On August 21, the National Republican Congressional Committee filed a lawsuit in Texas Court of Appeals to remove the Libertarian congressional candidates from the ballot if they hadn’t paid a filing fee. At the same time, the Texas House Republican Caucus PAC filed a parallel lawsuit to remove the Libertarian candidates for state office who had not paid a filing fee.
Whether the filing fee for convention parties is constitutional is still pending in another lawsuit in Texas state court.
On August 25, the Texas Court of Appeals in Austin rejected the Republican lawsuits, which are numbers o3-20-421-cv and 03-20-422-cv. On the evening of August 26, the Republicans appealed to the State Supreme Court.
wow i hate the republicans but i always thought that unlike the democrats they at least did nt shy away from competition. anyone remember George Bush jnr bragging he could beat any candidate so was nt bothered who was on ballot paper
You are sadly mistaken. Most Republicans are now more friends of fair ballot access, or fair elections in general, than most Democrats are.
It depends a lot on which state is the issue, and who is perceived to be most disadvantaged by third party or independent candidates. Neither the Democrats nor Republicans have a consistent national policy on this. It’s the overriding logic of plurality voting in every case.
Should read, “no more friends of fair ballot access…”
Unfortunately the SCOTUS isn’t worth a sh*t because otherwise I would say that I would love to see this settled on a national level. It does have standing since US House candidates are for feral (SIC) office. Shouldn’t be any filing fees for petitioned candidates either, but we all agree on that here.
Andy, the only party the Republicans want ballot access for is the Green Party – Getting Republicans Elected Every November. That’s why you’ve seen so many Republicans working the petitions for Greens (and for a little while, Kanye West).
The cases are 03-20-00422-CV, 03-20-00421-CV, 03-20-00424-CV
All the zeroes appear to be signicant in searches on the 3rd COA web site.
“424” challenges Libertarian nominees for the legislature.
The lawsuits were filed against the wrong party officials.
TEC 145.003(b)(1) vests authority to declare nominees ineligible in the party official that certified their nomination. Nominees for convention-nominating parties are certified by the presiding officer of the convention where the nomination was made (TEC 181.068). Nominations for district offices were made either at county conventions (districts within a single county) or district conventions (districts in multiple counties) (TEC 181.061). These nominations were made in March and the nominations certified by the presiding officers within the 20 day deadline. Whitney Bilyeu did not preside at any of these conventions.
Statewide nominations are made at the state convention which was held on August 1 and 2. Whitney Bilyeu did not preside at this convention, though she was elected state party chair at the convention. She did not take office until after the convention at which she did not preside.
The Republicans filed suit to mandate that a person who did not have any authority to declare nominees ineligible to be ineligible.
You would think that the Republican legislators would be more familiar with the Texas Election Code.
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TEC makes a distinction between “eligibility” and “form, content, and procedure” (see TEC 141.034 and 172.0223)
Qualification for US Representatives are 25 years of age, 7 years of citizenship, and residence in state on election day. It is unknown and unknowable where a person will be resident in the future, so residence can not be enforced prior to the election.
Qualification for Texas Representatives are citizenship, 2 year state residence, 1 year district residence, and 21 year of age. For Texas Senators the qualifications are 5 year state residence, and 26 years of age.
Form, content, and procedure cover items such as applications not being notarized, petition deficiencies, filing deadlines missed, or insufficient filing fees.
In essence, Texas distinguishes between manner and qualification. Under the US Constitution, a state may not impose additional qualifications on members of Congress in the guise of manner regulation. Similar restrictions are in the Texas Constitution.
Failure to pay a filing fee (even if had been lawfully imposed) is not grounds for a declaration of ineligibility. If the correct party officers had been shown information proving ineligibility, they would have had a ministerial duty to declare the candidate ineligible.
Traditionally, if a party wanted to remove a legislative nominee, the nominee would move to a studio apartment in another district, apply for a driver’s license and show this to the party official who had certified the nomination. Meanwhile, the nominee could spend most of his time visiting his wife or girlfriend back in the district. The party official would declare him ineligible. The party could then fill the vacancy in nomination (Texas does not permit replacement in case of casual withdrawals).
Challenges based on the form, content, or procedure for applicants for a place on a primary election ballot must be made prior to the 50th day before the election day (TEC 172.0223). This ensures that the applicants can be removed from the ballot.
There is no explicit equivalent provision for convention-nominated applicants. That is both an equal protection violation and a due process violation for failure to include them in the SOS regulations.
Can Justice Riley inform the MORON lawyers for the TX LP, TX Greens, etc of EQUAL in 14-1 Amdt ???
esp for INDIVIDUAL candidates for each partisan office.
EQUAL ballot access test(s) for ALL such INDIVIDUAL candidates.
1968-2020 — mere 52 years of MORON SCOTUS ballot access ops.
John Ratcliffe was US representative for the 4th Congressional district of Texas, for the 2019-2021. He resigned to become Director of National Intelligence. The governor should call a special election to fill the remainder of his term.
The Republican Party state chair declared that Ratcliffe who was the nominee for 2021-2023 term was “ineligible”. Just because you presently have a executive branch job, does not preclude you from seeking a congressional seat that begins in the future. If elected, he could resign as DNI, or alternatively decline to take the oath of office for Congress.
Because he was “ineligible” the Republican Party named Pat Fallon as the nominee.
Pat Fallon did not pay a filing fee to appear on the general election ballot.
And yet the Republicans are claiming that his opponent Lou Antonelli is ineligible for not paying a filing fee.
@DR,
It is more basic than that.
The Democrats, Republicans, and 3rd COA did not follow the law.
Aw. I was just about to start referring to the Democratic Party as the Anti-Democratic Party.
No Democrat or Republican pays a fee to be on the general election ballot and they never have (if you ignore special elections.) Beginning in 2020 all candidates other than Democrats and Republicans must do so.
For 40 years Libertarians have been on the ballot without paying a filing fee but somehow in 2020 this same circumstance is causing Republicans “irreparably harm”.
Fortunately the election code is clear that while the general lawsuit concerning the constitutionality of the filing fees remains unsettled, no candidate may be declared ineligible for that reason.