The Texas Supreme Court wants a brief from the Libertarian Party by Tuesday, September 1, in the lawsuit over whether Libertarians for congress and state office who didn’t pay a filing fee should be removed from the ballot. Here is the brief of the Texas House Republican Caucus PAC, concerning Libertarians running for state office.
Zillionaire filing fees next in TX tyrannyland ???
I hope, on behalf of Greens riding the tails of this, that Dikeman et al give them a helluva brief.
In that case please contribute to the Texas LP Legal Fund here: https://lptexas.nationbuilder.com/legalfund
You would think that the state would be happy that the LP saved them the costs of a primary, but NOOOO. They still wants the fees.
https://caselaw.findlaw.com/us-supreme-court/415/709.html
1974 SCOTUS filing fees case-
Lubin v Panish
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Rotted to the core States pay ANY attention to SCOTUS ops — esp about elections ???
@WZ,
It’s worse than that. The Democrats and Republicans pay their fee to their party. The party chair is paid by the state, and election workers are chosen by the party. So they can choose workers who are likely to contribute their wages back to the party.
The Libertarians and Greens are expected to file in two places, which might be 100s of miles apart, with same deadline. A Green candidate in Dallas would have to travel to Houston and Austin, while his Democrat or Republican opponent will be able to file in Dallas.
The filing fee goes into the general fund, so it might be spent on a boondoggle that benefits some rich donor to the Democrat or Republican.
Democrats and Republicans can write bad checks for their filing fees and still get on the ballot. Others cannot (or at least their is no provision for this kind of redo in case their check bounces.)
Are there refunds for LP candidates who file but then do not get the LP nomination at convention? If not then this seems to be unnecessarily limiting competition in the LP’s convention process. (And don’t forget that any LP candidate can lose to NOTA.)
If refunds are possible, then that would encourage Republicans to recruit people to run as Libertarians to discourage other filers and then later back out, get their refund and leave the Republican with no LP opponent. Either way the filing fees is problematic.
You are correct that it is crazy that LP candidates who are running on a platform of reducing government are forced to contribute to the growth of government in order to run for office. It is like forcing Republican candidates to kneel during the playing of the national anthem or forcing Democrat candidates to take an oath to balance the budget.
@Rock,
In Texas it is not only illegal to participate in the electoral activities of more than one party, it is actually criminal.
If a Libertarian were to vote in a Democratic or Republican primary, it is actually a criminal offense. It is as if you were trespassing or committing a robbery. Imagine that the polling place were in the courthouse, the literal seat of government across all 254 counties. If you entered a room where the Democrats or Republicans were holding a primary, you may be charged with a crime.
Your tax dollars go to pay for this private event. You can not even be a pollwatcher.
Hopefully, the Alamo won’t be used as a polling place.