On April 5, the Connecticut Joint Government Administration and Election Committee passed SB 1146, the bill that makes it illegal for a party to nominate a non-member. However, the bill has not yet been voted on in either House. The intent of the bill is to ban fusion, but the bill goes beyond that.
The Joint Committee has three Senators and eleven House members. Two of the three Senators, a Republican and a Democrat, voted against the bill, which suggests that the bill may have a difficult time passing the Senate. Also, the bill still hasn’t been amended to correct a flaw that would cause it to be held unconstitutional. The U.S. Supreme Court said in 1986 in Tashjian v Republican Party of Connecticut that parties have a First Amendment freedom of association right to nominate non-members if they wish. States that wish to ban fusion can do so, but states can’t make it illegal for parties to nominate any candidate just because that candidate isn’t a member of that party.
— so in the case of Fusion in NYS, in 2014 the BPP-NY (Blanket Primary Party of NY) gets at least 50K votes for NYS Gov. (or whatever the needed threshold number) and in 2018 conducts its OTB (opportunity to ballot) primary for some office and the candidate with the most OTB primary votes accepts the primary election results and appears on the general election ballot on the BPP ballot line. But, the same candidate also appears on the ballot as both an independent petition nominated candidate as well as say a CP/GOP Conservative Party candidate (similar to Pataki in 1994 using independent nominating line Pataki Party called Tax Cut Now/ AKA Freedom Party as well as the CP/GOP ballot lines)
Didn’t Storer v Brown uphold restrictions on nominating non-members? Tashjian concerned permitting non-members to participate in the nomination process.
#2, Storer v Brown upheld keeping independents off the November ballot if they had been members of a party.
Tashjian says on page 215 that if a state told a party it couldn’t nominate a non-member, that would be unconstitutional. It also says if a state told a party that a non-member couldn’t give money to it, that would be unconstitutional. The decision was giving examples of unconstitutional restrictions. You’re right that the case was about who could vote in primaries, but the decision has these other conclusions about other impermissible state laws.
The SCOTUS MORONS can not detect that PUBLIC nominations for PUBLIC offices are done by PUBLIC Electors according to PUBLIC laws —
i.e. ALL Electors (top 2 primary States) or SOME Electors — closed primaries or open primaries, etc.
i.e. Tashjian is one more JUNK opinion added on to Williams v. Rhodes in 1968.
——-
P.R. and nonpartisan App.V.
NO moron primaries by the various gangs.