On November 17, the Alaska Supreme Court ruled unanimously that the state’s old definition of “party” is constitutional. The case is Green Party of Alaska v State, no. S-11964.
The old definition of “party” existed between 1984 and 2004. It was either a group that had registration equal to 3% of the last gubernatorial vote, or which had polled 3% for Governor.
In 2004 the legislature made the definition more difficult, and a case is currently pending in lower state court against the new, more difficult, definition. The new ruling from the Alaska Supreme Court will make it more difficult to win the pending case against the new law.
The Alaska Supreme Court decision has factual errors. Footnotes 40 and 41 say that Colorado, Georgia, Kansas, Montana, Nebraska, New Mexico and North Dakota all require a party to poll a certain vote for either Governor, or for Governor and President, to remain on the ballot. The Alaska Supreme Court got the law of those seven states wrong. Either the Court citated to an outdated law which has since been changed (North Dakota), or it didn’t understand the difference between ballot-qualification and the separate issue of whether a party gets a primary (Kansas, Colorado, Georgia), or it just misread the laws (Nebraska, New Mexico, Montana). It is hoped that the attorney for the Green Party will write a letter to the Court and ask it to correct these errors.
This decision is just plain wrong! Between Jonni Whitmore, Jed Whitaker, Jim Sykes and many others the Greens have had record-breaking results up here in Alaska. Percentages in the double digits for many top offices!
We heard rumors when the Republicans took over the Governor’s mansion in 2002 that they were out to destroy the minor parties–they almost had the Libertarians, but we pushed up our registration total–and now they actually have done it.
I could not let this story pass without at least one comment.