On May 16, the Texas legislature passed SB 44 almost unanimously. It says that candidate petitions, whether independent candidates, or candidates seeking to be on a primary ballot, are deemed to have enough valid signatures unless they are challenged. And anyone who challenges must specify which signatures are being challenged; no one can file a “general” challenge.
Here is the text. It adds the sentence “Unless the petition is challenged, the authority is only required to review the petition for facial compliance with the applicable requirements as to form, content, and procedure.” Also, “A challenge must state with specificity how the application does not comply with the applicable requirements as to form, content, and procedure. The authority’s review of the challenge is limited to the specific items challenged and any response filed by the challenged candidate.”
The bill also restores the need for primary candidates for statewide judicial posts to submit a petition, to get on the primary ballot. Such petitions need 50 signatures from each of the 17 State Court of Appeals districts in the state. This primary judicial petition had been in effect in Texas primaries in the past, but it had been repealed for the 2016 election. The absence of the need for a primary petition is one reason the Democratic Party had a full slate of statewide judicial candidates in 2016, something the Democrats had not had in recent elections earlier than 2016. Thanks to Jim Riley for information about SB 44.
The primary purpose of SB 44 was to restore the judicial petitions. In addition to the distribution requirements of the **14** appellate courts, candidates for justice of appellate courts containing the largest counties, and district, county, and justice of the peace courts in the largest counties require a petition of 250 signatures, in addition to the filing fee (or 500 signatures).
The judicial petitions were deliberately targeted for repeal in 2015, because of a couple of incidents, and repeal passed the House on a 144:0 vote, but might not have been brought up in the senate. There was a Senate bill, which the author agreed to permit some house amendments (Christmas Tree bill, because the amendments are added like ornaments). The person who was communicating with the legislative drafting people, told them to incorporate language from four bills (since the House had passed it 144:0, it can hardly be considered controversial). When the amended bill got back to the Senate, the author said the amendments were agreed to, and the Senate concurred.
The “authority” is the entity that an application for a place on the ballot is made to. For city elections it is the city clerk, for school districts, the school board secretary, for independent candidates, the Secretary of State, or the county judge, depending on the office, and for partisan primaries, the state or county party chairs.
In Texas, the primaries are conducted by the political parties (in accordance with state law). This makes them state actors with respect to their conduct of the primaries. So if you want to run in the Republican primary, you file with Republican state or county chair, depending on the office. The filing fee is actually paid to the party. In olden days, the parties actually did run the primaries, they would print the ballots, and have voters put them in the ballot box (after verifying the receipt for payment of the poll tax). Nowadays, they rent the voting machines from the counties, and tell the county election officials who the candidates are. The State pays for the cost of the primaries. The county parties are required to report the running results to the SOS every 15 minutes, just like the county officials are required to do for the general election. This is no problem since it is the county equipment being used in both cases.
But the filing IS the one part that really is conducted by the party. And the parties don’t have the resources to check petitions. The petition is mainly to keep the riffraff out. The application and petitions are public records, so it is possible for Democratic candidates who want to knock a Republican candidate off the ballot, can examine the application.
The parties conduct petition signing parties (in the larger counties, there are dozens of judicial offices on the ballot). So party faithful can go around and sign many petitions, and meet the candidates. I have signed one judicial petition, when I was voting at a city election in November before a then January filing deadline. In such a situation, you can be pretty sure that signers are registered to vote, and probably even had their voting certificate with them.
(Texas) So when i turn in my petitions a challenging, candidate can pick up a copy of my petitions from the county party look for a specify one(s) and then challenged them,after he(she) have a copy of my petitions to look for challenges or errors ? Can someone just keep looking and challenging the petitions please clarify ?