On May 11, the Texas House passed HB 1987 by 103-42. It prohibits candidates for public office from being officers of a political party. The bill only applies to parties that nominate by primary. The Libertarian Party of Texas worked hard to get the bill amended so that it doesn’t apply to convention parties. Here is the text. Thanks to Jim Riley for this news.
Ballot Access News
Edited By Richard Winger
Current law prevents county and precinct chairs from being candidates for federal, state, or county office. County and precinct chairs administer primaries, and are themselves elected by primary. The intent is to prevent them running as candidates in an election they oversee, and also from appearing on the ballot twice.
The bill as passed extends this restriction to members of the state executive committee and state chair and state vice chair.
There is currently an exception for convention-nominating parties. The original bill would have removed the exception. The bill was amended to retain the exception. There is not a conflict for these parties since they do not have primaries. Conventions are self administrating, and choose their own presiding officer. A county or precinct chair might serve as temporary chair.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Constitution_of_Texas
How many sections with qualifs for public officers ???
Too many arrogant powermad gerrymander hacks in the TX legislature to count ???
@DR,
Texas has lots of laws against dual-office holding.
See Article 16, Section 40. Article 16, Section 65.
Bad law. It discriminates against parties that don’t have enough people to go around who are willing and able to take either role.