Texas State Senator Bryan Hughes (R-Tyler) has introduced SB 2093. It continues the practice, established in 2019, that candidates nominated by parties that use conventions (instead of primaries) must pay a filing fee. But it says the fee should be given to that candidate’s party, to use as the party sees fit.
The ballot-qualified parties that nominate by convention in Texas at this time are the Libertarian and Green Parties. Thanks to Jim Riley for news about the bill.
Presumably parties could return the funds to the candidate.
Just coincidence maybe, but the highest filing fees in Texas are $5000, and that’s exactly the federal limit on donations from political parties to candidates.
So like Chris Powell said, they can just “donate” it right back to those applying for the nomination.
Hughes is from Mineola in Wood County.
He has offices in Tyler (Smith), Longview (Gregg), Marshall (Harrison), Mineola (Wood), and Texarkana (Bowie). Even if he lived in Tyler, he would be identified by county (Smith).
The bill would apply to candidates when they filed to be considered for nomination.
The bill is carelessly drafted.
It does not provide the number of in lieu of signatures. It does not provide for a screenout for such a petition, and was discovered in 2020 there is no affirmative requirement for a party chair to review a filing. Recall that in 2020, Mary Jennings Hegar and Wendy Davis filed suit to kick their Green Party opponents off the general election ballot. They were represented by Marc Elias of Democratic law firm Perkins Coie.
There is actually no reason to have pre-filing for convention-nominating parties. Voters may not participate in primaries and conventions, and they may not nominate someone who has.
Libertarian and Green voters, delegates, candidates, and nominees are unsullied by association with the Democratic or Republican parties.
The reason the Democrats and Republicans must pre-file is because the primary ballots must be pre-printed, and the filing fee defrays some of the cost of the government subsidy to ostensibly private political entities.
At minimum, candidates should be required to report government payments for primaries and contributions in kind.
I missed the most significant omission. The bill does not repeal the 2019 law.
Die
Texas has 2 primary parties (Rep and Dem) and 2 recognized convention parties (Lib and Grn). As stated earlier, the filing fees are used to offset some of the cost of the primary elections (the tax payers foot most of the bill). For convention parties, there would be no benefit. Convention parties self fund their conventions where candidates are nominated.
Furthermore, convention delegates are prohibited by law from voting in primaries. This applies to signatories on a petition to include candidates for a convention party. This makes signing a petition unattractive for those sympathetic to the candidate. By signing a petition for a convention candidate to be used lieu of paying a filing fee, the signee becomes a defacto member of that party and therefore ineligible to vote for other local candidates in the primary.
This bill, and similar bills passed in the past, are aimed solely at limiting competition at the ballot box. It would weed out poorly funded candidates since being personally wealthy is an obvious requirement. Since convention party candidates do not appear on the primary ballot, they gain nothing by paying a filing fee to pay for better funded candidates to get greater publicity. The legislature just wants to take money that these candidates can ill afford.
It wants to put a stop to spoilers. Better late than never!