Twenty-eight Colorado legislators have introduced SB 287, which would establish a presidential primary. Only parties that had polled at least 20% for president in the last election would be eligible for a presidential primary. The Governor would set the date, but it would always be in March. Under current law, since 2003, there is no presidential primary in Colorado; caucuses are used instead.
In 1992, Ross Perot got 23.32% of the vote for President in Colorado, but his ballot label was “independent”, so probably if the bill had been in effect in the 1990’s, there would have been no “Independent Party” presidential primary in 1996.
Under the terms of the bill, candidates get on the ballot with a filing fee of $10,000, or 10,000 signatures of party members. Section 1-4-1204 also seems to say candidates must have qualified for primary matching funds. It is conceivable that the intent of the bill is to provide that the filing fee/petition is not needed for candidates who qualify for primary season matching funds; the wording is ambiguous. The bill would be clearer if there were either an “and” or an “or” after 1-4-1204(a). Here is a copy of the bill. Thanks to Josh Putnam for this news.
Sounds like another revenue enhancement bill.
The bill is somewhat contradictory as to which parties would hold primaries. Under Colorado law, a major political party is one whose candidate for governor received 10% or more of the vote.
It is the candidate qualification that requires affiliation with a party that received 20% or more of the presidential vote. An interesting question would be whether Bernie Sanders qualifies as a Democratic candidate, unless he changes his Vermont registration.
The bill also says a primary will only be held for a party that has one or more qualifying candidates.
The bill says it is a re-creation and re-enactment of the section that was repealed in 2002, but I have not found a complete version of that section before 2002. The 2002 statute simply repealed the entire section.
The primary was created in 1990 as a result of a referred statute. I found the voters guide for that election, but it does not include the text of the statute. Colorado only had 3 presidential primaries before repeal.
In 1998, 1-4-1202(1) was amended as part of a rewrite of the minor party ballot access laws. Before that, a major party was defined as one of the two parties that had received the most gubernatorial votes. In 1998, the change was made to the current 10% threshold. It appears that the 1998 change to the presidential primary section was incidental to the minor party reform provisions (i.e. someone did a search on major and minor party when drafting the bill).
Ironically, the contradicting provisions would have worked in a 2012 presidential primary. In 2010, the Republican gubernatorial candidate received 10.5% of the vote, while the American Constitution candidate received 35.8% of the vote. Thus under the 1998 change, there were 3 major parties in Colorado. Had it not been for that change, the two major parties would have been the Democratic and American Constitution parties.
But in 2012, there could not have been any candidates who qualified for an American Constitution presidential primary, unless “affiliated with a party that received 20%” is read as not requiring affiliation with the party whose nomination you sought. I suspect that a statute that only permitted Republicans and Democrats to seek the American Constitution party nomination would be overturned by the court.
It is quite possible that the statute that was repealed in 2002 is just a starting point for the current bill.
1-4-1201(1) is ambiguous.
It reads
1-4-1201(1) “… The only candidates whose names will be placed on ballots for the presidential primary election are those candidates who [colon]
(a) (paraphrase) “eligible for matching funds” [semicolon]
(b) (paraphrase) “bona fide candidate … pursuant to political party rules … affiliated with a party that received 20% of the presidential vote”[semicolon] and
(c) (paraphrase) “paid the $10,000 filing fee or submitted an in lieu of petition with 10,000 signatures” [period]
Qualifying for matching funds (a) does not require one to be a candidate for the Democrat or Republican nomination. It does establish that your candidacy is national in scope, since qualification for matching funds requires $5000 in 20 states (with a maximum of $250 per donor counting towards the $5000.
It is conceivable that (b) could disqualify Lyndon LaRouche from running in the Democratic Party. In any case it requires a potential candidate to be affiliated with a major party.
And (c) requires the candidate to pay a filing fee.
That should read 1-4-1201(1) is not ambiguous.
Many of us in Alabama would gladly accept a law which allows a 3rd party nominee/Independent candidate to pay a filing fee of the same amount which the Democratic Party charges its candidates seeking the office in their Primary. Can’t remember the amount – seems to not be more than 3% of the annual salary of the office.
I’ve committed myself to work toward that kind of law. I’m retired, and even though my health is bad, thank God for the Computer. Hopefully over time, I can convince the Legislature to pass this type of legislation.