The Common Sense Party of California is trying to become ballot-qualified. According to the party’s press release, it already has over 10,000 registered voters. It needs registration equal to .33% of the total state registration in order to qualify. If it qualifies by October 2, 2019, its members may run for Congress and legislature in the March 2020 primary with the party label on the ballot next to their names. If it doesn’t qualify by then, but it does qualify by July 6, 2020, it can place a presidential nominee on the November 2020 ballot.
The law doesn’t permit anyone to know at this time exactly how many registrations the party needs. The .33% is applied to the state registration tally as of the deadline, which of course is in the future. But in October 2019 the requirement will probably be 70,000. When the percentage is applied, voters who are listed as having “unknown” registration are excluded from the denominator. “Unknown” voters are those who were registered automatically because they have drivers licenses or state ID cards, but they have never been asked to choose a partisan affiliation.
I heard that the Common Sense Party is paying people for registrations in California. I heard that they are also paying on a plebiscite petition (a non-binding petition which is not to place an issue on the ballot, but rather is to urge government officials to take certain actions), and that they are using the plebiscite petition as a gimmick to get people to stop, so they can then try to talk them into registering under the Common Sense Party banner. I do not know what the subject of the plebiscite petition is, but it must be a popular issue. The Peace and Freedom Party in CA used this tactic when they were short on registrations for ballot access way back in 2003. The gimmick they used for their plebiscite petition was to lower college tuition, which especially went over well at college campuses.
Wasn’t Thomas Paine advocating for overthrow of the goverment? I thought that was illegal in California.
California election code 5102 bars parties that “directly or indirectly carries on, advocates, teaches, justifies, aids, or abets the overthrow by any unlawful means of, or that directly or indirectly carries on, advocates, teaches, justifies, aids, or abets a program of sabotage, force and violence, sedition or treason against, the government of the United States or of this state.”
The US Supreme Court unanimously struck down a similar law in Indiana in 1974 in Communist Party of Indiana v Whitcomb, but the California legislature refuses to repeal this law, even though the California Legislative Counsel in 1975 issued an opinion saying it is unconstitutional.
I heard that the Common Sense Party in CA is a leftist leaning party. I doubt they have much in common with Thomas Paine.
The chair of the Common Sense Party is Tom Campbell, a former Republican member of Congress, and twice the Republican nominee for US Senate.
I have not looked into this Common Sense Party yet much myself. I was told by somebody else that they sounded leftist leaning. I will have to look into them more.
https://cacommonsense.org/
more/same/less govt control of everything ???
Tom Campbell gave the keynote address to the 2018 California Libertarian Convention. He along with Bill Weld, Adam Kokesh, and Larry Sharpe were suggested as being of Libertarian timbre.
Campbell was the US senate nominee in 2000, but lost in the primary in 1992 and 2010. In the latter campaign he was portrayed as a wolf in sheep’s clothing (demon sheep).
I attended the 2018 LP of California State Convention. I must have been out of the room when Tom Campbell was speaking, but I have no recollection of him having been there. I unfortunately do remember seeing Bill Weld there, and I purposely did not attend his speech.
I just got an email for the “common sense party” directed at “independent voters” which is odd since I am registered with the Libertarian Party and have been for a long time. I wonder what members of other parties beside the Libertarians are being targeted and being lumped in with “independent voters”
It sounds like a moderate middle of the road party, sort of like a California version of Americans Elect. Based on the website anyway.
@Andy,
See
https://www.lp.org/presidential-timber-ca-libertarian-convention/
Campbell gave the keynote speech at the April 28 evening banquet. Wele also gave remarks at the banquet. Larry Sharpe was master of ceremonies.