On February 10, the Second Circuit refused to enjoin the new New York definition of a qualified political party. SAM Party of New York v Kosinski, 20-3047. Here is the twenty-page opinion, which was written by Judge Michael H. Park, a Trump appointee. It is also signed by Judge Robert D. Sack, a Clinton appointee, and Steven J. Menashi, a Trump appointee.
The new definition requires a party to poll 2% of the presidential vote to retain its qualified status. The decision says there are two state interests in the new, more difficult requirement: (1) to improve the chances that the winner will get a majority of the popular vote; (2) to save money, because the state now has public funding for candidates for state office, although it doesn’t start until 2024.
Both justifications are utterly without merit. Point one could be solved if the state used ranked choice voting. Point two is easily rebutted by pointing out that the Second Circuit already ruled in a Connecticut case that states need not provide public funding to minor parties or independent candidates.
The decision falsely claims that removing a party’s qualified status is not a severe burden, because its nominees can use the independent petition. But the decision utterly ignores the fact that New York is one of only eleven states in which an unqualified party cannot regain its status as a qualified party in advance of any particular election. Because New York has no means for a group to become a qualified party in advance of an election, it must have separate petitions for each of its district nominees, plus a separate petition for its statewide nominees. For an unqualified party to run a full slate of U.S. House candidates alone would take 94,500 signatures; for a full slate for State Senate, 186,000 signatures; for a full slate for Assembly, 225,000 signatures; for a statewide slate, 45,000. That totals 550,500 signatures, and that doesn’t even include city and county office, nor Justice of the Supreme Court.
The decision does not mention that these independent petitions must be completed within a six-week period, due in May of election years.
The decision claims that other courts have upheld similar severe definitions of a qualified party, but all of the precedents listed in the decision are from states with a procedure for a group to transform itself into a qualified party in advance of any particular election.
The decision says that because president is the only statewide office always on the ballot in presidential years, the state needs to make the presidential vote part of the definition of a qualified party, if it wants to have updated information about the strength of parties every election. This is false; if the judges were familiar with the laws of other states, they could see that other states solve this problem by using registration data, which Alaska, Arizona, California, Colorado, Delaware, Louisiana, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Nebraska, Nevada, and Oregon use. Or New York could measure a party’s vitality by noting how many nominees it runs, as Idaho, South Carolina, Mississippi, and Louisiana do. Thanks to Frank Morano for this sad news.
Maybe folks need to tell the UN and other relevant international agencies about how undemocratic states like New York are. Biden and the Democrats at least care to some degree how the rest of the world views them, so some international outcry might persuade them to lower the requirements, since these judges were either incompetent, biased, or too scared to cross Cuomo and the neoliberal Establishment.
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-trump-party-exclusive-idUSKBN2AB07P
More on the short road to 666 TOP ONE.
ANY mention of 14-1 Amdt EQUAL in the JUNK op ???
ANY same olde LP loser lawyers involved ???
LAST HOPE –
18 States with Voter pets for St const amdts
—
NOOOOOOOO hope in NY – except by New Age Union Army enforcing 4-4 RFG
— perhaps lead by Prez/Gen U.S. Grant in Grant’s tomb in NY City.
The garbage comments at times tbd will be made by Nathan Norman and possibly also Cody Twerp. This garbage comment is made by Kreskin and will lead to additional garbage comments by Andy Not Gonzalez, Nathan Norman under various names, Robert Milnes and some other losers with their highly scientific detective work about my identity followed by more back and forth where they feed off each other’s genius. In the end, after everyone else gets tired and moves on, Milnes will turn it into the latest mulrichapter installment of his online journal.
Yeah, thanks to you. Demo rep said voter pets, not nom pets. None of that would have happened, but now it will because of you. Thanks a lot Einstein. Or Kreskin or whatever.
This is horrible news. New York now has one of the worst ballot access laws in the country. Requiring 45,000 petition signatures in 6 weeks is INSANE.
Does New York still have the requirement that says a New York voter can only sign a petition for one candidate for each office? If so, this will make it even more difficult.
ANY appeal to SCOTUS hacks ???
— also appointed by party hack Prezs.
Funny how everybody in government is suddenly a fiscal conservative once it involves spending money on having free, fair, and equal elections.
Amazon or Google needs some subsidies; sure, here’s 2 billion dollars. Spend millions on new signage to rename a bridge, perfectly fine. The military wants a fleet of new ships; sure here’s 200 billion dollars. An extra $50 million for state public funding for independents and minor parties or to have state funded primaries… you’ve gotta be crazy.
New York sux. It’s the worst state in the country, even worse than California. Smart people who used to live there such as Trumps, Giuliani, Limbaugh, Roger Stone, Tucker Carlson and many others are all moving or already moved to Florida.
Demo Rep wants pets to vote. That would make them eligible to sign petitions.
Authoritarian regimes are making a mistake when they outlaw alternative parties. They should use these kinds of tricks instead. And then — who can criticize them? Certainly not American judges!
Duh, let the invisible hand of Adam Smith solve the problem.
@ Arthur:
You got that right. Countries like China and Russia don’t need to actually outlaw opposition. They just need to set up their nomination systems like New York so that only Communists can win.
You fool…see? It was bound to happen anyway and not just because I predicted it.
Dammit Kreskin…amazing.
1. The party retention threshold should be 1% in any partisan statewide election.
2. No more then 5,000 signatures to register a party and its slate of candidates.
https://www.brennancenter.org/sites/default/files/2021-02/2021_2_State%20of%20Redistricting.pdf
Brennan Center — new minority rule GERRYMANDERS 2021-2030.
Courts too evil stupid to detect that VOTERS vote INSIDE each State – NOT Census pops — esp NOT Illegal Invaders [YET].
I have often wondered if some form of proportional representation in one legislative house would be a good way to fight gerrymandering.
PR in use in many *civilized* regimes since 1840s — 1840s —
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proportional_representation
UK, USA, Canada, India. etc. in Gerrymander DARK AGE.
Other regimes in TYRANT Stone Age – Russia, China, etc.
Why does there have to be ANY state recognition of political parties?
How many State Consts mention political parties ???
FIRST State to do so ??? — When ??? — due to Civil WAR I ???
I think somebody is trying to trash out BAN comments with garbage comments.
Mostly by one person.
And we know who.
paulie.
Do you have something against Richard, paulie?
Who is this “We” that know who? Anyone who isn’t a troll who was banned from ipr and remains strangely obsessed with that all but officially dead forum? “Mostly one person” is an ironic garbage comment from one of several people known to trash ban with garbage comments: demo rep, ogle, Milnes, Andy not Gonzalez, Nathan Norman and Cody Twerp. Maybe some other people too, and about half of the garbage comments center around several of these obsessed characters guesses, assumptions and mutual mental masturbation over these other people, who may well be themselves, supposedly bring their old nemesis from ipr. Maybe some of them are him and maybe not. The genius chorus will next predictably say I am him too.
Some non garbage to save this mostly garbage comment :
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/new-republican-party-former-gop-officials-trump/
Should say, being their old nemesis..
Contrary to a lot of nonsense garbage comments by many of these trolls, being anonymous or pseudonymous and being a troll, while they do sometimes coincide, are two different things. The 6 above are trolls who routinely post garbage comments and total nonsense, but they are all identifiable real people. Some other people may be anonymous just to try to avoid some of their relentless cyberbullying and ad hominem while others may be avoiding commenting altogether for the same reason.
Being able to see the future is not always a blessing.
Cody Quirk,
I ask you to come here and state whether you have been making “garbage comments”.
He’s not going to tell you he’s making them.
Einstein,
Correct.
He is going to tell me he has not been making them.
It’s easy to believe people because they always tell the truth and never, ever lie.
I admit it, I do make garbage comments all the time.
Have you ever been brought in to these court trials? it seems you could do better than the opposition lawyers could. Present this kind of argument and we might have a chance in court