Daniel Caldwell of Fort Worth, Texas, is a candidate in the 2022 elections for Texas Board of Education, a partisan post. He is seeking the nomination of all four ballot-qualified parties: Republican, Democratic, Libertarian, and Green, according to this story.
Dude has “vanity candidate” written all over him.
For a minute there, I thought it might be some guy named De la Fuente.
Does he claim to be a relative of 1836 Sam Houston and other 1836 Texas heroes ???
I had thought this illegal, but the statutes limit cross-participation by voters. Caldwell can only vote in one primary (or participate in one party’s convention). A Libertarian convention might not whether he had affiliated with the party.
Caldwell may not run as an independent (for the same office) if he fails to win a primary. He has been accepted by both Republican and Democratic parties – though I’d guess their lawyers are investigatin.
The news artice mention Alan Shivers running in 1952 as the Republican and Democratic candidate for governor. He was head of Democrats for Eisenhower and wanted to be on the same ticket with Ike and make sure straight-ticket Republican votes did not cost him re-election.
As a result of that election, a law was passed making it illegal to appear on the same ballot twice. This previously was not illegal. In 1932, John Nance Garner was on the ballot for Vice President and re-election to Congress. He was House Speaker and went directly from being presiding officer of the House to being presiding officer of the Senate.
The law passed after the 1952 election had to be amended to permit LBJ to be on the ballot for Vice President and Senator. Had Shivers not run for governor this exception would not have been needed, and it would have been relatively unremarkable.
As it turned out, LBJ’s election to both offices resulted in his resignation as senator and led to John Tower’s election in the 1961 special election.
If LBJ were not on the ticket, JFK might not have won. If LBJ had not run for re-election as Senator, some other Democrat would likely have been elected to a full 6-year term.
LBJ was a criminal who committed voter fraud in numerous elections and had President Kennedy killed. He was also a sex pervert who exposed his erect penis while performing The Treatment on a victim he intended to intimidate.
JFK was an even worse criminal who stole the election, much like Biden. LBJ helped him steal it in Texas, and the Italian-American business fraternity organization known as the Outfit in Illinois. JFK sexual perversion is well known, so I probably don’t need to go over that. He betrayed the people who put and kept him in power, and paid the price.
For one thing, JFK betrayed the Cubans who risked their lives to liberate their country from Castro. For another, he caused all sorts of undue problems for Italian-American fraternal business organizations. He chickened out of nuclear war with the Soviet Union, buying into the commie lies that we couldn’t have won that war and destroyed the commie menace.
Towards the end, there are rumors that he was experimenting with dangerous hallucination inducing drugs, planning to surrender Indochina to the commies, declare some foolish “peace in our time” with the Soviets a la Neville Chamberlain, mess with the money supply, and possibly even dissolve our nation’s vital intelligence agencies.
I don’t know if any of that is true, but the aforementioned known transgressions and some others, particularly his administration’s aggressive attack on States Rights led by his brother, the Attorney General, all to aid and abet the commie race mixing agenda, added up to one thing: he had to go.
LBJ turned out to be a skunk too, and unfortunately his big lies about Barry Goldwater carried all but the few smartest and best states in 1964. But the giant failure of law and order over the next four years, much like what we are experiencing now, finally paved the way for Nixon to win in 1968 the election that was stolen from him in 1960, much like Trump will win in 2024 the election that was stolen from him in 2020.
Unlike Nixon, Trump won’t back down or resign. He called the enemy’s bluff on the Russia hoax and two failed impeachment attempts. He is stronger and more popular than ever, and when he is finally restored to his rightful office, we can at last go on to proceed to the final battle to defeat global communism, leftism, and evil in all its manifestations and usher in the new Kingdom of Heaven as described in the Book of Revelations.
LBJ in 1948 Donkey primary for USA Senator —
stuffed ballot boxes with olde paper ballots.
>>> LBJ later donkey leader in USA Senate >>> 1960 Donkey VP cand.
—-
What percent of elections in USA since 1776 have been FELONY rigged/*stolen* —
esp for top ***power*** offices ???
ONLY the FELONS involved know for sure ???
It seems to me that if political parties are independent organizations with the freedom of association (or disassociation), then it should be entirely up to each party whether or not to accept the nomination of a candidate who is also the nominee of another party, as well. Whether or not to run fusion candidates ought to be left up entirely to the parties.
@WZ,
Are political parties independent organizations if they must nominate in the manner dictated by the state?
PARTIES = FACTIONS OF ALL PUBLIC VOTERS
@DR,
What do you mean by “public voter’? Aren’t all voters, even public officials, acting in a private capacity when they vote?
I can’t tell whether you are agreeing with WZ or not. He seems to view political parties as quasi-state organizations.
https://ballot-access.org/2021/12/10/kansas-city-star-carries-criticism-of-top-four-initiative-by-larry-bradley-a-supporter-of-ranked-choice-voting/#comment-1034155
@ JR
I would allow any party to nominate according to its own rules, and not require them to participate in any state-sponsored primary, if they didn’t want to.
I suppose technically, if a state has particular rules how candidates’ name may be placed on the ballot, that is a limitation on the freedom of any party. IMO, those limitations should be as light as possible for any qualifying party.
JR –
PUBLIC DEFINITION OF ELECTOR-VOTER IN PUBLIC CONSTITUTIONS AND PUBLIC LAWS.
SCOTUS BRAIN ROT — APPLYING 1 AMDT TO ELECTIONS ESP VIA 14-1 AMDT.
Why should parties even be given the option of participating in a state-sponsored primary? It’s none of the government’s business, and should be none of the taxpayer’s responsibility, how they nominate their candidates. If a non ballot qualified pac, social club, union, civic association, etc, wants to endorse a candidate, it’s none of the government’s business how they arrive at that endorsement.
The only difference is that by virtue of collecting enough signatures or voter registrations, paying a certain fee, or earning enough votes in previous elections to show continuous support, or some combination of these, a party can qualify to get its endorsed candidates to show it’s label next to their name on the ballot. I favor retaining that ability for reasons explained at the link in my last comment. However, that does not mean that the government should interfere in their internal nomination process, much less pay for or administer it.
One amendment to the above: I personally don’t think states should register voters by party, only candidates. It should be up to parties to maintain their own voter or other member records. The only thing a party should get from the state, if it qualifies for it, is a ballot label for its endorsed candidates. Otherwise, no subsidies, and no interference.
Technologically, there’s no particular reason why a voter should have to apply to register to vote anymore. States can now easily take their existing drivers license or other ID records, cross reference them with age and citizenship records, and arrive at who is or isn’t eligible to vote. If a state wants to disqualify people for other reasons such as a criminal record, which is another practice that should go in the dustbin of history, it can easily have access to those records as well. Maintaining separate voter rolls is an anachronism and a waste of time and money that just exemplifies how laws have not evolved along with technology.
NOOO extremist party hack caucuses, primaries and conventions = NOOO govt party registration/PURGE lists.
Party hacks can have their extremist PRIVATE clubby meetings for whatever stuff —
which public candidates can/should totally ignore.
See 1989 Eu opin.
I’ll agree with the first part. Whether public candidates ignore them or not should be up to them. I already explained why.
@WZ,
What if a state says that a “party” consists of every voter who shows up at a party meeting on a particular day?
How else can you make sure there is no overlap in membership?
These meetings must be public so everyone can see that it is all on the up and up, so that some voters are not excluded under conditions that would violate the 15th, 19th, 26th, 14th, or 24th Amendments.
But some of these parties are so large that the state requires they nominate by primary. Other parties may hold primaries if they wish, since all this is at their expense.
So we let party’s charge a filing fee to finance their primaries. But the fees are so large that some candidates can not afford to run. Well since we are requiring these larger parties to hold primaries, why not subsidize them?
What about smaller parties, who could have held a primary? We don’t want to finance their primaries. We will make them demonstrate considerable success.
Oh and why should we let any group of individuals who meet no matter how small make nominations? We will require minimal participation or electoral success.
Where did we go wrong?
Anyone must be able to file in the
You went wrong right in the beginning when you defined parties as everyone who shows up on a certain day or that it’s the state’s business whether their membership overlaps or not. Parties themselves can make such a requirement, if they wish, or not, if they don’t. They can have a primary if they want, but only if they can pay for it and run it themselves.
@Mike,
I did not make that definition. The State of Texas did.
If we use your definition, how do we determine which parties have a right to make nominations?
Any number of ways exist in different states. Some states do it by a party maintaining a certain percentage of the vote in statewide races, some by petition, some by filing fee, some through a combination or choice of these. Jay above also mentioned maintaining a certain number or percentage of registered voters, but I tend to agree that the North Dakota system of automatic registration makes more sense now, which means the party registration would be out.
In some states, once qualified, a party just needs to occasionally update it’s paperwork with the state to demonstrate that it’s still qualified. You might think this would lead to a really crowded ballot, but it doesn’t. Small parties are so disorganized that even this tiny bit of regulatory compliance often proves to be their death knell. It may make more sense than having to petition repeatedly to “organize” the same party over and over.
INDIVIDUAL candidates are on ballots – NOT *parties*.
@Mike,
Why should we have an intermediary which you refer to as a ‘qualified party’ to determine which candidates names are on a ballot? Why not let each candidate qualify as an individual?
Because parties still exist whether their names are next to their candidates or not, and candidates who are incumbents, backed by large parties, wealthy, well connected, famous, and so on, are much more easily able to gather signatures, pay a fee, or do whatever they need to qualify for the ballot, and then communicate their message to voters once qualified. Candidates who don’t have those advantages rely much more on a smaller party ballot label to communicate to voters, smaller party financial and volunteer support to qualify for the ballot and communicate to voters, in exchange for helping build that brand.
Also, because most voters don’t have the time and interest level in politics to research every candidate for every office. Voters who are well off or retired, childless or with grown kids, etc, have a lot of advantages as far as that goes. Those who are busy with work, raising kids, and other hobbies don’t have a lot of time to research hundreds of candidates running for a dozen or more offices. They find party ballot labels useful. That usefulness goes away, especially for smaller parties, when parties can’t control who uses their ballot label.
Both individuals and parties are on ballots, and it should stay that way.
@Jay,
What is your definition of a party?
You are assuming that qualification of individual candidates would be a barrier.
If voters do not have enough time to research candidates, require employers to give time off with pay to become educated. Lectures/debates could be held at local high schools.
@Jay,
Candidates in Minneapolis qualify as individuals. They may use a party name or slogan.
Using a party name that the party has no control over disadvantages smaller parties, as they have fewer resources to protect their brand, communicate who their endorsed candidates are, etc.
Standard dictionary or encyclopedic definition of political party should probably suffice.
I’m not assuming anything. I’ve given my reasons several times now.
I’d rather not have government meddle in business affairs in such a manner. This would only further concentrate power, since bigger companies can more easily afford it vis a his smaller companies and the self-employed.
It demonstrates ignorance of how people actually behave in real life to presume that given a day off most people would use it to research hundreds of political candidates. Very few would use the time that way. I doubt you really think they would, either. Party labels, use of which being controlled by the party through its own nomination process, provide useful information to voters.
You ignored the advantage they provide to candidates who are not incumbents, wealthy, famous, well connected, etc.
Both individuals and parties are on ballots. It should stay that way. And both should have the right of free association and attendant right of dissociation.
Exactly!
@Jay,
Are parties comprised of individuals?
How are those persons determined? How does the government determine that group of people should have the privilege of making nominations?
It is much simpler to let groups of persons to organize as political parties or on ad hoc basis and support an individual candidate.
Jim Riley, are labor unions and corporations comprised of individuals? How are those persons determined?
On a legal level, they are registered with the government, and have officers who represent the union, Pac, committee, party, corporation or organization in its dealings with the government.
We’ve already covered how government can determine which parties are qualified to make nominations and place candidates above – for example see Mike on Dec 14. As for how they determine their officers and nominees, as with e.g. Labour unions and corporations, that’s up to them.
Pretending that long standing political parties don’t exist, and keeping the knowledge of their endorsements from voters by not printing them on the ballot, does not make them actually go away. It simply helps the larger ones vis a vis the smaller ones, since the larger ones have many more resources to otherwise communicate their endorsements than the smaller ones.