Washington state’s ballot access improvement bill, HB 1534, passed the House on February 14. It has a hearing in the State Senate Elections Committee on February 22 (Friday) at 3:30 pm.
The bill does not make all the improvements that had previously been suggested. It still requires each nominee of an unqualified party to submit his or her own separate petition.
However, it improves current law: (1) it lowers the petition requirement for unqualified party candidates for US House, and for independent candidates for US House, from 1,000 signatures to 250 signatures; (2) it expands the petitioning period; (3) for qualified parties (those which are entitled to nominate by primary), the number of votes needed in the open primary for the person to be considered nominated is lowered from 1%, to 1,000 votes for statewide office, 250 votes for US House, and 100 votes for other partisan office. Although there shouldn’t be any minimum vote requirement, at least these minimums are much lower than the old requirement.
Why shouldn’t the nominees of major parties be required to demonstrate the same level of support in a primary, as those from minor parties who are able to get on the general election directly?
#3 is obviously being proposed in case the “top two” system is not upheld. I believe Washington will ultimately have some form of the “top two,” which will eliminate party primaries and make the vote requirements unnecessary.
The requirements in #3 are a carry-over from the old blanket primary, in which each party’s top vote-getter and any independent had to get at least 1% of the vote in order to advance to the general election.
Under the current pick-a-party primary, only the nominees of major parties are chosen by primary. Minor party and independent candidates are placed directly on the general election ballot. Most of HB 1534 is directed at the process by which minor party and independent candidates secure their place on the general election ballot.
Yes, the current 1% provision is a holdover from the blanket primary, which under Washington’s version did not choose the nominees of minor parties, but rather determined the nominees of major parties, and whether minor party and independent party candidates secured a place on the general election ballot. While the winner of a major party primary would have to also receive 1% of the total vote, the threshold was mainly aimed at minor party candidates and independents, since it was a given that they would have a plurality of the votes of their party (or body of supporters in the case of independents).
Under pick-a-party, the threshold is simply being relaxed to make a consistent standard for general election qualification across the board. Major party nominees not only must have a plurality of the vote in their primary, they must command as much support as minor party candidates demonstrated on their petition.
I suspect that HB 1534 anticipates a favorable decision on the Top-2 Primary, since it addresses the concern of candidates asurping a party’s identity, ay least for minor parties, while carefully avoiding formal recognition of parties or their nominating processes in state law.
This would also explain the decision not to amend HB 1534 to provide for party-wide petitioning. Ultimately, the idea behind the blanket and Top 2 primaries are that individuals are seeking office rather than serving as standard bearers for their party.
Under Washington’s blanket primary, the Libertarians were for a time considered a major party, and their candidates appeared on the blanket ballot.
As I understand it, Washington’s minor parties nominate by convention.
Washington also had an unusual requirement for independent candidates to be nominated by a “convention” in order to appear on the blanket primary ballot.
In the blanket primary, the parties’ standard bearers were indeed chosen. The problem was that non-party members were allowed to help make this choice, to which the parties objected.
During the U. S. Supreme Court’s oral argument on the “top two,” there was considerable concern shown for candidates being able to list a party preference on the “top two” ballot without the party’s approval. But no differentiation was made here between major and minor parties.
To clarify: when the Libertarians were considered a major party in Washington, their nominees were chosen in the blanket primary.
Prior to the U. S. district judge’s ruling against the “top two” in July 2005, the Democrats and Republicans had begun holding caucuses and conventions to ENDORSE candidates. If the state winds up with the “top two,” the two parties can be expected to endorse candidates in this fashion, since they will have no way of officially nominating candidates.