William Galvin, the Secretary of State of Massachusetts, has asked the legislature to pass HB 639. The bill makes it more difficult for a group to qualify to have its registrations tallied. It has its first hearing in September.
Under existing law, a group can transform itself into a qualified party if it can persuade enough voters to register as members. In order to qualify for a registration tally, a group must submit a petition of 50 voters who represent the proposed new party. The bill expands this to 500.
The registration method of qualifying a new party is so difficult, it has never been used. It has existed in the law since 1990 and requires approximately 43,000 registered members, by November 2013. The Massachusetts primary is not until September 2014. The deadline is almost certainly unconstitutionally early. Representative Dan Winslow has a bill pending to ease the number of registrations required. Unfortunately he introduced it one day past the deadline for introducing bills, so it can’t advance unless he persuades the House Rules Committee to grant a waiver.
HB 639 also says that if a group hasn’t increased its registration to at least one-fourth of 1% of the state registration tally, by the deadline, its status as a group trying to qualify is eliminated, and it must then re-file all over again, with another petition of 500 representatives of the group.
So, Mr Galvin can push this burdensome measure without offering anything like a compelling state interest. He no doubt feels he’ll never have to unpack all the new antidemocratic standard nor convenience to political agencies that are presently fairly well empowered. That this thing unfolds and proceeds like Mr Galvin and his allies would appreciate just because bad electoral changes don’t appear on the color spectrum visible to most citizen voters. Maybe a celebrity is needed here, maybe a folk song with catch riff, maybe a major party politician willing to break ranks. Maybe all three.
All you fans of reducing government to a size small enough to “drown in a bathtub”…hope you’re paying attention.