Irrational New York Rules for Petitioning Period Prevent Libertarian Party from Running for U.S. Senate in New York This Year

New York state is operating under a court order that says the petitioning period for state and local office, for independent candidates and the nominees of unqualified parties, is the period July 10 through August 21. But, the petitioning period for federal office is June 19-July 31.

These rules are completely irrational. Most states don’t care how early a petition begins to start. Because the Libertarian Party is not a qualified party in New York, it must obey these rules. But if the Libertarian Party were to circulate a petition this year that includes both Governor and U.S. Senator, the period would be July 10 through July 31, only three weeks.

In theory the party could circulate one petition for U.S. Senate, and a separate petition for Governor, but that would be a great deal of work, so the party is staying out of the U.S. Senate race, and its 2018 statewide petition just has Governor and the other statewide state offices (Lieutenant Governor paired with Governor; Attorney General; Comptroller).

Everything in this post relates to any other unqualified party as well, but as far as is known, the Libertarian Party is the only unqualified party that expects to circulate a statewide petition in New York this year.


Comments

Irrational New York Rules for Petitioning Period Prevent Libertarian Party from Running for U.S. Senate in New York This Year — 6 Comments

  1. WHAT ZILLION YEAR TIME PERIOD WILL THE LP, ALL OTHER MINOR PARTIES AND ALL OTHER INDEPENDENTS GET A LAWYER WITH AT LEAST ONE BRAIN CELL WHICH CAN DETECT THE *EQUAL* IN 14 AMDT, SEC. 1 ???

    — AND WHO CAN ATTACK ALL THE SEPARATE AND UNEQUAL BALLOT ACCESS LAWS IN A-N-Y STATE ???

    COPY BELOW AND PASTE ON WALL CLOSE TO YOUR COMPUTER.
    ———–
    Equal Ballot Access Brief, 3 Aug 2017

           The fundamental constitutional principle of SEPARATE-IS-NOT-EQUAL from the landmark Brown v. Board of Education, 347 U.S. 483, 495 (1954), was unfortunately N-O-T brought up in Williams v. Rhodes, 393 U.S. 23 (1968).

           Every State has SEPARATE and UNEQUAL ballot access laws for the candidates of —
    (1) so-called major parties, 
    (2) old so-called minor parties, 
    (3) new so-called minor parties and 
    (4) independents. [Specify for State involved].
     
           Also, the following basic points have not been properly noticed — 
    (1) there is ONE class of electors in a general election,
    (2) there is ONE class of candidates on the general election ballots (i.e. a candidate is on or off the ballots) and 
    (3) each general election for each office is NEW and has ZERO to do with any prior general election — for such office (or any other office) — or any other thing since 4 July 1776 — EXCEPT the number of actual voters at the prior general election in the election area of the office involved — for having EQUAL nominating petitions at the next election (see below).

          A-L-L ballot access cases have failed to note such basic points including Williams,
    Jenness v. Fortson, 403 U.S. 431 (1971),
    American Party of Texas v. White, 415 U.S. 767 (1974),
    Munro v. Socialist Workers Party, 479 U.S. 189 (1986),
    Norman v. Reed, 502 U.S. 279 (1992) and
    New York State Board of Elections v. Lopez Torres, 552 U.S. 196 (2008).

    [I.E. suggest/demand that ALL of the cases beginning with Williams be overruled.]
     
          The Equal Protection Clause in 14th Amendment, Sec. 1 requires that all candidates for the SAME office in the SAME election area pass the SAME (i.e. *EQUAL*) test(s) for ballot access to get on state or local general election ballots.

           Obviously an *EQUAL* nominating petition for ALL candidates for the SAME office in the SAME area will show which candidates have a preliminary showing of voter support — or EQUAL filing fees.

            See also Moore v. Ogilvie, 394 U.S. 814 (1969) (equal regional treatment of electors who sign petitions) and Romer v. Evans, 517 U.S. 620, 631-636 (1996) (discrimination against homosexuals).

           The Moore case was noted in Bush v. Gore, 531 U.S. 98, 107 (2000).
    —-
    The cases can be seen via

    http://www.findlaw.com/casecode/supreme.html

  2. I believe the court order is based on HAVA and affects all the parties, not just non-qualified parties. Before HAVA the dates were the same for all offices. The permanent parties have it worse in a way because there is no overlap at all for their Congressional and other candidates. The petition period has already come and gone for Federal offices because under the court order there will be a separate primary for Federal offices in June. The normal primary for all other offices under state law is in September. The major parties and permanent minor parties have to go through two completely separate processes to get candidates on the ballot. Their only benefit is that they can nominate statewide (but not local) candidates by convention, while the Libertarians can’t. But they still have to hold two separate nominating conventions on different dates, not just one like in the past.

  3. It looks like the Greens have chosen not to run a Senate candidate. That’s too bad.

  4. New York and all other state ballot access laws are censorship and unconstitutionally pre-empt the authority of Congress to judge who fit to sit as a member in their respective houses (Article 1, Section 5, Clause 1.)
    If the members of each house of Congress are the sole judge of elections, returns AND qualifications of their members, then there is no appeal to a ruling by those houses under the constitution until the next election.
    I am contending the Judge of Elections clause, Article 2, Section 5, clause 1 prohibits all ballot access censorship laws in all states and DC as an unconstitutional pre-emption of the Congress by the states. The states are acting as proxies for the self-entrenching political parties aka Democrats and Republicans.
    It is obvious that this has been the basis for the duopoly for over a century and the Courts have *never* been asked to rule on this provision relating to ballot access.
    It is also obvious that slavery was authorized by the Constitution and lasted for nearly a century under the Constitution.
    The longevity of an injustice is no argument for its legitimacy.
    As a candidate for the U S House twice denied access to the ballot in Oklahoma I have standing to sue the state and seek the nullification of Oklahoma ballot access law provisions with clear implications for all other state ballot access laws.
    I decision on whether the Libertarian Party National Committee will be a co-plaintiff in such suit is pending.

  5. DFR–

    So how come some plaintiff did NOT attack the first ballot access restriction [BAR} law – esp. when the *official* ballots happened in 1888-1890 (or earlier BAR laws before 1888) ???

    SCOTUS wrote–

    Evidently it also needs to be repeated that the overriding responsibility of this Court is to the Constitution of the United States, no matter how late it may be that a violation of the Constitution is found to exist.
    Chessman v. Teets, 354 U.S. 156, 165 (1957).

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