On August 19, the Texas Supreme Court refused to permit the Texas Democratic Party to nominate someone by party meeting for a partisan judicial race in Fort Worth. No one had filed appeared on the Texas primary ballot in March for that seat. After the primary, the only candidate running, a Republican, died. Texas law let the Republican Party replace him with a new nominee, but does not permit other parties to also make a late nomination. See this story. The case is In re Candace Taylor, 10-0635. Thanks to David Prout for the link.
This would be the same Texas which, IIRC, allowed both the Democrat and Republican Parties to file their 2008 presidential candidates past the filing deadline?
Yes, this is my same state that did that. What total BS too.
The Democrat claimed that she didn’t run in the primary because she liked the Republican nominee. The only problem with that claim was that the Republican nomination was contested, with a Republican incumbent (appointed) facing a challenger, so there was no guarantee that the Dem-favored candidate would be nominated.
In addition, of the 16 judges up for election in Tarrant County, the Democrats only nominated a candidate for one of them. Perhaps they liked the Republican candidates in the other 15 races?
After the Republican nominee died (in a boating accident), the Republicans nominated the incumbent, and the Democrats decided they wanted to nominate someone after all.
Bob Barr won Texas. He was the legal candidate with the most votes. The court decided properly in this case based on the law. The law probably should be change now.