On February 7, a U.S. District Court in Hawaii upheld a state law that requires independent presidential candidates to submit six times as many signatures as are needed for a new party. Nader v Cronin, civ 04-611.
For 2008, independent presidential candidates need 4,291 signatures, whereas new parties only need 663 signatures. When a new party qualifies in Hawaii, the state is obliged to print up primary ballots for it, and it is entitled to nominate for all partisan offices in the state.
Judge J. Michael Seabright said “Although groups seeking to form a new political party needed 677 signatures in 2004, political parties are subject to different requirements not applicable to independent candidates, including filing the petition by April 1, 2004 (as opposed to September 3, 2004 for independent presidential candidate petitions). Further, political party candidates may be subject to primary elections or party conventions, while independent candidates’ names are placed directly on the ballot upon submission of a valid petition.”
Of course, the “burden” of holding a primary is a burden on state elections administrators, not a burden on the party.
As to the fact that petitions to qualify a new party in Hawaii are due much earlier, the judge probably didn’t know that in 1986, another U.S. District Judge issued an injunction against the Hawaii April deadline on the grounds that it was unconstitutionally early. The 1986 decision ordered the state to put the Libertarian Party on the ballot, even though it didn’t finish its petition by the deadline. Afterwards, the party never returned to court to obtain declaratory relief, so the April deadline still exists in the law.
Nader’s current lawsuit against Hawaii also included a charge that petition-checking procedures in Hawaii violate due process. Judge Seabright feels this claim may have merit, and he set a trial for March 4 on that issue.
Separate is NOT equal — as in *equal* protection of the laws in 14th Amdt, Sec. 1 — way too difficult for MORON lawyers and judges to understand.
Another Civil WAR coming soon to a State near you — due to such MORONS — since the lessons from Civil WAR I in 1861-1865 have NOT been learned by such MORONS ???
The equal protection argument is valid, but as a practical matter, beside the point.
If you’re an independent candidate for president (or any other office) and you have identified a couple people in the state who support you, just form a damned party! It’s not that hard! Nader would rather curse the darkness than light a candle.
The filing deadline for a new party is 170 days before the primary. There is a 20-day review period. The filing date for candidates for the primary is 60 days before the primary. So that only provides a 90-day window for candidates to determine that they wish to seek the nomination of the new party, gather signatures, etc. This seems entirely reasonable to me.
Incidentally, the filing deadline for new parties is mentioned in Burdick v Takushi as one of the easy ways that a would-be candidate could gain access to the ballot.
You misinterpreted the quote from the decision. It says that there is a burden on _candidates_, not on the party itself. That is, while ballot access for the party is trivial (1/10% of registered voters), a candidate has to secure the support of that party. Mr.Nader was the candidate of the Green Party in 2000. He could have sought that party’s nomination in 2004. But he would have had to gain support in primaries (plural) and conventions. This is in reference to a candidate seeking the presidential nomination of a ballot-qualified party and has nothing to do with the state-run party primaries for other offices.
St. Louis Oracle: Forming a new party is precisely what Nader did in several states in 2004, and precisely for this reason. The Populist Party of Maryland comes to mind.
The reason the Hawaii deadline for a new party is bad policy is that new parties don’t need a primary of their own. They can nominate by convention. If all states had had government-printed ballots in 1854, with deadlines in April, the new Republican Party could not have been launched that year. The party was formed in response to the Kansas-Nebraska Act, signed into law in May 1854. In the fall 1854 congressional elections, the new party won more seats in the House of Representatives than any other party. April petition deadlines for new parties would have made that revolution impossible that year.
All this “should have”, “could have” crap is ridiculous, or slanderous (and if the posters abv are Democrats) scurrilous.
It would probably also be useful for the abv posters to look at history; candaites running as independents and not as a party nomnee are usually doing fo for a purpose – say, non-partisanship.
The real crux of the matter is that the Democrats who have been relentlessly working for keep US elections from being either fair or open are really showing the gangstery qualities. Join us or be crushed.
Let me quess, the flacks posting abv are Obama believers? Suckers.
One needs to recall the congressional calendar prior to the 20th Amendment. The term of the 33rd Congress was from March 4th, 1853 to March 3rd, 1855. The first session (which passed the Kansas-Nebraska Act) lasted from December 5, 1853 to August 7, 1854. The 2nd session was held after many of the elections for the 34th Congress – there was not a uniform election date for Congress until after the Civil War. Many States elected their representative after the beginning of the the term, but before the traditional meeting date in December.
The 1st session of the 34th Congress did not begin until December 3, 1855, 19 months after passage of the Kansas-Nebraska Act. The challenge to organizing was not that of early nomination deadlines, but of early general elections.
I think you will find that very few members of the 34th Congress were elected as “Republicans”. Your assertion of plurality status likely rests on counting members of what eventually became the Republican caucus. For example, Nathaniel Banks, who was chosen Speaker after 2 months and over 100 roll-call votes, was elected as an American candidate. He had been elected in 1852 as a Democrat, and was elected in 1856 as a Republican.
Had there been Australian ballots in 1854 and a Hawaii nomination system, and a modern congressional calender, many of those opposed to the K-NA might have sought election on the basis of other parties (eg most of the “Republicans” elected from Illinois in 1854 had been elected as “Whigs” in 1852. Or if the Hawaii all-comers primary had been in effect, they could have run as non-partisan candidates in the primary.
In elections for the 35th Congress in 1856-7, 78 incumbents (about 1/3) ran for different parties than they had in 1854-5. It was at this election that most “Republicans” ran as Republicans (and lost even marginal control of the House).
The Hawaii all-comers primary system is based on the ideal that the voters should choose the candidates and their officials. That this might be contrary to a belief that it is the role of the party elite or cognoscenti or those who possess magic decode rings to choose the candidates is no matter of concern. These party elites can certainly play a role in identifying and supporting candidates, and helping them gather the 15 to 25 signatures necessary to place their name on the ballot before voters who choose that party’s primary ballot.
The example of the founding of the Republican Party in 1854 is not the only example of why early petition deadlines are a bad idea. The Progressive Party of 1912 wasn’t even conceived of until June 1912, and wasn’t organized until August 1912. But back then, all states except Oklahoma had petition deadlines for new parties in August, September and October of election years.
Because of Oklahoma’s unreasonable June deadline, Oklahoma voters couldn’t vote for Theodore Roosevelt.
The election calendar in place in 1854 meant that Republican party was organized roughly 18 months before its candidates took the oath of office. It is disingenuous to cite this as an example of a late filing deadline.
Had the Hawaii system been in place in 1854, would-be Republicans could have run in the Whig primary; or there might have already been American party or Free-Soil parties in place, or in an extreme case they could have run as non-partisans. There could have been a Republican Party in place by 1856 which could have placed Fremont’s name as the presidential candidate.
The reason the Progressive “Party” was organized in June 1912, was because Roosevelt was shut out of the convention that month, despite winning most the few primaries that were held that year (for the first time). Had there been more primaries, he would have been the Republican nominee for President. His running mate, Hiram Johnson remained in the Republican Party and was re-elected as governor of California in 1914 as a Republican. Most of the Progressive Party representatives in the 63rd Congress had been previously elected as Republicans or were subsequently elected as Republicans.
Had the Hawaii system been in place in 1912, Roosevelt would have been the Republican nominee, and progressive elements would probably been successful in the Republican primaries for Congress and legislative offices.