Both the North Carolina Republican Party and the Virginia Republican Party are considering adopting state rules that require presidential primary candidates to take a loyalty oath to support the party’s eventual 2016 presidential nominee. See this story. It is likely that courts would uphold the ability of parties to keep people who refuse to sign off their primary ballots.
The Texas Democratic Party had a similar oath for presidential primary candidates in 2008, and Dennis Kucinich refused to sign it. He sued to get on the Texas Democratic presidential primary ballot, but the U.S. District Court and the 5th circuit upheld the authority of the party to keep Kucinich off the presidential primary ballot. Kucinich asked the U.S. Supreme Court to hear the case, but it refused. Thanks to several people for the link.
UPDATE: see this Washington Post story.
“Enforce” is a problematic word. Yes, the right of association would suggest that the parties are free to require such an oath for the primaries. However, I doubt that they would be able to prevent anyone from running as an an independent or alternative-party candidate in violation of such an oath. The worst that they could do, especially if he is from a state that doesn’t register by party, is to be mean to him ever after.
Right, I didn’t mean they could keep him off the November ballot. I meant “enforce” to mean “sign this or you can’t run in our primary.” I will try to re-word the blog post.
What’s next — LIE detector tests on TV ???
NO primaries.
Political science has advanced since the Stone Age.
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Ballot access ONLY via equal nominating petitions.
P.R. and nonpartisan App.V.
love it
Natural Borne Citizen Party National Committee will insist on a candidate loyalty oath towards explicit language and the original intent of John Jay and others regarding eligibility of CINC POTUS — both parents with sworn sole allegiance to the US constitution and the NBC clause — as well as being born at a location under the sole jurisdiction of the US constitutional officer —
Wouldn’t anything the party does be rendered moot by NC’s HB 373? If it does pass the House and gets signed into law, it allows the SBoE to add well-known or media recognized candidates to the presidential primary that aren’t added by the parties themselves, so wouldn’t that “trump” the NCGOP’s loyalty oath? (Not to mention the nomination by petition.)
Don, that’s a good point. Maybe the North Carolina House will amend the bill.
I suspect that that provision would be voided by the courts if the BOE tried to force a party to list a candidate against its express wishes. That is, assuming that the party took the matter to court. Just as the Supreme Court has ruled that a party can nominate nonmembers for office, or exclude nonmembers from voting in primaries, surely it would see the forced listing of candidates to be a violation of a party’s freedom of speech and freedom of association.
The Texas Democratic Party still has the loyalty oath. Kucinich didn’t sign the pledge in 2004, but in 2008 he also crossed off the question.
Texas does have a sore loser law for candidates who appear on a presidential primary ballot that prevents them from running as an independent.