The Nevada Senate Committee on Legislative Operations and Elections will hear SB 499 on April 1 at 3:30 p.m. The bill title says it sets up a “modified blanket primary.” It would provide that for all partisan office except President, all candidates would run in the primary. Only the top two could run in the general election, except that if the top two candidates in the primary are both in the same party, then the 2nd place finisher does not advance to the general election, and whichever candidate who is not in that same party does advance (however, if all the candidates are members of the same party, then the top two would advance).
Although this sounds somewhat like a top-two primary, the bill consistently uses the term “party nominee”. Top-two systems are not constitutional unless the ballot warns voters that there are no party nominees, and SB 499 not only uses the term “nominee”, nowhere does it provide that the ballot should carry language explaining that there are no party nominees.
Blanket primaries are unconstitutional if any party subject to them complains. The U.S. Supreme Court invalidated involuntary blanket primaries in 2000 in California Democratic Party v Jones. The principle behind that decision is that parties can’t be forced to let members of other parties help choose their nominees.
The sponsor of SB 499 is the entire Senate Committee, so it seems likely that the Committee will pass the bill. However, observers do not believe it would pass the Assembly even if it passes the Senate.
The bill does not use the term “party nominee”. It strikes “major party”, “minor party” or “independent” from current law when it appears before the word “nominee” for partisan office.
Current law refers to the persons whose name appears on the general election ballot for a nonpartisan office as “nominees”.
That is, under Nevada election law the persons whose names appear on the primary ballot are “candidates”, and those who name appears on the general election ballot are “nominees”.
Under current law, certain nominees are “party nominees”. Under the new bill, they would be “nominees” with a party affiliation.
The sponsors may wish to clean up the language in the declaration of candidacy in Section 12 of the bill, Section 293.177 in statutes.
I would think there would be a possibility of an equal protection claim for a second-place candidate from the same party as the first-place candidate (even more so for non-affiliated independent candidates).
The provision for two candidates from the same party advancing if there are no candidates from other parties is likely to lead to shenanigans such as we’ve seen in Florida.
A challenge in court based on the absence of language explaining the ballot would be an “as applied” challenge. The State of Nevada would simply pass a new law, or enter into a consent decree. The SOS may already have authority to add such language.
If I read the bill correctly, it removes any requirement for minor party qualification other than filing requirements. The petition requirement would remain for presidential candidates.
1. The SCOTUS MORONS in the Donkey-Jones case failed to detect that —
A. ALL voters nominate or
B. SOME voters nominate –
according to PUBLIC laws —
i.e. each robot party hack gang is NOT an independent empire.
i.e. the public LAWS determine whether each gang can only have gang votes in the nomination process.
—
2. NO primaries.
P.R. and nonpartisan App.V.