On August 11, two ballot-qualified parties in Oregon filed a lawsuit in state court, alleging that the actual text of the Oregon election law does permit two parties to jointly nominate the same candidate. The plaintiffs include the Working Families Party and the Independent Party. The WFP wants to cross-endorse Peter Buckley, a Democratic nominee for the state house. The Independent Party wants to cross-endorse Joel Haugen, a Republican nominee for U.S. House, First District.
I am the chair of the Independent Party of OR (IPO) and the attorney representing the plaintiffs in the court challenge on ballot design. I’d be happy to send motion for preliminary injuction. Just contact me thru http://www.indparty.com.
In Oregon there is a distinction between “endorse” (a term with no legal significance) and “nomination” by a political party. Nomination has legal significance and gives both the candidate and the party certain rights under statute, all in furtherance of the great cognate rights of expression and assembly.
The IPO has nominated state and local candidates, and cross-nominated Jeff Merkley, D challenger to Sen. Gordon Smith, and the D candidate for State Treasurer, in addition to the R candidate in the 1st CD. Working Families cross-nominated an Oregon House candidate. All the candidates have formally accepted each of the major and minor party nominations.
OR law regulating the design of ballots requires that a candidate’s name may appear only once on the ballot, and then sets out a series of “rules” for which party name(s) shall appear with the candidate on the ballot.
The Secretary of State contends that in cross-nominations, only the name of the major party may appear, without exception. We disagree.
Thus, this is not a case about “fusion” voting in the sense of allocating a separate ballot line to each nominating party, but a claim that the law requires that the names of both nominating parties appear with the candidate’s name. This is fusion-lite, or whatever, but would nevertheless provide truthful, accurate information about the candidate and the official actions of the minor parties.
You back Nader in the presidential race and a Republican in a house race?
They are not backing Nader
Re: #1
How do you interpret 249.031(1)(g) and 254.135(4)?
Re:#2
They are. Read the story right above this. It may not be official yet but it no doubt soon will be. Just glancing at their website there are two stories about how Nader running is good for Obama.