Sunday, July 15, 2007

Ohio Looking to Crash the Party?

After saying in April that the state's presidential primary for 2008 was fine where it was--on the first Tuesday in March--the Ohio state legislature has reconsidered its position. Senator Eric Kearney of Cincinnati introduced a bill on Friday, cosponsored by fellow Democrats, Tom Roberts of Dayton and Shirley Smith of Cleveland, which would move the state's presidential primary for next year from March to January 29th. This is the same date as the South Carolina Democratic primary and the rule-bending primary for the state of Florida. It may be due to the actions of the latter that this action was taken in Ohio in the first place. Florida's, as has been discussed in earlier posts, is a primary outside of the parties' sanctioned windows--February 5 to the first week in June--in which primaries can be held.

At this time, the Ohio General Assembly website has not been updated to include information on bills introduced or acted upon on Friday, so information on the specifics of the bill are lacking at this time. However, it would appear that the bill has very little momentum. The Democratic Party in Ohio continues to support the March 4th primary date and the GOP, while not taking a position on the subject at this time, would not necessarily support a bill sponsored
three Senate Democrats.