On October 18, U.S. District Court Judge Percy Anderson struck down California’s procedure for a newly-qualifying party to get on the ballot. The 16-page decision is California Justice Committee & Constitution Party v Bowen, cv 12-3956, central district. The basis for the decision is that the deadline is so early. In 2012, it was January 2.
The decision was not a big surprise, because Judge Anderson had enjoined the deadline on May 22, 2012. This decision will help to win pending lawsuits against early deadlines in Alabama, Hawaii, New Mexico, North Carolina, Oklahoma, and Vermont. UPDATE: here is the ACLU press release about the decision. This case was handled by the ACLU of Southern California.
Brain dead courts since 1968.
Each election is NEW and has ZERO to do with any event since the alleged Big Bang — except the actual number of voters in the election area involved at the last general election.
Separate is NOT equal. Brown v. Bd of Ed 1954.
With how big and diverse California is, they should model their state election laws after Florida, or Colorado, if they truly believe in equally and tolerance.
I note here that Deemer played fast and loose with the U.S. District Court. At no time did the American Independent Party of California in either 2008 or 2010
conduct a vote of disaffilation from the Constitutiion Party. The American Independent Party of California conducted votes of affilation and not disaffiation.
Charles Deemer was giving disinformation to the U.S.
District Court.
Sincerely, Mark Seidenberg, Vice Chairman, American Independent Party of California
P.S., In both 2008 and 2010, I was Chairman of the
Conventions of the American Independent Party of California.
P.P.S. Dr. Don Grundmann who is the Chairman of the
Constitution Party of California, was a delegate to the
2008 AIP Convention in Sacramento, CA. He walked out of
the convention. That is the reason that Dr. Alan Keyes
received 100% of the vote for nomination to POTUS.
The last date to which Don Grundmann was a member of the
central committee of the AIP of California was on September 2, 2008.
Mark,
In the immortal words of my dear friend, Bill Shearer,
“Go milk a duck.”
You do your thing and we’ll do ours. You’ve got a head start in registration numbers and ballot access THAT WE BUILT FOR YOU, but in the words of Satchel Paige, “don’t look back, somebody may be gaining on you.”
Gary
California has no rational basis for maintaining its high numerosity requirements for political parties that may be preferred by candidates for voter-nominated offices. There are no partisan primaries, so there is no need to ensure there will be sufficient participation to justify use of State resources. With its quite modest ballot qualifications (60 signatures for statewide office; 45 for district office) there is no apparent concern about ballot crowding. Even if there were, denial of a candidate’s expression of their political viewpoint is not a proper mechanism for reducing the number of candidates.
Voters are more likely to be confused if candidates are restricted to only expressing a preference for parties which previously had “nominating rights”.
Libertarian Party v Eu is non-applicable. There was no question that the candidates in that case were registered members of the Libertarian Party. But there was no requirement that those nominating the candidates (by petition) be Libertarians, and thus the nomination was considered independent of the primary process. There is no party requirement for those signing petitions of voter-nominated candidates. The party shown on the ballot is simply the party preference of the candidate – it indicates nothing about the petition signers.
California does have an interest in making sure that a political party is real: that it has an actual membership that controls the party; that it has a name that can be translated into a babel of languages, and not be confused with that of other parties, and has responsible financial reporting of contributions and expenditures.
It can do this with a modest registration requirement (100 say, and require the party to comply with other standards – bylaws and rules, meetings open to party registrants, and financial reporting. Some minimum level of activity would be required. I would require a biennial state convention.
California should replace Division 7 of the Elections Code which purports to regulate named parties with great specificity, with general requirements that parties must provide for.
New parties would qualify by petition only. If the party qualified, the signers would have their registration changed to that of the new party. This would avoid problems like Americans Elect, where there really was not a functioning political party.
Party write-ins on registration forms would be disallowed. There is no way to know if the “Coffee” Party or “Donald Duck” Party really exists. If there is a modest number of voters who want to establish a new party, they can readily do so. If a registrant wrote in the name of an unrecognized party, the voter registrar would simply inform the voter, ask if he meant some other party or register him as having no party preference.
As part of a transition process, lists of Other voters would be compiled (similar to what is done in Louisiana). Parties with 100 registrants (eg Natural Law, Reform, We Like Women, Constitution, Justice, Christian, Conservative, La Raza Unida, and WHIG) would be classified as inactive. A state convention with some quorum requirement (100) could activate the party.
If a party such as Americans Elect became inactive. 100 voters among its 3000 registrants could wrench control from the national party poopers.
If there were less than 100 registrants for a party, the voters would be notified, and after some suitable period (6 months) their registration would be set to no preference.
The statewide primary should be returned to August.
Write-in votes should be permitted for Voter-Nominated offices. Sore losers from the primary, whether on-ballot or declared write-in should be barred from declaring as a write-in for the general election. If the winner of the general election received fewer than 40% of the vote, a runoff would be held a month later.
The California Constitution (Article 2, Section 5(c)) requires that the State provide for the election of party central committees. Ideally, that provision should be removed. It is awkwardly phrased, and the State does not have the authority to dictate the structure of party committees, or their internal procedures, beyond broad principles. Alternatively, “provide” should be interpreted as requiring the legislature to pass laws regarding the subject.
If the State must actually execute the elections, they should be conducted as a mail-only ballot in odd years, totally separate from any other election, with the parties being responsible for ballot preparation and counting. The State could offer a subsidy to parties that choose to skip the state-conducted election.
It is not clear that the California Constitution requires that a presidential primary be provided for all political parties. It says that if a party does participate in the primary, that they have right to have a candidate on the general election ballot for the office.
The California Constitution does appear to require a direct primary. Article 2 Section 5(d) says that California may not deny placement of the winner of a partisan primary on the general election ballot. Since President is the only partisan office on the general election ballot, the provision must apply to the office of President.
It would be nonsensical to interpret the provision to mean that Debra Bowen could not force a party to place its 2nd place candidate on the ballot, if the party wanted to have its 1st place candidate on the ballot. But there is nothing that says that California could prevent 2nd place and other trailing candidates from appearing on the general election ballot.
California should permit major parties to hold a presidential primary which would directly nominate the presidential candidate for the party. A major party would be one with 1% of registrants or 1% of the previous presidential vote.
California political parties may then designate a national party affiliate and individual state party affiliates. The national party affiliate would be responsible for designating the presidential candidates. Votes cast in other States could then be used in determining the nominee of the party, so long as they included all the national presidential candidates. Votes cast in primaries held earlier than California’s would be discounted by 5% per week.
Minor parties and major parties that choose not to hold a presidential primary in California would be able to nominate by petition. Perhaps 1/10 of 1% of the previous elections presidential vote total would be sufficient (around 15,000). Voters registered with a party would be presumed to support the nominee of the party, so the current qualified parties would be able to nominate without actually petitioning. Parties such as the Constitution and Justice parties could nominate a candidate and have their party name appear on the ballot – but they would have to gather much fewer signatures, and they could be gathered much later in the year (until the end of July).