On September 8-9, the California Green Party held a general assembly in Riverside, California, to decide which candidates to list on its presidential primary. Seven names were submitted to the California Secretary of State: Jared Ball, 35, of Washington, DC; Elaine Brown, 64, of Atlanta, Georgia; Jesse Johnson, 48, of Charleston, West Virginia; Cynthia McKinney, 52, of Atlanta, Georgia; Kent Mesplay, 44, of San Diego, California; Ralph Nader, 73, of Winsted, Connecticut; and Kat Swift, 34, of San Antonio, Texas.
Although Cynthia McKinney has announced she is not seeking the nomination, her name will remain on the ballot unless she notifies the California Secretary of State to delete her name.
Will the Honorable Ralph Nader be allowed to be on the primary ballots of both the Green Party of California and the Peace and Freedom Party of California?
There’s now law against it. But I think it is unprecedented, for anyone to be on the ballot in the presidential primary of two different parties in the same state in the same year.
California permits fusion for president. In 1940 Wendell Willkie was listed on the November ballot as the nominee of the Republican Party and of the Townsend Party. In 1928 Herbert Hoover was listed on the November ballot as the nominee of the Republican Party and the Prohibition Party.
Granted, California allowed cross-filing until the 1950s. While Willkie was on the ballot for the Republicans and Townsendites, Hiram Johnson was on the ballot as the nominee of the Republicans, Democrats, Progressives, and Townsendites. Had Johnson officially filed as a Prohibition candidate, he could have won that nomination too.
California still allows cross-filing. The 1959 bill did not make it illegal for two parties to jointly nominate the same candidate. All the 1959 bill did was make it illegal for someone to get on a primary ballot if he or she isn’t a member of that party, but presidential electors aren’t chosen in direct primaries; they are chosen in party meetings. Also it’s still legal for people to be nominated by 2 parties in a primary if the candidate can win the nomination of the “foreign” party by write-ins. Jackie Spier was the nominee of both the Democratic and Republican Parties in 1994 for 19th Assembly district. She got the Republican nomination by write-ins.
Although the catch for Presidential electors is that if you have a P&F set and a Green set both for Nader, then they have to be the exact same 55 electors, or else the votes can’t be legally combined.
At least that’s my understanding of things.
But then again, the Greens will probably nominate someone else. And for all we know, P&F is going to nominate LaRiva.
Speaking of LaRiva, is PSL planning a ticket too? or is P&F just putting here on the ballot as an acknowledgement of her previous work for P&F?
Yes, as anon says, for Nader to be the fusion Green, Peace & Freedom presidential nominee, the two parties would need to work out a joint slate of candidates for presidential elector, presumably containing some nominees from each party.
I believe I heard several months ago that PSL is planning on running a presidential candidate in 2008. I do not have a link though.
A PSL ticket could get access in Colorado and Louisiana (I think LA is still a fee-only state). I don’t think they can make it on the ballot in Florida (unless they get a very minor party to nominate them and it’s an organized party).
We need some sort of tree to sort out all these socialist-left parties.
I must confess confusion here. I don’t live in CA. I trust the CA Greens to be doing the right thing. I do hope they have a plan in place for those delegates allocated to each candidate in the event they choose not to run.
For example, if Nader wins 55% of the vote, McKinney 25%, Brown winning 10% with the rest splitting 10%, would the 90% dedicated to Nader or McKinney be free to vote as they wish, or would their votes automatically go to the remaining candidates in proportion they did win? That presumes of course that Nader, Brown and McKinney persist in rejecting a Green Party run.
I think that the national party is going to face the hard reality that we have not done what it takes over the past four years to make ourselves attractive as an alternative to the Ds and Rs for potential national level candidates.
Surely, for example, if we had won a seat or two in a state legislature, paid all our bills on time, grown our membership by twenty percent per year, and established a national unity behind securing full ballot status in every jurisdiction, we might have been able to attract someone like Mike Gravel, Patricia Schroeder, perhaps a Jerry Springer, or a maverick move by an in-place politician who believes the mold must be broken into many pieces, say a run by John Lewis or Bernie Sanders.
Unfortunately for us, and in my opinion, for America, the national level Green Party has not been able to pull in one direction, even the wrong one, for more than three years. There are shining examples, like Rich Whitney’s better than 10% total in the IL governor’s race, the election of Cara Jennings in FL, and the election of the mayor of Richmond, CA, that we can learn from and emulate. We must succeed in order to succeed. We must win partisan races to prove it can be done. We must prove to the voters that we can get solid people elected who will make their lives better, and then we can expect better results.
It is my understanding that Gloria La Riva is the presidential nominee (or, at least, virtual nominee) of the Party for Socialism and Liberation. I do not know who the vice-presidential nominee is (of even if one has been selected yet).
Dickey Balls for President 2008