On March 21, U.S. District Court Judge Otis D. Wright heard Chamness v Bowen, 2:11-cv-1479, in Los Angeles. This is the federal lawsuit that challenges the part of California’s top-two system that doesn’t permit members of unqualified parties to list their party preference on any ballot. The law also forbids any candidate to describe himself or herself as an independent. The plaintiff, Michael Chamness, is a candidate in an upcoming special congressional election. He is a registered member of the Coffee Party but he is being forced to have “no party preference” on the ballot. He is seeking injunctive relief, so an opinion should be out in a few days.
The judge seemed uncomfortable with this case, and suggested that party labels on the ballot are not important, because candidates can describe themselves in the Voters Pamphlet. He also suggested that party labels are not important because perhaps most voters vote according to whether they recognize the name of the candidate. However, many federal and state precedents suggest that ballot labels are very important when voters choose whom to vote for.
Two U.S. Supreme Court decisions that express this idea are Cook v Gralike, and Anderson v Martin. Cook v Gralike struck down a Missouri law that placed on the ballot, next to the name of all candidates for Congress and state legislature, a label telling that candidate’s position on amending the U.S. Constitution to impose congressional term limits. Anderson v Martin struck down a Louisiana law that said the race of each candidate should be printed on the ballot. Both laws were unconstitutional, because they were designed to injure certain candidates, relative to other candidates. Both decisions were unanimous.
As usual ALL voters in a State are allegedly aware of ALL Laws and ALL court cases.
The labels in top 2 primaries mean about ZERO.
— especially for the showboat MORONS with any labels about fictional parties.
Any — I prefer Outer/Inner Space Party — yet in CA ???
Gee — what did the 2008 WA top 2 SCOTUS case say about the PUBLIC nomination process in the WA top 2 primary ???
Washington state doesn’t discriminate in the matter of party labels. All candidates are equally free to describe themselves as they wish, as long as the label is not longer than 15 characters and is not obscene.
The federal judge should be uncomfortable ruling in a case where the interpretation of a state statute is subject to being interpreted by the California courts.
IIUC, Michael Chamness, some time in November 2011 completed a new affidavit of registration, declaring his intent to affiliate with the Coffee Party at their next primary, the presidential primary in February 2012 (unless the date is changed). He signed the affidavit, certifying it was truthful and correct. I’ll presume he did not commit perjury.
If some Daddy Starbucks funded a registration drive and the Coffee Party qualified, the Chamness could vote in the Coffee Party primary. Since the Coffee Party is not currently a qualified party, Dean Logan, the Los Angeles County Registrar, filed the affidavit under miscellaneous party affiliations, which is a distinct classification from Decline To State.
At 12:01 AM on January 1, 2011 Dean Logan recast Chamness’s registration as a party preference for the Coffee Party, under terms of Elections Code 2151(d).
If Chamness had previously declined to state his affiliation, then it is not possible for him to have affiliated with the Coffee Party. But Chamness claims to have affiliated with the Coffee party, so it is impossible for him to have declined to state his party affiliation.
Under terms of Elections Code 300.5, 8002.5, 13105(a), candidate Chamness would have to appear on the ballot as “My party preference is the Coffee Party” or ” “.
If the election were conducted under the pre-Proposition 14 statutes, (1) Michael Chamness would be barred from having his name appear on the ballot, because of his recent change of party affiliation; and (2) even if that were true he would have to collect 500 signatures, rather than 40.
I think Chamness should get a new lawyer whose interests are aligned with him, rather than against him.
How many folks in the Coffee Party ???
One or less ???
Did the Coffee Party do anything to show that it existed as a *political party* — and not a party at a local bar — with or without coffee ???
http://www.leginfo.ca.gov/.const/.article_2
ARTICLE 2 VOTING, INITIATIVE AND REFERENDUM, AND RECALL
[[ added for emphasis]]
SEC. 5.
(a) A voter-nomination primary election shall be conducted [[to select the candidates]] for congressional and state elective offices in California.
All voters may vote at a voter-nominated primary election [[for any candidate]] for congressional and state elective office [[without regard to the political party preference disclosed by the candidate]] or the voter, provided that the voter is otherwise qualified to vote for candidates for the office in question.
The [[candidates]] who are the top two vote-getters at a voter-nominated primary election for a congressional or state elective office shall, [[regardless of party preference]], compete in the ensuing general election.
(b) Except as otherwise provided by Section 6, a [[candidate]] for a congressional or state elective office [[may have his or her political party preference, or lack of political party preference]], indicated upon the ballot for the office [[in the manner provided by statute]].
[Standard loophole for party hack statutory machinations]
REST OMITTED for the moment.
—–
The preference stuff means about ZERO.
CANDIDATES are being nominated — not some party hack label.
It is my view that using the word “Independent” would be
confusing to the electors, viz. it is part of the name of a quailified political party named the “American Independent Party”.
Sincerely, Mark Seidenberg, Vice Chairman,
American Independent Party
#6, Californians have been seeing “independent” on their general election ballots ever since the beginning of government-printed ballots in 1891. This includes 3 US House independents in 2010, and 2 in 2008. The Supreme Courts of Massachusetts and Minnesota, and the 6th circuit, have all ruled that “independent” is a label that cannot be banned for true independent candidates.
When did ballot access become a W-A-R with battles on many Fronts ???
— due to the EVIL robot incumbent party hacks of course since 4 July 1776.
Equal ballot access
P.R. and App.V. – to END the rule of the EVIL robot party hacks.
#7 In California, an independent nomination was one made by petition by a massively large group of voters, that is independent of the nominations by political parties made in a primary. In Libertarian Party v Eu the California Supreme Court ruled that it not inaccurate to refer to such nominations as being “Independent”.
In California, “independent” was a characteristic of the nominators, who might individually be affiliated with political parties, rather than of the candidate. This is also true of partisan candidates. Remember that Richard Nixon was nominated by the Democratic Party in 1948. He was nominated by two parties, he was not affiliated with both.
If California had independent nominations for presidential elector in 1912, William Howard Taft electors would have run as “Independent”.
In California, candidates are no longer nominated for any office except President. So an Independent nomination only applies to that office.
How much hair-splitting is now involved in the WAR for ballot access ???
— even more hair-splitting than the SCOTUS party hacks have been doing especially since 1865 ???
#9, you are apparently unaware that back in 1912, candidates who petitioned onto the general election ballot in California were permitted to choose a partisan label for the ballot other than the word “independent.” This fact has been brought out in the Field v Bowen lawsuit.
Either the judge is poorly-informed or he wasn’t thinking when he suggested that candidates’ self-descriptions in the Voters Pamphlet could make up for not being allowed to list their parties on the ballot. Aside from the issue of whether information that appears only in the Voters Pamphlet has the same impact as information that appears on the ballot, the suggestion ignores the fact that candidate statements only appear if the candidate pays a substantial amount of money in advance for them to appear (or convinces the county election official that he or she can’t afford to pay, in which case the candidate must agree to be billed later if circumstances change).
In the case of the 36th Congressional District, the fees for candidate statements are not currently available on the L.A. County Registrar-Recorder’s website, but those from the recent special elections for State Senate are. If one applies the same cost per registered voter figure used for candidate statements in those elections to the current election, Chamness would have to pay at least $11,600 for a statement to appear only in the English-language voter pamphlets, or at least $23,200 for a statement to appear both in English-language and Spanish-language voter pamphlets. (No information is provided about what, if any, additional charge there is for statements to appear in in Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Tagalog and Vietnamese versions of the voter pamphlet, as those languages are also used on ballots in Los Angeles County.)
If a candidate must pay more than thirteen times the filing fee just to have an accurate description of his party preference appear in the Voters Pamphlet (but not on the ballot itself), are voters really being provided with information about the candidates’ party preference?
#11 Taft supporters would have had to qualify an entirely new party in order for his electors to appear on the ballot, and they failed to do so. They had to run as write-in candidates for elector, and voters were forced to write in each individual elector.
At that time, electors were still elected as individuals. The reason that 11 Republican (Roosevelt) electors and 2 Democratic (Wilson) electors were appointed may be due to careless tabulation at the precinct level. Instead of listing each elector candidate and that they received N votes, they would list the first candidate of the slate as receiving N votes. In the canvass and recount, the other candidates would receive zero votes for that precinct. I’m pretty sure California did not complete their tally of “popular votes” until well past the time necessary to determine a “national popular vote” winner.
Since California did not have permanent voter registration until 1930, with voters instead registering every two years, were candidates who qualified by petition treated more like they were candidates of new parties? When were petitions due back then? The primary was in August until WWII.
#13 contains factual errors. Taft was free to qualify by petition in California if he had wanted to. But with the California Republican Party having given its nomination to Theodore Roosevelt, Taft knew even if he were on the ballot as an independent he would lose badly in California. He preferred to remain off the ballot so that he would have a campaign issue against Roosevelt of unfairness in California.
The reason that California elected 11 Republican electors and 2 Democratic electors was that California, like all states at the time, let voters vote separately for each candidate for elector. When two slates were very close, it was not uncommon for the highest vote-getter on the weaker slate to get more votes than the weakest vote-getter on the stronger slate. The two Democratic electors who were elected in California got, respectively, 283,436 votes and 282,651 votes. The two Republican electors who weren’t elected got, respectively, 282,594 votes and 282,383 votes. One can note that the margin between one Democratic winner and one Republican loser was only 57 votes.
#13 Would-be Taft electors sued to have their names placed on the Republican ballot. The California Supreme Court in Sbarboro v Jordan, ruled that the Republican convention had lawfully chosen the Roosevelt-electors.
At that time, the electors were chosen by a convention of the the holdover Republican senators, plus the Republican nominees for the senate and assembly (chosen at the September 1912 primary).
Taft electors-candidates would have had to get 11,600 signatures of voters who had not voted in the September primary.
California Senator John Work issued a statement denouncing the Roosevelt Republican convention of denying voters the chance to vote for Taft and Sherman, saying “no kind of sophistry or evasion can conceal the fact that this whole proceeding is fraudulent”, and said that he was going to vote for Wilson.
California still was counting popular votes on December 8, and there was a recount going on in Los Angeles County, where an appellate court had ruled that the vote tally sheets from the precincts should be used, rather than the certified vote totals.
In some instances, election judges had simply made a tally mark for the first elector on the slate, and then when they were finished wrote that all candidates on the elector slate had received the same number of votes. So it is possible that the the number of votes that you have listed above did not match markings made by voters on their ballots.
You will find this interesting:
July 10, 1912 New York Times editorial “Question For The Courts”.
# 15 One more history reason to abolish the timebomb Electoral College and ALL of the MORON madness connected with it — party hack Prez primaries and party hack conventions.
Will the 2012 gerrymander election for Prez cause Civil WAR II ??? Stay tuned.