On March 12, Congressmember Justin Amash (R-Michigan) introduced HR 1681, to outlaw discriminatory ballot access laws for congressional candidates. The bill says that minor party and independent candidates could not be required to obtain more signatures than major party candidates need to run in a primary. The bill also outlaws straight ticket devices in connection with federal elections.
Here is the text. Thanks to Thomas Jones for the bill number.
Partial equality.
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NO primaries, caucuses and conventions.
EQUAL ballot access tests for ALL individual candidates – nom pets / fees.
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PR and AppV
In general see Title 2 US CODE.
NO need for 1,000 page bills read only by special interest gangsters.
No chance it will pass.
No chance it will even make it to committee, let alone be voted on.
@Don which is why they need to change House and Senate rules to permit a “Motion to Acknowledge” (or something like that), which – with a second – would go to a chamber-wide vote on whether to hear the bill or not, if that passes, then they immediately drop all other business and take that up, chamber-wide skipping ALL committees. This way you get around the fact that the Speaker and the Senate majority leader effectively have unilateral control on rejecting bills, because they set the agendas.
In reality there’s only three people that control government, the President, the Speaker, and the Senate majority leader. Everybody else in the House and Senate is just a butt in a seat to determine who the Speaker and Senate majority leader will be.
RE: “signatures than major party candidates need to run in a primary.” I think we need more of that.
Richard, how many states require Republicans or Democrats to petition for their primary access?
Procedure – ALL bills in normal times go to a Committee — but may be DOA.
CRISIS bills may get direct action — 8 Dec 1941 Declaration of WAR with Japan.
Procedure more — *discharge* procedure – bill to floor regardless of committee machinations.
Well, perhaps Rep. Amash IS preparing the way for him to seek the Libertarian presidential nomination if he is, in fact, redistricted out of his congressional district as has been rumored.
Mich may lose another USA Rep gerrymander district after 2020 Census ???
Race / female quota stuff in Mich >>> LOW seniority white male may get purged.
Rep. Amash is NOT favored by many Republicans because if his libertarian views on many issues. I would prefer he remain in the House if he has a realistic chance but that may not be possible. Too bad the GOP is such a spineless group. As bad as the Democrats are they at least stand for something. It may be mostly absurd but what the hell.
He won’t know until after 2020 what the redistricting will look like. But he may already know he’s gonna get screwed.
Almost half the states require a petition to get on a primary ballot, but in many cases it is a very small petition, such as 25 signatures in Hawaii, or 40 in California.
Michigan is losing a seat after 2020. Losing two seats is not out of the question. The population has been stagnant versus other parts of the country.
With Democrats running parts of the state, they will make sure to combine two Republican districts, as payback for 2010 when two Dem seats were combined.
Thank you, Representative Amash, for a good first step. Now, how about getting rid of laws prohibiting parties from nominating any candidate they choose?
And how do e end partisan redistricting?
end partisan redistricting [aka minority rule gerrymanders] —
by PR – the peaceful way
or the very hard way [See Am Rev WAR and Civil WAR I].
See the rehatched reptile brains Brit Kings Charles I, James II and George III NOW in the White House.
On the reptile brains point — see
https://electionlawblog.org/?p=104169
See the TYRANT LAWLESS KILLER Italy, Germany and Japan regimes before and during World WAR II —
Often repeated on Cable TV shows.
All ballot access quotas discriminate against the voters. Quotas are intended to prevent candidates from campaigning which is censorship. All the quotas are wealth qualifications for candidates which are unconstitutional. There’s no such thing as a no cost quota for candidate ballot access.
Even when the state claims a monopoly on printing ballots, there is no necessity to ration the space on the ballot for printing the names of candidates. There simply needs to be a single space for name of the single candidate of the voter’s choice for a given office – an open write-in ballot. There can can be 10,000 candidates, but the ballot ask the voter to choose just one and the other 9,999 are irrelevant to that voter’s ballot. Printing the names of “qualified” candidates and “qualified” parties is totally unnecessary tax subsidized political advertising for candidates and parties. “Qualifications” not in the Constitution are censorship of the voter’s right to choose in violation the First Amendment.
Hear!, hear! Way to go!, Congressman Amash, two thumbs up.