that the definition of “primary” is hopelessly vague and arbitrary when we talk about elections. The root of the word is the Latin word for “first”. The root doesn’t have anything to do with elections per se.
The bigger motivation for Congress setting a federal election law for congressional elections was that Congress didn’t like some states being influenced by the results in other states. Also Congress felt sorry for working people who had to sacrifice in order to get to the polling place, in the days before automobiles. Congress didn’t want people being forced to miss work in order to vote, more than once per year, so by putting the congressional election and presidential election on the same day, that helped solve that problem.
The use of a primary with “meeting” or “convention” has long use in the US, denoting a first meeting – in some cases to prepare for a later mass meeting; in other cases to indicate a first stage in a sequence of meetings, a county or district convention might be a primary meeting to elect delegates a state convention.
In Crawford County, PA, Democrats met in primary meetings in each township and elected delegates to the county convention. After the county convention fell apart without nominating anyone, they jury-rigged a new set of primary meetings, where those attending would vote directly for party nominees rather than delegates. This use of primary meetings to vote for nominees directly, became known as a primary election.
Prior to 1872, most states held their congressional elections at the time of their general election for state officers and the legislature. The 1872 legislation forced them to hold two elections.
The November election date made sense for president given the need to have the electors meet, transmit their votes to Washington, and have the outgoing Congress count the votes, and if necessary choose the President. Before 1845, States were permitted to appoint their electors in the month prior to the meeting of their electors, which as per the Constitution has always been on a single date. Since all but South Carolina used popular election for appointment, they all held their election in the first part of the period, late October or early November, allowing a statewide canvass, notification of the electors, and traveling of the electors to the meeting place in their state.
It really wasn’t a big deal to fix a single date, and the date chosen was a fixed number of days from the meeting date in December.
Given the congressional schedule in 1872, November was about the stupidest of all possible times for a congressional election. The lame duck session would start a month later in December and run up until March 5. If there were a new president, the Senate would hold a short session to consider his nominations for cabinet offices and other appointees. Congress would then go home before the malaria and yellow fever season and not return for the first session of the new term in December.
Based on that schedule, more practical-minded states held their congressional elections in the spring or even in the fall of the odd year after the term had already begun.
The big motivation in 1872 was imposing Yankee hegemony.
Soooo – how soon before the gerrymander Congress changes the the U.S.A. laws to state that the November election day is THE ABSOLUTELY FINAL election day for U.S.A. Reps, Senators and Electoral College Electors ???
I.E. blow away all the MORON State runoff election stuff — and especially Electoral College machinations — as if Bush v. Gore in 2000 was not EVIL and super dangerous enough.
I.E. how much screwing around even with election dates before the whole EVIL gerrymander system blows up — into Civil WAR II ???
i.e. What if control of the gerrymander Congress will be determined by a December runoff election in a MORON party hack State ??? 2000 Bush v. Gore will seem like child’s play.
The Take Office DAY should be about ONE week after each ELECTION DAY — to END all the lame duck EVIL stuff — i.e. one more EMERGENCY U.S.A. constitutional amendment — to blast out lots of obsolete/dangerous stuff in the nearly dead U.S.A. Constitution to repair it.
Count the many timebombs in the EVIL structure —
1. Unequal ballot access laws.
2. Minority rule gerrymanders — U.S.A./State/Local.
3. Now even screwing around with election dates in some MORON party hack States.
The folks in the 1787 Federal Convention lacked a bit of foresight in NOT having a fixed election date put into the Constitution — with a short/long term for the 1st Congress.
The November date is connected with the life or death completion of the fall FOOD harvest in many States in the old days — when most folks were farmers.
Related matter – see the total raving by the party hacks in Canada and the U.K. about having FIXED election dates — NOT rigged by the party hacks.
Is there some sort of natural EVIL in the so-called brains of party hacks — in that they EVIL-LOVE having political chaos — civil wars, revolutions, etc. ???
While all the responses here (and other responses to other ballot access and “people access to their government” legislation of other posts by Richard) all argue good points, none of this constant exchanging of thoughts, ideas, and suggestions, don’t amount to a “hill of beans” unless you put some action behind them.
When are you all going to join me in a “Bridge Crossing” down in Selma, Alabama to get some serious exposure to the injustices toward 3rd partisans and independents? Until you get off your duffs and participate in some real “public awakenings,” you are flapping your gums and will continue to do so.
#13 It took a while for the 1761-1775 folks to get their acts together — after identifying the MAJOR problems involved.
DemoRep,I agree with you – it takes time for folks to come together. But the folks of 1761-1775 DID come together. I have not seen any real evidence of that yet happening with our folks. We seem to spend more time on these blogs comparing, for example, what the current law in Louisiana will or will not do. Maybe I’m just too impatient. After all, I’ve been fighting for the rights of 3rd partisans and independents for some 40 years. Don’t you think it’s time we get off our duffs and do more than talk?
#12 The November election date is mostly an accident.
#9: What was Love v. Blanco about? Was it a federal case?
Congress is not going to pass any legislation concerning the “top two open primary.”
#17 Daughter of Love v Blanco was filed in the Middle District of Louisiana (Baton Rouge). The suit was filed on behalf of the minor daughter of the original Love litigant, who as it happened would turn 18 between the open primary and the general election (IIRC, 2006) Kathleen Babineaux Blanco was governor at the time (incidentally, the original Love litigation was styled Love v Edwards, so it must have been filed before 1996).
The Louisiana legislature had passed a modified calendar for the open primary for congressional elections in order to get rid of the December runoff.
The primary would be in October with the general election on TFTATFMIN. If two candidates filed, they would be placed directly on the general election ballot. If only one candidate filed, he would be elected in November. If three or more candidates filed, and one received a majority then he alone would advance to the general election where he would be declared the winner.
So it was an attempt to comply with Foster v Love by moving 2-candidate elections to the general election and avoid declaring a candidate elected until November. This would have made 60% of congressional elections between 1978-2006 elect a candidate in November (23 unopposed candidates; 31 2-candidate races; and 13 runoffs vs. 45 primaries with 3 or more candidates but a majority winner).
The 26th Amendment was cited since the daughter would not have been eligible to vote in the Open Primary in October, and there might not be a general election in November.
After the district court ruled, Louisiana switched to partisan congressional primaries for 2008. That is, the reason for doing so was to eliminate the December runoff. But in going back to the party primaries they added an election, and had several instances of non-majority winners.
Between 1978 and 2006, there were only 13 runoffs in 112 House races, and 5 of those were related to the loss of a district following the 1990 census, including the creation and subsequent elimination of the Mark of Zorro district.
#17 ANY thing that is remotely a threat to the gerrymander monarchs in the gerrymander Congress is a subject for more gerrymander regime laws.
For the clueless — The U.S.A. regime is an EVIL regime — only slightly less evil than the German monarchy/oligarchy in 1914 or the Japanese monarchy/oligarchy in 1941.
Monarch/oligarch incumbents want NO opposition — in ANY election.
See the late Senator/monarch Byrd in WA as a prime example.
I.E. How soon before the gerrymander Congress kills top 2 primaries — LA, WA, CA, elsewhere — at least for the gerrymander Congress ???