The Oregon House Interim Committee on Rules has introduced many bills that affect minor parties and independent candidates. HB 2428 would eliminate fusion. Several parties could still nominate a candidate, but the candidate could only have one party label on the ballot. The candidate would choose which party label to use.
HB 2442, and also SB 263, would go into effect immediately and would say that no political party can have “independent” as its name. The bill would let the ballot-qualified Independent Party choose a new name. The bill would also provide that independent candidates, who are now on the ballot as “Nonaffiliated” would in the future be on the ballot as “Nonaffiliated/Independent.” The bill says that letting any party call itself the Independent Party is confusing.
HB 2432 says that party labels must be printed on the ballot without being abbreviated. In 2010, the Oregon Secretary of State permitted some counties to show only party abbreviations on the ballot. Virtually every voter knows what “Dem” and “Rep” means, but the abbreviations for minor parties are much less understood. For example, the Green Party was abbreviated “PGP” (which is an acronym for “Pacific Green Party”).
HB 2421 would require qualified minor parties to forward a list of voters who participate in their nomination process. Most ballot-qualified minor parties in Oregon nominate by convention, but the Independent Party nominated with a mail-ballot, paid for by the party itself.
An Oregon bill that only affects the major parties is HB 2492, which eliminates party officer elections from the primary ballot, and says parties should choose their officials any way they wish, but at their own expense.
