On October 13, the Voting Rights Section of the U.S. Justice Department granted approval to Arizona’s new law that requires all cities in the state to use non-partisan elections for their own officers. However, there is still no certainty that Tucson (the only city in Arizona that has been using partisan elections) will be required to switch to non-partisan elections. The city is in state court, arguing that the law violates the Arizona Constitution. The judge in that case has already signed an order, letting the city’s 2009 election be run under the old, original partisan election method.
The Justice Department’s action contrasts with its action in August 2009, of not permitting the city of Kinston, North Carolina, to switch from partisan city elections to non-partisan city elections. That decision has received much attention in the last week, because Rush Limbaugh and the Washington Times publicized it. Kinston city officials are free to ask the U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C., to override the Justice Department, but they have not done so.
It is amazing, just amazing (SICKENING). Like you said, very hypocritical with how they just denied Kinston, NC their voter approved choice of non-partisan elections.
The effective date of the Arizona legislation was September 30, and the primary was September 1, and the filing deadline was a little more than a month before the governor signed the legislation, so I wouldn’t really put much meaning into the judge’s initial order. The election would be mostly over before the law took effect.
There were actually two provisions in the law aimed at Tucson. Tucson nominates by ward in partisan primaries, but elects at-large in the general election. The new law requires the same electorate for all stages of an election.
So unless there is some default election scheme for cities, Tucson is going to have to enact a new election scheme, at which time it will have to pre-clear.
Dollars to donuts says that the DOJ said something along the lines that nothing in their non-objection relieves any city from pre-clearing.
Limbaugh, evidently depending on the Washington Times article, did not make it clear that there are no party primaries in the system approved by the voters of Kinston, NC, which is majority black. He said the DOJ’s motive was to make it harder for Republicans to get elected, as there would be no party labels next to the candidates’ names.
Since North Carolina, of course, registers voters by party, any voter who wants to learn the candidates’ party affiliations would have little trouble doing so.
Here is the letter from the DOJ to Kinston (interesting tidbit is that the town dropped the “g” in ‘Kingston’ after the Revolutionary War).
http://www.usdoj.gov/crt/voting/sec_5/ltr/l_081709.php
The claim by the DOJ is that while most white Democratic voters will vote for the white Republican candidate, but a small percentage of white Democrats will vote for the “Democratic” candidate because of party loyalty. Were the ballot cue not available, these voters would not know who to vote for.
To the extent that this is true, voters such as that might not bother to take the the trouble of determining the party affiliation of candidates.
It is of note, that the Constitution Party of North Carolina is the only political organization in the State at this time that I know of which has taken action on the Kinston decision. The CPNC has passed a resolution, viewable on the Party’s Resolution page (http://www.constitutionpartync.com/resolutions.htm) and also hosted a Return to the Constitution Rally in Kinston to express our support of the people of Kinston’s right to choose to hold non-partisan elections.
What’s really outrageous about the Kinston, NC, ruling is that the great majority of U. S. municipalities– including, I believe, many North Carolina municipalities– already use nonpartisan elections.