The Texas election law says corporations may donate money to political parties “to defray normal overhead and administrative or operating costs incurred by the party; or to administer a primary election or convention held by the party.”
In 2006, the Democratic Party nominee for Governor of Texas polled less than 30% of the total vote cast. The Texas election law actually says that parties should be on the ballot automatically if they either got 2% for Governor at the last gubernatorial election, or 5% for any statewide race at the last election. But imagine if the Texas election law said parties are only on the ballot automatically if they got 30% for Governor at the last gubernatorial election.
Under this imaginary scenario, the Democratic Party would have needed to petition to be on the ballot in both 2008 and 2010. If corporations contributed to the Democratic Party for its hypothetical petition drives in 2008 and 2010, does anyone doubt that the petition drive would be considered an “operating cost”? Obviously, a party can’t “operate” if it isn’t on the ballot. But the Texas press, in its many articles on the subject of whether the Green Party should have been removed from the ballot this year, never actually discusses the “operating cost” phrase in the law.
The hypothetical law requiring a party to poll 30% of the gubernatorial vote in order to be on the ballot automatically is not entirely impossible. Between 1931 and 1937, parties in Florida were only permitted to be on the ballot if they had received 30% of the vote for President at either of the two preceding presidential elections. There is no federal lawsuit precedent invalidating any state’s requirement for what a party must do to be on the ballot automatically. In Jenness v Fortson, the U.S. Supreme Court seemed to think that Georgia’s law (as it existed in 1971), that a party had to poll 20% for Governor, or 20% for President in the entire nation, was acceptable.
Every election is NEW and has ZERO to do with any prior election.
One more basic point that the party hack SCOTUS morons do not understand or care about.
Sooo – how close did any Donkey or Elephant gang come close to NOT being on the ballots at the next statewide election since 1865 ???
The party hacks in 1929-1941 made it harder to get on / stay on the ballots due to openly communist/fascist stuff (a threat to the D/E regimes) during the Great Depression I and later the Cold War stuff.
The last time either the Democratic or Republican Party was disqualified as a qualified party was in Virginia in 1990. The Democrats didn’t run anyone for US Senate that year. The law then said a party was something that had polled 10% at the last statewide election. US Senate had been the only statewide office on in 1990.
So the legislature quickly amended the law to say a party is something that got 10% for a statewide office at either of the last two statewide elections.
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#3 How many gigabytes of database info in the BAN archives — about ALL ballot access stuff since 1776 (or earlier) — now greatly compounded by the zillion court cases and law machinations since 1964-1968 ???
When did paper ballots show up in the pre-1776 British-American colonies or early States (even before the official ballots in 1888) ??? — noting the major effort to have printing presses early on — for printing newspapers, laws, bibles, books, etc. — before the tons of junk mail showed up.
There was a while when it appeared that Bell would finish below 20%, which would have given the Democratic party the option to nominate by convention or primary.
The district court judge may have confused individual candidate petitions, with the nomination process administered by the party. Primary candidates pay a filing fee which goes to the party to help defray the cost of the primary, and which is considered to be a campaign expense of the candidate. But a primary candidate may also have an in lieu of petition, so presumably any costs incurred by an individual candidate are campaign expenses.
The Green Party brief to the Texas Supreme Court asserts that the proper plaintiffs should be the actual Democratic nominees. But since the Democratic Party did not nominate anyone for controller, they may not have standing to challenge the Green Party nominee for Controller. Alternatively, all Democratic Party nominees as a class should be plaintiffs, since they may receive fewer votes due to straight party voting. This would make the District Court Judge a plaintiff in the case which he issued an injunction.
The Democratic Party has not challenged the petition, and they were too late too challenge the certification of the nominations for non-statewide candidates, which occurred earlier in the year. So it is conceivable that those Green Party candidates would appear on the ballot, regardless of what happened to the statewide candidates.
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#10 Use of paper ballots is more of a tradition. In the New England colonies, secret paper ballots were used by the Puritans. In the Southern colonies, they followed the practice of the English orthodoxy, which was to use voice voting.
After the Civil War, the Congress passed a law regulating the election of Senators, which was in particular an attempt to avoid deadlocks that had sometimes occurred when the two legislative chambers had voted for different candidates. One of the issues was whether the legislators should vote by secret ballot or a voice roll-call vote. Senators from New England said, we always do it by secret ballot, while those from the South said that they did it by voice vote, and in fact used voice voting for their popular elections as well.
Louisville was one of the first places in the US to implement the Australian ballot, but they were actually replacing voice voting, rather than party-printed or individual ballots. The 1872 reapportionment bill that set the uniform election date for House members, also required use of paper ballots.
Originally, paper ballots required names to “printed”, but there was a court ruling in Massachusetts (IIRC this was early 19th century) that interpreted this to mean mechanically printed ballots were legal, which opened up the use of party-printed or newspaper-printed ballots (and most newspapers of that era were closely aligned with political parties).
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I wish Texas and Illinois were in the same circuit.
In Illinois, petition signature gathering and the resulting petition challenges appear to be “operating costs” because Illinois challengers have never been required to report their donations and in-kind gifts for petition challenges.
Andrew Heffernan is objecting to 16 candidacies, including both the Constitution and Libertarian slates. Reporting law in Illinois says anything over $2,000 must be reported. It HAD to have cost more than $2,000 to run petition challenges against 16 candidates. Yet, they will not report this on any campaign finance report. Some of those objections are to federal candidates as well.
I’ll be very curious to see the verdict in Texas, and how it matches up with standard practice in Illinois.
There is a District in Kansas – CD 1 – where there are no longer any elected Democrats for any office. The ‘D’s have stopped running candidates for anything. Only the Libertarian Party runs candidates against Republicans in KS CD-1.
It’s True Paradise. Libertarians and Republicans.
Imagine. Imgagine if you will. A World without the Democrat Party!
#13 How many party hacks were keeping track of who voted for who or what (i.e. with threats and attacks) before the secret paper ballots came along ???
The 7,000 plus years WAR for REAL Democracy continues — against the EVIL party hacks — aka EVIL monarchs/oligarchs — now with their EVIL unequal ballot access laws, minority rule gerrymanders and plurality nominations and elections = one giant EVIL mess — that is rotting Western Civilization to death — U.S.A., U.K., Canada, etc.
P.R. and App.V.
#17 If voting were public, it would be easier to check the results. With anonymous voting, you can’t tell whether your ballot was substituted or changed.
#15 The judge indicated that legal fees were an ordinary expense of a party. So it appears that corporate donations may be used by the Democratic Party in their legal challenge.
In Texas, the Green Party petition per se is not being challenged (so far). What was enjoined was the Green Party certification of its statewide candidates. If the Green Party couldn’t submit its nominees to the Secretary of State, then the Secretary of State wouldn’t be able to send the names of the candidates to the county election officials so that their names will appear on the ballot.
In Texas, nominating conventions and primaries are conducted by the political parties. For the primaries, the political parties canvass the result and then submit a list of their nominees to the appropriate authority (either the Secretary of State for statewide and district offices, to the county election officials for county and precinct offices).
For parties nominating by convention, the conventions are a multi-tiered process, and nominations for precinct, county and district offices are made at county or district, conventions held in March or perhaps early April. Nominees from these conventions must then be submitted to the counties and SOS within a few weeks.
The Secretary of State will later send a list of parties that are ballot qualified. So the other parties that stated an intent to qualify for this election (Reform, Constitution, and Socialist parties) may have nominated candidates, but those nominations will be ignore and not appear on the ballot.
#17 No thanks.
I do not want to put on too many party hack purge lists — at any instant.
How many purge lists are being compiled due to the Doe case ???
Sign a *politically incorrect* petition and get killed or just merely harassed by some EVIL MORON control freak gang of party hacks.
—-
Happy Birthday U.S.A. regime —
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Declaration_of_Independence
Any Dunlap copies still hiding behind picture frames on the East coast ???
How many Americans got killed / wounded / lost their property defending the DOI until the U.S.A.-British Peace Treaty — especially the signers of the DOI ???
How many of the clauses of the DOI are about election related stuff ??? See the *formidable to tyrants only* langauge.
Jeff: is there actual case law saying that petitioning / objections are somehow exempt from reporting? I know that Kasper has claimed this but I’m not aware of any formal ruling by anyone to such an effect, and it sure doesn’t seem to supported by a strict reading of Illinois campaign finance disclosure law.
Interestingly, Republicans sued the IP in Minnesota recently for “illegal campaign contributions”; however, the case was thrown out. http://www.startribune.com/politics/state/97637464.html?elr=KArksi8cyaiUHK:uUiD3aPc:_Yyc:aU7DYaGEP7vDEh7P:DiUs
For advocates of electoral fairness, one good thing may arise out of this. In the past sponsors of ballot access reform in the Texas house of reps could find nobody to support their efforts; however, as a result of this mess I could easily see the Republicans backing a relaxation of the laws in this area.
Phil, I wish, but no. You probably know more than I do on that front.
I only have conversations and stories through the years from candidates caught up in it. There are no recent cases where a petition challenger has ever been fined for state campaign finance violations. Or successfully sued for filing a frivolous challenge.
The state board of elections hears all of the $ violations, so there you go. From my experiences, the Illinois AG’s office and the IL state board of elections were informed about Jim Ryan’s 2002 shenanigans against LP Cal Skinner with nothing from it. Also about IL Dems versus Nader in 2004. Like the Nader v. FEC case, they won’t even look at it. So no case law because it is somehow legal, they haven’t been caught yet, or it is ignored from what I can gather.
Everything in Illinois changed on July 1 with new campaign finance laws taking effect, so I’m clueless how it works now. It was very free open and non-transparent before. Maybe the new stuff gives it some teeth that can now be used to take it to the frivolous challengers.
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