According to this story, a draft of a Connecticut omnibus election law bill would not only make it illegal for a party to use the word “Independent” in its name; it would also ban these words from being part of a political party’s name: “United States”; “America”; “Connecticut”; the name of any city or town; or any words relating to a symbol for the government or a deity or religion. Scroll down to the last portion of the article.
In 1990, former U.S. Senator Lowell Weicker formed “A Connecticut Party” and was elected Governor under that party name. Since then, the Connecticut legislature has passed discriminatory public funding for state office that, if it had existed in 1990, would have made it impossible for Weicker to have won the 1990 election (according to Weicker himself, in his sworn testimony in a lawsuit over that law). On top of that, some legislators seem to want to retroactively fight what happened in 1990 by also depriving Weicker of his chosen party label.
Now THAT’s the most ridiculous anti-minor party election law I’ve ever heard of. With that, if it were somehow passed, they could also try to ban the Green Party (name of a city in Ohio…) from running in Connecticut as well.
Somebody throw a copy of the Constitution at the people who came up with this bill, preferably one buried in a very heavy hardcover book…
It doesn’t sound too dissimilar to the rules in Britain:
http://www.electoralcommission.org.uk/__data/assets/pdf_file/0016/107701/doc-prohibited-rp.pdf
Overall, they do have some similarities, but the proposed Connecticut bill is even more restrictive. Britain’s rules don’t outright ban the names of cities or towns from being used in a political party’s name, for instance. Britian’s appears to be more out of common sense, while Connecticut’s appears more like an outright attempt to disrupt one or possibly more minor political parties.
Double plus nongood.
What’s in a name ???
i.e. Are the EVIL New Age control freak gerrymander monster Donkeys/Elephants ANY different than the government Brits in 1776 or the slave oligarchs in 1861 in the slave States ???
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P.R. and nonpartisan App.V.
In the Connecticut town of Bethel there’s a political party called the Pro-Bethel Party that’s been on the ballot a number of cycles.
I hope that there are no towns named after such common party words as “Hope”, “Liberty”, “Constitution” etc. That would be pretty bad.
One of the problems is oxymoron Independent Party who no way has 14,000 people in it. People write in “Independent” and 800 people wrote in “Independence”.
Does the legistation state ANY city or town, or just those in Connecticut? There is a Democrat, Kentucky (ZIP code 41858) and one named Democratic in Gujarit, India. However, there is no city named “Republican” (at least according to google maps).