On January 22, New Mexico State Representative Brian K. Moore introduced HB 331. It eliminates the need for qualified minor parties to submit a petition for each person its nominates at its conventions.

New Mexico is the only state that requires a new or minor party to submit one petition to qualify itself…lets that new party nominate by convention…and then expects that new qualified party to submit another petition for each person nominated. The logical equivalent would be a state law requiring a person nominated in a party primary to then submit a petition to get himself or herself on the November ballot. Such a law would be laughed at.

Or consider another analogy: can one imagine a state requiring President Bush to submit a petition to get himself on the November ballot after he has won the Republican presidential nomination at the party’s national convention? Yet that is what New Mexico does, to qualified parties that do not nominate by primary.