On April 16, the SAM Party, a ballot-qualified party in New York, filed an amended complaint in its ballot access case. As before, the new complaint challenges the requirement that a party must poll 130,000 votes for president, or 2% for president, whichever is more, in order to stay on the ballot.
As the original complaint explained, SAM does not desire to run anyone for president, yet the new law forces it to run for president, or lose its status as a qualified party. The amended complaint is needed because the law that SAM is attacking was declared unconstitutional in state court earlier this year, so then the legislature passed the same requirement in March 2020 as part of the budget. The amended complaint explains that New York legislative rules do not permit the legislature to amend the budget bill, so legislators had to vote for the bill or else they had to vote against the entire budget.
The case has a new judge. It had originally been assigned to Judge Lewis A. Kaplan, but now it is assigned to Judge John G. Koeltl. Both are Clinton appointees. SAM Party v Kosinski, s.d. 1:20cv-323.
The complaint does not appear to challenge the increased threshold for gubernatorial elections, nor the initial signature requirement.
Funny name for a political party in New York. It reminds me of the Son of Sam murders, which happened in NYC years ago.
Serve America Movement (SAM).
It’s the initials of the founder. Stephanie something, I think.
How many appointed stooge Donkey/Elephant judges rule against Donkey/Elephant ballot access/gerrymander laws respectively ???
— and later get promoted to a higher judge job ???
Wait, I thought the increased threshold for governor requirement was struck down by the courts?
@CL Actually, it is technically only the “SAM” party since NY bans the use of “America” in party names. They can call it an acronym internally all they want but have to use only “SAM” on any documents submitted to the state.
Liam, it was struck down in March 2020 on the grounds that the new law was never passed by the legislature, just a commission. So Governor Cuomo got around that by having the legislature pass his restrictions, as part of his budget bill.
SAM would not have standing to challenge the new 45,000 petition requirement, due in May 2020, because it is already a ballot-qualified party. I am hoping that a non-qualified party, such as the Constitution Party, will file such a lawsuit.
@Liam,
The New York Supreme Court never reached the issue of the heightened ballot access restrictions. They determined that the legislature could not transfer law-making authority to a commission. The pretext given for adding the thresholds was that since they were doling out state money, they had to limit the money to serious candidates. They actually argued that just a few parties represented all the political viewpoints that a voter could conceivably need.
The whole scheme is a scam. There are no limits on conventional funding other than individual limits. And New York limits are more generous than congressional limits. Conventional contributions can come from outisde the district, while matched contributions are limited to the district. So you use the out of district big bucks to finance small dollar fund raising, locking in voters who think they are on par with the Michael Bloomberg’s of the world.
The overall scheme would likely pass scrutiny from a court. A New York court would probably rule that graft is not unconstitutional in New York, and is a traditional practice to be revered and protected.
That is probably why the suit is filed in federal court. If the federal court does strike down the new limits, the legislature will just pass the public funding provisions. They were probably trying to use the coronavirus as a way of sneaking it through.
Reminder–
The USA Congress and ALL State legis and many larger local legis bodies are ALL ANTI-Democracy minority rule OLIGARCH regimes — who love the NOW election systems that got them into POWER.
esp ANTI-Democracy gerrymanders —
1/2 or less votes x 1/2 rigged packed/cracked gerrymander areas = 1/4 or less CONTROL —
with much, much, much worse extremist primary math.
NY Donkey rigged districts for routine graft hacks or now open RED communist hacks — AOC types.
——
ONE election day — NOOO primaries.
PR
APPV
TOTSOP
Demo Rep, do you have any learning materials for someone who would want to learn your language, in case someone did?
This scheme and all the justifications for it are egregiously ridiculous. Why do they even bother when it comes to president? New York is deep blue, way far from a swing state. I can see why governor is an issue for them, they have had Republican governors not too long ago. Not that it’s ethical but at least it makes sense from their self interest. But if they are going to make it a 2 year ballot access why are they stuck on raising signature requirements in the Presidential year?
@Charles,
If a party fails the presidential test in 2020, they won’t be eligible to have a gubernatorial candidate in 2022 unless they petition again. If you look at the election results for 2016 and 2018, you will recognize that the new thresholds are about 10% higher than the Working Families candidate received.
True, there’s that. But the workers family party has been around a long time, along with others that have been around a long time or came and went like liberal, conservative, right to life, independence etc. Usually they nominate the same candidates as the bigger parties but not always. On the other hand libertarians tried for almost 50 years to gain ballot retention and finally did. They generally run their own separate candidates and are the biggest third party nationally and in most other states. Is it just a coincidence that this attack on ballot access in N.Y. Came right after that happened?
It was announced on July 20th, 2021 that Dan Rosenthal, the Democratic First Selectman in Newtown, Connecticut, is petitioning to run for re-election as a Serve America Movement candidate instead of as a Democrat (or a Republican) candidate this time around:
https://www.newstimes.com/elections/article/Newtown-s-first-selectman-chooses-to-petition-16327484.php