This Thursday, March 25, 2010, is Crossover Day in the General Assembly. If a bill does not clear the chamber it originated in by the close of business on that day, it cannot be considered in the other chamber, and therefore cannot go to the Governor for his signature into law.
To clear the chamber it originated in, a bill must first clear the committee to which it is assigned, and in some cases it must first clear the subcommittee before it can clear the committee. If it sits in committee, it can possibly be cleared in a single day. I believe it takes two days to clear a bill that sits in subcommittee.
Here’s the problem: No ballot access bill has cleared the committee or subcommittee it is currently sitting in, and as of right now neither the House Governmental Affairs committee (where all four House ballot access bills currently reside) nor the Senate Ethics committee (where the Senate ballot access bill currently resides) is scheduled to meet this week.
We put up a good fight in 2010 for ballot access. We had FOUR separate bills introduced to address some form of ballot access reform.
Senator David Shafer introduced his “Voter Choice and Ballot Access Act” (SB 359), which would have granted organizations who qualify as “political bodies” in the State of Georgia (currently only the Libertarian Party of Georgia fits this definition) to nominate candidates for ALL partisan races in the State. It would also allow a form of “electoral fusion” in Ga, whereby a political body could co-nominate the candidate of a political party (currently only the Democrats and Republicans fit this draconian definition).
Representative Bobby Reese introduced his bill (HB 1141) to lower petition requirements from 5% of the registered voters in the district to the lesser of 5,000 signatures or 5% of the registered voters in the district.
HB 1257, introduced by Representative Alan Powell, and HB 1425, introduced by Representative Stephanie Benfield, are largely the same in that both would remove nomination petitions (and thus, signature requirements) completely AND force incumbents to qualify in exactly the same ways everyone else does. The differences are that 1425 also eliminates a reference to electronic voting machines in Section 1, and in Section 11 specifies that statewide candidates would be nominated by statewide convention and local candidates would be nominated by local convention (this is for political bodies, who do not have primaries). I’m not sure which procedure regional officials, specifically General Assembly candidates, would fall under here.
But look at three of these names in particular: David Shafer. Bobby Reese. Stephanie Benfield. Shafer is the honorary chair of the Georgia Republican Liberty Caucus – the “libertarian” wing of the Republican Party. Reese, from what I have seen, is a more prototypical Republican. Benfield is widely acknowledged as one of the most liberal members of the General Assembly. Yet all three support our efforts to ensure genuinely equal ballot access in the State of Georgia, and thus a genuinely open Free Market at the ballot box.
I would like to publicly thank each of these members and everyone else who worked so hard for us this year, and I hope we can continue the fight in the 2011-2012 Session. I also hope to meet each of the General Assembly members involved when I come to the Dome tomorrow on my way back to Albany, but I know they are very busy this week with Crossover Week and I can certainly understand if they don’t have the time.
For the 2009-2010 session, ballot access reform is officially dead in the water unless some 12th hour miracle happens.
