U.S. District Court Judge Robert Pitman will hear Bilyeu v Esparza, w.d., 1:21cv-1089, on February 24 at 9 a.m. in Austin. The issue is whether to grant injunctive relief against the new Texas law requiring candidates seeking a nomination at a convention to have already paid a filing fee.
The Libertarian and Green Parties are on the ballot, and are the only parties affected this year by the new requirement. They nominate by convention. Texas has long required filing fees for candidates seeking a place on a major party primary ballot, but that law has the purpose of keeping primary ballots from being too crowded, because no petition is needed for a candidate to get on a primary ballot. The new law has no clear purpose other than to inhibit convention choices.
TX legislature –
1 of the 50 ANTI-Democracy minority rule gerrymander regimes.
1/2 votes x 1/2 rigged dists = 1/4 CONTROL
super-worse extremist primary math.
I don’t know whether SAM filed any candidacies. They announced a bunch officers in early December before the filing deadline. If they don’t have any nominees, then the party petition is meaningless since the functional purpose is to place the party nominees on the ballot.
The filing fee law is particularly pernicious for a new party. If the party had one candidate file an in lieu of petition in all Texas House districts it would require at least 75,000 signatures. None of those signatures would count for qualifying the party, even though by signing a petition they would suffer the same disabilities that they would have if they were affiliated with the party.