On January 19, a state court in Tucson, Arizona will hear the case called City of Tucson v State of Arizona. The issue is whether the State Constitution protects a city’s right to decide for itself whether it wants partisan or non-partisan elections for its own offices. This year, the Arizona legislature passed a law requiring cities to use non-partisan elections, but Tucson (which uses partisan elections) says the law violates the Arizona Constitution.
On January 11, a U.S. District Court in Phoenix will hear the Green Party’s case against the state’s ban on out-of-state circulators for petitions to put a new party on the ballot. Another issue in that case is whether the February 2010 deadline for new party petitions can be enforced against the Green Party, since the legislature moved that deadline to an earlier date and made the change effective in 2010, after the Green Party’s petitioning effort had already started.
To Arizona and other states with similar laws: If you want to disenfranchise concurrent state and US citizenship, why not just secede? Of course, such laws are intended to have it both ways. Federalism is a very ambiguous concept in the U S Constitution.
The way city elections are handled in Tucson is basically a rigged game for Democrats. Partisan elections, primary elections by ward and then city-wide general elections. It seems to me to be a fruitful place to suggest STV elections, but of course the Republicans who spearheaded the forced non-partisan elections want to undo the rigging without actually make the elections too democratic.
It is always third party groups that will give the powerless the real voice. Dems and Repubs have used the ban on out of state circulators in various states depending on who is in power or not. Go Green Party.
#2: Are you saying that ALL Tucson city candidates run citywide in the general election?