On May 25, the New York legislature passed S1851 and A1819, identical bills that prevent any qualified party from having the words “Independence” or “Independent” in their names. The bill does not prevent an independent candidate from having those words as part of his or her ballot label. Thanks to Joe Burns for this news.
Any word from the Independence Party of New York?
They’re going to change their name to the Unaffiliated Party.
How about Equal Ballot Access Party ???
Who that means the American Independent Party of California or the Alaska Independence Party can no expand out to New York under that name.
So could the Independence Party change their name to the Independance Party and still follow the law?
It is kind of ridiculous considering:
1.) It’s not like the IP threatens the Democrats and they just unilaterally removed their ballot access in part of a Cuomo-failed effort to kill the Working Families Party. In California, I get that the majority party on the left would rather the AIP be destroyed, but it does not threaten them.
2.) “Democrat” and “Republican” are themselves generic terms. I think all political parties save a few wingnut ones believe in a democratic republic for the broad form of government.
Are communist and fascist New Age generic terms in the USA ??? —
with related monarchs and oligarchs ???
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PR
APPV
TOTSOP
Mark – as I explained you on the phone several years ago, in the 1950s the New York legislature banned any party from having the word “American” in their name. That is why George Wallace appeared on the New York ballot in 1968 as the candidate of the “Courage” Party. So the AIP cannot expand into New York without taking a different name.
I doubt there would be much support in New York for the AIP anyway.
Actually, the New York law passed in 1955 only banned qualified parties from having “American” in their name. It didn’t affect the choice of partisan labels for candidates who used the independent petition procedure. So George Wallace could have circulated a petition in New York state using the label “American”. He was being overly cautious by choosing “Courage.”
The bill would add “Independent” and “Independence” to a list that includes the words “American”, “United States”, “National”, “Empire State”, or “New York State”, or an abbreviation thereof. It also modified it to include plurals.
In the State of Con-Fusion, a party does not come into existence until after the election in which it qualifies based on the performance of an independent candidate who may use any of the above on the ballot. The new party chooses it permanent name at that point.
The law would require a party named Independence on January 1, 2023 to change its name.
The bill had set idle until the Independence Party submitted their petition.
It is not clear whether “Corruption” is considered an abbreviation or simply a description of “New York State”.