This year, the Florida legislature passed an omnibus election law with many undemocratic features. One part of the bill said that a party may not nominate anyone in its primary if that person had been a member of another qualified party during the year before filing. Now Nancy Argenziano, who wants to run for Congress as a Democrat in 2012, is being told she can’t do that.

She was a former Republican State Senator between 2002 and 2007, and she had been in the House before she was elected to the Senate. She left the Republican Party in May 2011, in time to meet the deadline in the new law, which was June 4, 2011. But she changed her voter registration from “Republican” to “Independent Party.” The Independent Party is a ballot-qualified party in Florida, so she could run in 2012 as a member of that party. See this news story.

The Democratic Party says it welcomes her. If the Democratic Party wishes to pass a bylaw, saying that anyone is free to run in its primary even if that person had been a member of another party during the year before the filing deadline, she could probably run as a Democrat in 2012. In 1986 the U.S. Supreme Court said in Tashjian v Republican Party of Connecticut that if a party wants to nominate a non-member, the U.S. Constitution protects the party’s desire on that point. But to win a lawsuit, the political party must have a bylaw in place that contradicts the state law. The only major party in any state that has ever exercised its freedom to nominate someone who didn’t meet a duration of residency requirement is the Colorado Democratic Party, which won such a lawsuit in state court in 1988. Thanks to Brandon Henderson for the link.