Five governors announce they’re relaxing or ending stay-at-home orders, allowing certain businesses to reopen
The governors of Georgia and South Carolina each announced that the stay-at-home orders in their states would be relaxed. Governors in three other states—Colorado, Montana, and Tennessee— announced that their stay-at-home orders would not be extended further.
- In Colorado, Gov. Jared Polis (D) announced on April 20 that he would not extend the state’s stay-at-home order, scheduled to expire April 26. He said he would still encourage social distancing, but that retail curbside delivery and elective surgeries could begin April 27, with a goal to reopen bars and restaurants by mid-May.
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Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp (R) announced that fitness and personal care businesses could reopen April 24, with restaurants and theaters following suit on April 27. Bars and nightclubs were expected to remain closed.
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In Montana, Gov. Steve Bullock (D) announced April 22 that the state’s stay-at-home order would end on April 26. Places of worship could open April 27, retail stores with social distancing practices on April 27, and bars and restaurants with limited capacity on May 4. The school closure in the state will be rescinded May 7, but individual districts will be left to decide whether or not to reopen for in-person instruction.
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South Carolina Gov. Henry McMaster (R) announced that several types of nonessential retail businesses could reopen in the state beginning April 20, including department stores, sporting goods stores, book stores, craft stores, jewelry stores, and floral shops.
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In Tennessee, Gov. Bill Lee (R) announced April 20 that he would not extend the state’s stay-at-home order, scheduled to expire April 30. He said there would not be a phased reopening, and that the majority of businesses in the state would be allowed to reopen May 1.
Courts in nine states extend restrictions on in-person proceedings
This week Ballotpedia tracked nine state supreme courts that extended restrictions on in-person proceedings and suspension of jury trials.
Governors in 11 states announce schools will be closed for in-person instruction for the remainder of the academic year
The governors of 11 states each announced that schools would remain closed to in-person instruction for the remainder of the academic year. Prior to this week’s announcements, schools in 10 of those states had been closed through either April 30 or May 1. North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper (D) had previously announced schools in his state were closed through May 15.
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Since the start of the coronavirus outbreak, 42 states have closed schools to in-person instruction for the remainder of the academic year. Those states account for 87.9% of the 50.6 million public school students in the country.
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Of the eight states that have not announced that schools will for the remainder of the year, four have Democratic trifectas, two have Republican trifectas, and two have divided governments.
Ohio to hold limited in-person voting for state legislative, judicial, and municipal primaries
Ohio is holding a statewide primary on April 28. The primary was originally scheduled to be held on March 17, but polls were closed by the order of the state health director due to the coronavirus pandemic. Ohio Governor Mike DeWine (R) signed HB 197 into law on March 27, extending absentee voting in the state’s primary to April 27 and setting the date of in-person voting to April 28. In-person voting is limited to individuals with disabilities and those without home mailing addresses.
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Ballotpedia is covering elections for the following state offices:
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Ballotpedia is also covering elections for the following municipalities:
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Cuyahoga County
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Fairfield County
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Franklin County
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Hamilton County
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Lucas County
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Ohio has a Republican state government trifecta. A trifecta exists when one political party simultaneously holds the governor’s office and majorities in both state legislative chambers.
Sponsors of Arkansas redistricting initiative file lawsuit seeking relief from signature petition requirements
Arkansas Voters First, sponsors of an initiative to create an independent redistricting commission, filed a lawsuit against Secretary of State John Thurston (R).
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To qualify for the November ballot, sponsors need to submit 89,151 valid signatures by July 3, 2020. Signatures for Arkansas initiatives must be collected in person. Currently, none of the 26 states with a process for citizen initiatives allow electronic signature gathering.
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In the lawsuit, the group seeks relief from certain signature petition requirements, such as in-person signature, witness, and notary requirements. The group asked to be allowed to gather electronic signatures and asked for the deadline to be extended by one month to August 3, 2020. Thurston said he does not have the power to suspend the signature requirements.
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The lawsuit filing said, "Close, in-person interactions are necessary to any effort to gather wet signatures for an amendment to be placed on the ballot. However, given the severe restrictions on the ability to physically interact with others, Plaintiffs cannot comply with Arkansas’s formal constitutional and statutory signature requirements. Given the current circumstances, Arkansas’s requirements unduly burden Plaintiffs’ fundamental First and Fourteenth Amendment rights under the U.S. Constitution."
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The initiative would create the Citizens' Redistricting Commission for state legislative and congressional redistricting. The commission would have nine commissioners. It would replace the Board of Apportionment (the governor, the secretary of state, and the attorney general) that is currently responsible for state legislative redistricting in Arkansas. The state legislature is currently responsible for congressional redistricting. The measure would establish qualifying criteria for members and would restrict individuals from serving if they were, within the last 5 years, an elected official, lobbyist, political party officer, political action committee employee, or if they were the spouse of any such individuals. The measure would establish criteria for drawing district maps.
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On March 19, 2020, Arkansas Voters First suspended signature-gathering efforts due to the coronavirus pandemic but stated they planned to complete signature gathering before the deadline for the 2020 ballot when restrictions were lifted. When the group filed its lawsuit on April 22, Arkansas Voters First Director Bonnie Miller said, “We have a right to petition our government to amend our constitution. We don’t have the luxury of waiting until next year. If we are denied access to the ballot this year, Arkansas could be stuck with unfair and unrepresentative districts for another ten years.”
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Ballotpedia is tracking changes to ballot measure campaigns, procedures, and policies and ballot measure-related lawsuits in response to the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic.
Hogan appoints Jones to Maryland House of Delegates
Gov. Larry Hogan (R) appointed Dana Jones (D) to the Maryland House of Delegates on April 23, filling the only vacancy in the 188-member Maryland General Assembly. Jones replaces Alice Cain (D), who resigned at the end of the March legislative session for family reasons.
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Jones won the Democratic Central Committee’s nomination for the District 30A seat with seven out of twelve votes. She is one of two delegates representing the district and will serve the remainder of Cain’s term, which ends in January 2023.
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With Democratic majorities in the state House and state Senate and a Republican governor, Maryland is one of 14 states with a divided government. As of the date of Jones’ appointment, there were 21 Republican and 15 Democratic state government trifectas.
Group files signatures for California ballot initiative on dialysis clinic requirements
Californians could vote on a ballot initiative related to dialysis clinics for the second general election in a row. In 2018, 59.9 percent of voters rejected a proposal, titled Proposition 8, that would have required dialysis clinics to issue refunds to patients or patients' payers for profits above a defined threshold. The SEIU-UHW West, a labor union that sponsored Proposition 8, announced that a similar ballot initiative would be filed for 2020.
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On April 21, 2020, the Los Angeles County Clerk's office told Ballotpedia that the union-backed campaign submitted signatures for a ballot initiative to enact several requirements for dialysis clinics. Counties have eight working days to count signatures followed by 30 working days to conduct a random sample of signature validity. At least 623,212 signatures need to be valid.
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The ballot initiative would require chronic dialysis clinics (CDCs) to do the following:
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have a minimum of one licensed physician present at the clinic while patients are being treated, with an exception for when there is a bona fide shortage of physicians
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report data on dialysis-related infections to the state health department and National Healthcare Safety Network (NHSN);
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provide a written notice to the state health department and obtain consent from the state health department before closing a chronic dialysis clinic.
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The proposal would also state in law that a chronic dialysis clinic cannot "discriminate with respect to offering or providing care" nor "refuse to offer or to provide care, on the basis of who is responsible for paying for a patient's treatment.”
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The SEIU-UHW West is also sponsoring the campaign in support of the 2020 ballot initiative, which is called Californians for Kidney Dialysis Patient Protection. The campaign has raised $5.91 million, all of which came from the labor union. The Stop the Dangerous & Costly Dialysis Proposition PAC was registered to oppose the ballot initiative. The committee has raised $2.02 million, with $1.01 million from DaVita, Inc. and $1.01 million from Fresenius Medical Care.
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In 2018, the committees in support of and opposition to Proposition 8 raised a combined $130.43 million, making the ballot measure the most expensive of 2018 and the third most expensive in California history. Opponents raised $111.48 million of the total, with 90 percent coming from DaVita and Fresenius Medical Care North America.
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The recommended deadline for California campaigns to file signatures was April 21, 2020. Election officials need to verify signatures by June 25, 2020. As of April 22, four citizen-initiated measures have qualified for the election on November 3, 2020, and four more are awaiting signature verification. Campaigns for an additional five ballot measures may have submitted signatures on April 21 to county elections offices, but at least two of them announced that the coronavirus pandemic negatively affected their in-person signature drives. Click here for the latest update on campaigns that did submit signatures.
Three more states temporarily release prison inmates due to coronavirus
On April 21, corrections officials in New Jersey announced that they are considering the release of 1,105 inmates due to the coronavirus pandemic. The announcement follows an April 10 executive order signed by Gov. Phil Murphy (D). In his order, Murphy established a process for certain inmates to be released to temporary home confinement or to be granted parole. Those qualified for release include low-risk incarcerated individuals vulnerable to the disease based on age and health status, and low-risk inmates who have been denied parole within the last year, or whose sentences are set to expire in the next three months.
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Other states recently announced plans to release inmates temporarily due to the coronavirus pandemic. On April 15, Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Wolf (D) issued temporary reprieves for the first group of Pennsylvania state inmates who qualified under criteria established through Wolf’s April 10 executive order. Inmates considered for release under Wolf’s order are nonviolent inmates due to be released within the next nine months, or vulnerable inmates who are within 12 months of their release date. The inmates would return to prison upon the expiration of the disaster emergency to serve the remainder of their sentences. Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker (D) signed an order on April 7 that allowed the Illinois
Department of Corrections to temporarily release "medically vulnerable" inmates so long as the governor's disaster proclamation was in effect.
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To date, 16 states have ordered the release of inmates at the state level, 15 states have ordered the release of inmates at the local level, and two states have prohibited the release of certain inmate populations.
Arizona state senator tests positive for COVID-19
On April 22, Arizona state senator Lupe Contreras announced that he had tested positive for COVID-19, the disease caused by the novel coronavirus.
Candidate filing period ends for state and judicial races in Michigan and judicial races in Florida
Major party filing deadlines passed to run for elected office in Michigan on April 21 and Florida on April 24.
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Michigan’s filing deadline was extended from April 21 to May 8, 2020, for candidates to offices that require nominating petitions to access the ballot. These include non-incumbent judicial candidates and independent state executive candidates, among others. Offices that offer candidates the option to pay filing fees to access the ballot did not have their filing period extended.
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In Michigan, candidates filed for the following state offices:
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In Florida, candidates filed for the following state offices:
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The primary in Michigan is scheduled for August 4, and the primary in Florida is scheduled for August 18. The general election in both states is scheduled for November 3, 2020.
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Michigan and Florida’s statewide filing deadlines were the 35th and 36th to take place in the 2020 election cycle. The next statewide filing deadline is on May 5 in Massachusetts.
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Michigan has a divided government, meaning no political party holds a state government trifecta. Florida has a Republican state government trifecta. A trifecta exists when one political party simultaneously holds the governor’s office and majorities in both state legislative chambers.
Ballot Measures Update
Seventy-seven statewide measures in 31 states have been certified for the 2020 ballot so far.
- Nineteen of the certified measures are citizen-initiated measures. Fifty-seven are legislative referrals. One is an automatic constitutional revision commission question.
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Three measures were on the March 3 ballot, one measure was on the April 7 ballot in Wisconsin, one measure is on the June 30 ballot in Oklahoma, two measures are on the July 14 ballot in Maine, and the remaining 70 are on the November ballot.
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One new measure was certified for the 2020 ballot last week
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Proponents of four additional ballot initiatives in California, Colorado, and Michigan submitted signatures, which are pending verification by state officials.
Special Elections
So far this year, 43 state legislative special elections have been scheduled in 20 states. Special elections have been held for 22 seats so far; heading into those races, Democrats had previously controlled 10 of the seats, while Republicans previously controlled 12. One seat has flipped from Democratic control to Republican control. One seat has flipped from Republican control to Democratic control.
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In special elections between 2011 and 2019, one party (either Republicans or Democrats) saw an average net gain of four seats nationally each year.
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An average of 55 seats were filled through special elections in each of the past five even years (2010: 26, 2012: 45, 2014: 40, 2016: 65, 2018:
99).
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An average of 88 seats were filled through special elections in each of the past five odd years (2011: 94, 2013: 84, 2015: 88, 2017: 98, 2019:
77).
Upcoming special elections include:
May 12
May 19
States in session
Eight states—Arkansas, Kentucky, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Vermont—are in regular session.
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