On September 3, the Michigan State Court of Appeals rejected the Socialist Party’s ballot access appeal, which is called Socialist Party of Michigan v Secretary of State, 10-867-CZ. The opinion is only two pages.
Michigan requires 38,024 signatures to put a previously unqualified party on the ballot, but only approximately 20,000 votes for an already-established party to remain on the ballot. The lawsuit argued that the disparity is discriminatory, but the Court really didn’t even discuss that issue.
The Socialist Party had also argued that one of its members was on the November 2008 ballot, and he had polled the needed number of votes for a party to remain on. However, the Socialist Party member, Dwain Reynolds, running for State Board of Education, was nominated by the ballot-qualified Green Party, and only appeared on the ballot as a Green Party nominee. Therefore, the Court ruled his showing cannot be used to bolster the Socialist Party.
Ruling makes sense.
These folks should join and run on the Green Party ballot line.
They can protect social security, and medicare on the Green Party ticket.
Maybe the SP should reconsider how it continues to shoot itself in the foot over retaining members. Only through growth with the vote spread. At current it would seem the Greens are the de facto SP in MI.
FYI, the “also argument” goes like this. . . .
When the statute was amended in 2002 (by Public Act 399), the Legislature changed the definition of a party’s “principal candidate” that appears in MCL § 168.685
* from “the candidate whose name shall appear nearest the top of the party column” (i.e., the “top-of-the-ticket” candidate)
* to “the candidate who receives the greatest number of votes of all candidates of that political party for that election”.
Note that. No more mention of a requirement that the candidate have been in the party’s column. No mention of a party column at all, in fact.
What’s more, while the Legislature was making this change, and deleting “party column” language from the definition of “principal candidate” in Section 168.685 — applying to participation in *general* elections — it kept that same “party column” language in Section 532, which applies to participation in *primary* elections.
When a Legislature writes laws, it’s presumed to know what it’s doing, and how what it’s doing will affect other laws. And that holds true whether the Legislature is giving new language or taking away old language.
The conclusion is that a party doesn’t have to be on the ballot to have a principal candidate. If
* that party nominates candidates (who don’t reject the nomination, presumably); and
* the top vote-getter among those candidates (“the candidate who receives the greatest number of votes of all candidates of that political party for that election”) gets enough votes to cross the threshold of community support in the law (currently 20,899 votes) . . .
then that candidate has qualified the party for the next general-election ballot.
(It’s somewhere between fusion and the alternative path for a “political body” — as defined in the Georgia ballot-access scheme upheld in _Jenness v Fortson_ — to bootstrap itself into becoming a “political party”.)
If you want, you can look more deeply into the change at the Michigan Legislature’s home page for House Bill 5237 of 2001, which became 2002 PA 399. It’s here:
http://www.legislature.mi.gov/mileg.aspx?page=getObject&objectName=2001-HB-5237
If you want to know more about the other types of discrimination SPMI charged, you can go back to BAN’s original post on the lawsuit and click on the link to the complaint.
Separate is NOT equal — even in Michigan — with the party hacks in the Michigan legislature writing the party hack ballot access election laws.
Brown v. Bd of Ed 1954