On November 13, the U.S. Court of Appeals, 3rd circuit, ruled in favor of the Lancaster County, Pennsylvania Republican Party, and against a dissident member of the county party committee who had sued the party committee. The plaintiff, Millie Max, in a Republican primary in 2007, had campaigned door-to-door against Republicans who had been endorsed by the party committee, and in favor of other Republicans who did not have the party’s endorsement.
The chair of the party committee had asked Max if she knew who was doing such campaigning, and said he would trace the suspect’s identity by tracing the suspect’s license plate number. At that point Max “confessed” that she was the individual doing such door-to-door campaigning against the party’s endorsed candidates. The chair of the party committee then threatened to call a special meeting of the committee, at which he would denounce her and call on her to resign. However, the committee could not have forced her to resign, because she had been elected at a Republican primary to the party position for a fixed term.
The Court ruled that the party chair’s behavior is not state action, and quoted the U.S. Supreme Court decision New York State Board of Elections v Lopez Torres (2008), which said, “A political party has a First Amendment right to limit its membership as it wishes, and to choose a candidate-selection process that will in its view produce the nominee who best represents its political platform.” Here is the recent Pennsylvania decision.
One more reason for P.R. and nonpartisan A.V.
NO party hack caucuses, primaries and conventions are needed.
Let the party hacks have their meetings in a closet / phone booth.
Id bet it’s a Ron Pauler.
Note on page 3 of the court opinion that the RCLC is a creature of Pennsylvania law as a group with a government established franchise or license to place candidates on the ballot with a “brand” identification. And therein is the root of the issue.
In the earliest days of the United States all political ‘factions’ or parties were completely private organizations. The government could not control and restrict the activities of such citizen groups without violating individual rights of all citizens.
Once at least two political factions gained control of the state apparatus the temptation to write themselves in power permanently was irresistible rent-seeking. This proved difficult until the institution of secret paper ballot provided a popular subterfuge to enact political party licensing by restricting the access of the individual to the ballot as a candidate. These ballot access restrictions are deliberately designed to suppress spontaneous coalitions of citizens behind candidates who challenge the entrenched ruling elites.
Once entrenched political parties degenerate into corrupt authoritarian rent-seeking criminal syndicates.
A wholly private political party would have no power of coercion against dissident members – except expulsion from the organization under the terms of its own rules. The abuse of such power would generate market competition and the rise of other parties that treated its members with more civility. In fact, this is precisely what “unrecognized” parties must do today – or lose members and become defunct.
The solution is to abolish all ballot access restrictions and allow all private parties to compete without “official” favor.
Richard, what ramifications might this line of argument have for a situation like ours, with Richard Mayers filing for Congress?
I don’t see a direct ramification for the Illinois situation you mention. Alabama, Hawaii and New York have laws that say that parties can bring a court action to establish that a candidate who files in a party primary is not a bona fide members of that party and can be expelled and/or kept off the primary ballot of that party, but Illinois has no such law.
Richard,
Thank you for this posting. The American Indepentant Party will use this information
at it next meeting of the of its Central Committee.
Sincerely, Mark Seidenberg, Vice Chairman, American
Independent Party