The Ninth Circuit has told attorneys on both sides in Independent Party v Padilla that it wishes to hold oral argument in October. The exact date of the hearing will be determined after the attorneys let the court clerk know their availability. The case is 16-15895. The lawsuit challenges the California Secretary of State’s determination that the Independent Party cannot register itself as a political body, because the name is too similar to the already-existing California party called the American Independent Party.
Because the Secretary of State has never accepted the Independent Party’s political body status, no one knows how many registered voters the Independent Party has. If it has as many as approximately 65,000, then it would qualify as a political party.
Ballot-qualified parties named the Independent Party exist, or have existed sometime in the last 40 years, in Arkansas, Connecticut, Delaware, Florida, Hawaii, Louisiana, Maryland, New Mexico, North Carolina, Oregon, South Carolina, and Utah.
FWIW, Wyoming solves this problem by disallowing the word “Independent” in a party name.
So does Tennessee. But California has no such law.
California has no rational basis for requiring 65,000 persons to register with a party in order for the party to be recognized by the state. Before 2010, it might have, because at that time California had segregated partisan primaries, and had to run separate primaries for each party. In addition, the parties had nomination rights, and the number of registrants determined whether there was a modicum of support for the party to nominate.
If California decides to continue with partisan registration, it should require the party to organize first, prior to voters expressing a preference for the party. California could require a minimum number of voters, say 100, indicate their willingness to affiliate with a new party. If the putative party satisfied other requirements, such as having officers and an organizational structure, bylaws, financial reporting, and control of the organization by the registered voters who form the party, the party preferences of the founding members would be changed, and other voters permitted to affiliate.
Parties that have qualified or attempted to qualify over the past 20 years could be checked to determine how many registrants they had. Voters registered with groups with less than 100 voters would be informed that unless there were over 100 registrations in the next 90-180 days, their registrations would be changed to No Party Preference, and it would no longer be possible to register with the party. The voters would also be invited to change their registration.
Groups with over 100 registered voters would be placed in an unorganized status. Parties that have had over 100 registrants in California National, Christian, Conservative, Constitution, Humanist, Justice, La Raza Unida, Moderate, Natural Law, Pirate, Reform, Rock and Roll, Superhappy, We Like Women, and WHIG parties. Some of these may have fallen below the 100 threshold, and would be treated the same as those that were never over 100.
Larger groups could hold a state convention if they wished to be recognized as an organized party. Voters affiliated with an unorganized party could still express that preference as a candidate, and voters could continue to register with the party.
The SOS would prepare a list of other registrations (like is done in Louisiana). This might require going back to the original registration documents for those registered as both Other and No Party Preference. It is quite likely that some NPP are misclassified. Party organizers could scan the list and propose recognition of groups of voters (e.g taking into account variant spelling). These groups would then be handled the same as groups that formally sought recognition.
“Independent” registrations could be handled as a special case. New party names could be proposed, and voters could have the opportunity to change their party affiliation. If they did not, their preference would be changed to NPP.
After this process was completed, write-in party preferences would eliminated. Registrars would inform voters who attempted to do so, and request that they specify a recognized party, or be registered as NPP.
Candidates who had No Party Preference could choose from among “No Party Preference”, “non-partisan”, “unaffiliated”, “independent”. All candidates could choose to have no party preference on the ballot, just as the occupation/profession/position designation is optional.
Does this Independent Party of California have a website?.. Who are its leaders?