According to this Washington Post story, on January 30, three Virginia Democratic voters filed a federal lawsuit that says the Democratic Party broke the law when it held a nominating convention for the special election for Delegate, district 74. The story says that the party charged $1,500 for any candidate who wanted to be nominated. The story also says the convention improperly excluded voters from part of the district.
The case does not seem to be registered on Pacer yet, so it is difficult to understand the story completely. Check back in a few days. I hope to have seen the Complaint by then and will be able to more fully describe it. UPDATE: the case is Lambert v Democratic Party of Virginia, e.d., 3:15cv-61. See Jim Riley’s comment below for more about this interesting case.
3:15-cv-00061-REP Lambert et al v. Democratic Party of Virginia et al
(it was not entered into the system until 2/2/2015)
The suit contends the Virginia Democratic Party violated the US Constitution.
Virginia statutes permit the party bosses to choose the method of nomination. The lawsuit contends that in doing so, the method of nomination must conform to constitutional standards for primaries.
In this case, the nominating body were members of the party committees for Charles City County, Henrico County, and Richmond city who lived in the district.
It is not clear how these committees are selected, or it they are at all representative. In any case, membership requires payment of a membership fee. In Henrico County and Richmond city the fee may be waived, but the suit claims that would be embarassing for the member. The suit argues that the requiring a fee be paid to participate in the nominating process is a poll tax.
About 87% of the district is in Henrico County, 10% in Charles City County, and 3% (one precinct) in Richmond. About half the nominators were from Charles City County, a rural county to the east of Richmond. None of the nominators were from Richmond. It wasn’t that they were excluded per se, but no paid members of the Richmond committee lived in the small portion of Richmond in the district. In any case, an argument is made that the composition of the nominating body violates OMOV.
The lead plaintiff would have sought the nomination, but for the filing fee, the short period in which it had to be paid, and no alternatives to paying the fee, causing it to be in violation of ‘Bullock v Carter’ and ‘Lubin v Panish’
Thank you, Jim. That is very helpful.