On April 6, the Texas House Elections Committee passed HB 464, which requires candidates nominated in convention to pay filing fees. The vote was 5-1. Traditionally, in Texas, filing fees have only been required for candidates running in partisan primaries, and the money is used to help administer the primaries. The bill says the fees paid by convention nominees would go into the general state treasury.
If this bill is signed into law, the number of people who run for office as Libertarians or Greens will probably become much smaller. Texas has 165 legislative elections every two years (150 house seats and 15 state senate seats). Every year, a majority of districts have only one major party candidate. In November 2014, 110 of the 165 districts had only one major party candidate. The Libertarian and Green Parties run many candidates, thus giving voters a choice of more than one candidate in most legislative districts. HB 464 will inevitably mean that a majority of legislative districts will have only one candidate on the November ballot. Thanks to Jim Riley for the news about the bill.
Will a new Grant-Sherman Union Army have to liberate Texas the very hard way ???
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Abolish the USA Senate.
Divide the larger States.
P.R. and nonpartisan App.V.
Texas used to require filing fees to pay the cost of primaries, which are conducted by the political parties. This was overturned in 1972 in ‘Bullock v Carter’. At that time, the Democratic Party was requiring a filing fee of up to $8900 for a local office (this would be $50,000 in 2015 dollars).
The SCOTUS determined that such filing fees were harmful to potential supporters of the candidate – more so than the candidate themselves.
The SCOTUS said that the state could either eliminate nomination by primary, or pay for the primaries.
Under current law, candidates seeking nomination by their party, file with their party chair. If they are seeking a primary nomination, they include a check made out to the party. For example, Drew Springer, the author of HB 464, paid $750 to the Republican Party of Texas. The state chair informed the county chairs in his house district to place Springer on the primary ballot in their counties. After the primary, the county party canvassed the vote in their county. The state party totaled the votes from the counties, and determined the primary winners, and certified the nominees to the secretary of state. This is the first official notification that the SOS received about Springer.
The county parties then calculate the cost of administering the primary. This included a payment for the party officials. They deduct the amount they received from filing fees, and then the state writes them a check (or a voucher after a Democratic Party official embezzled the payment).
For convention-nominating parties, a candidate files with their party chair, but does not pay a filing fee. The state chair informs the district convention of the candidates who are seeking the nomination. The convention is limited to those candidates. After the convention, the SOS is notified of who the nominee is.
Nomination by convention is totally parallel to nomination by primary. Voters are restricted to one party. They sign in at the precinct convention, just as they would have had they voted in a primary. Both primaries and conventions are conducted by the parties, with the SOS only being informed after the nominee has been determined. The only difference is that conventions are not subsidized by the State, and there is no filing fee used to reduce the state subsidy.
A more consistent approach would be to subsidize conventions, and let both primary-nominating and convention-nominating parties discount the filing fee by some fixed amount between 0% and 100%. When the State was calculating the subsidy, they would reduce the payment by the amount that would have been collected from the filing fee.
For example, if a primary had cost $100,000 and filing fees would have been $10,000, then the subsidy would be $90,000. If the party had collected the $10,000 then they would be fully compensated. If the party had not collected the filing fee, then it would have to bear the extra expense.
Similarly, if a convention had cost $1,000 and filing fees would have been $2,000 (reflecting fewer candidates), then the subsidy would be a minus $1,000. But there would be no repayment.
For independent candidates, the subsidy could be for the cost of petitioning, say $1 per signature minus the filing fee.
The fiscal note for HB 464 says that the SOS would bear no additional expense (cashing a check could be handled by current staff) and the money is not used for election purposes, since it goes to the general fund. Any general election cost associated with a convention-nominated candidate is identical to the cost associated with a primary-nominated candidate, so there is a clear equal protection issue.
HB 464 is entirely silent on when the filing fee would be due. Since party nominees do not file with the State, there is no document to attach the filing fee to. HB 464 does not say when an in lieu of petition would be due, it does not state when collection of signatures may begin. It does not say who may sign the petition, and it includes no specific language that must appear on the petition.
Under Texas law, a circulator must point to that language, and read it aloud, before permitting a petitioner sign the petition. The circulator must sign each petition sheet, and swear before a notary that he had witnessed each signature and pointed to and read the warning. The language that must appear on petitions for candidates seeking primary nomination is different than that for independent candidates, which is different that that for party qualifications. Could the nominee for a new party be required to pay a fee before the party itself has qualified? Could a nominee collect signatures prior to being nominated? Candidates seeking primary nomination have no starting date. I could be collecting signatures for 2016 today.
Drew Spring has never had a Libertarian opponent. He has not even had a Democratic opponent. In 2014, he had no opponents, period. He received about %100,000 in contributions, and spent about $30,000. His largest contributor ($5,000) was not even from Texas.
He said his bill would make it “fair and equal”. What is he going to spend that $70,000 profit on if he ever does have an opponent?