The South Carolina legislature passed H.3746 on June 3, the last day of the session. It makes ballot access worse for independent candidates. Parts of it can be challenged in court. For a description of the bill, see today’s earlier post about the bill, four blog posts down.
Well, like I tried to tell you guys in a recent email – and I’ve said this many times before – until we make ballot access a “civil rights” issue, and do what has to be done to get the attention of the members of the legislatures, and even Congress, and hopefully the sympathy of the voters who believe in fairness, then we will continue to see this type of legislation passed.
I don’t know if it is because we are some of the “laziest” or the “scaredest” bunch of political activists, but something is wrong with our seemingly lack of courage to do what has to be done.
I’ve spoken my thoughts on what it will take. We cannot depend on the Courts to do what needs to be done, and we cannot depend on most legislators and Congressmen to do what needs to be done.
So what do we do? The question is in your court?
We can sometimes depend on the courts. Minor parties and independent candidates have won over 250 ballot access lawsuits that either struck down a state ballot access law, or construed it in a favorable direction, since 1968. That is an average of 5 victories per state.
But Richard, of those 250 “victories” how many more “defeats” or “setbacks” have we had? Probably many, many more.
As I’ve said before, it is a “one step forward, two steps backward” ordeal You know yourself, that it is harder in most states for an Independent or a 3rd party to get on the ballot today than it was 50 years ago. If we do not make this a “civil rights” issue and treat it as such, I predict with all the “major personalities” running as “independent,” (i.e., Crist in Florida), that are currently going on much to the displeasure of the Dems and Reps, we are going to see even tougher laws over the next few years.
When will you guys wake up?
A good thing about the bill is that it makes it clear that a separate letter of intent is required for each party that a candidate seeks the nomination of.
Response to : “So what do we do? The question is in your court?:
A: Revolution?! Armed Struggle?! Subversive infiltration of existing majority parties?! Kidnap state government leaders and hold for ballot access ransom?!
Ballot access for minor parties is signifcantly easier now than it was in 1972. In 1972, a minor party or independent presidential candidate needed 686,968 valid signatures or party members to place a presidential candidate on the November ballot in all 50 states plus D.C. That was .88% of the number of votes cast for President that year. In 2008, the number needed was 642,222, which was .49% of the number of votes cast for president in 2008.
Also in 1976 the median vote test for a party to remain ballot-qualified was 5%, but now it is 2%. People who don’t realize we are slowly making things better are just not paying attention.
VERY simple.
Get a lawyer with some BRAINS who is able to detect that SEPARATE is NOT EQUAL — even in ballot access cases.
Brown v. Bd of Ed 1954
NOT brought up in the entire series of MORON ballot access cases in the Supremes starting with Williams v. Rhodes 1968
P.R. and App.V. — NO primaries are needed.
Equal ballot access on general election ballots via equal nominating petitions for ALL candidates for the same office.