On June 22, U.S. District Court Judge Tom Barber, a Trump appointee, refused to enjoin the Florida law that does not permit a party to run any candidates who have not been registered members for a full year, even if the party is a new party which couldn’t possibly have any eligible members.
Here is the order in People’s Party of Florida v Florida Department of State, m.d., 8:22cv-1274. The People’s Party wanted to nominate a candidate for Pasco County Commission this year, but she couldn’t qualify because she has not been a member of the People’s Party for a full year. But it was impossible for her to register into the party a year ago, because it wasn’t on the ballot until September 2021, and Florida does not allow anyone to register into a party that isn’t ballot-qualified.
The order fails to mention all the other lower court decisions on this subject, all of which agree that states cannot impose this type of law on new parties. Such cases were won in the past in federal court in Oklahoma, and in the State Supreme Courts of New Mexico and Nevada. As to the U.S. Supreme Court decision Tashjian v Republican Party of Connecticut, which says that states cannot bar parties from nominating non-members, Judge Barber said that case doesn’t control this case. He didn’t say why. Instead he depended on Storer v Brown, which upheld a California law that wouldn’t let independent candidates qualify if they had been members of a qualified party during the proceding year. That issue is separate from the issue of party autonomy to nominate whom they wish.
The order says the party should have filed the case sooner, although there would obviously be no election-administration problem if relief had been granted. Putting one more candidate on the ballot, over four months before the general election, does not disrupt election procedures. In the past the U.S. Supreme Court has added candidates to the general election ballot as late as August (John B. Anderson in Ohio), September (George Wallace in Ohio and Eugene McCarthy in Texas), and even in October (the 1968 nominees of the Alabama National Democratic Party, and the nominees of the Harold Washington Party in Illinois in 1990, and the nominees of the Socialist Workers and Socialist Labor in New York in 1970).
The order says the plaintiff-candidate is free to be a write-in candidate, but that is not true; the filing deadline for declared write-in candidates in Florida has already passed.
ALL PART OF THE JUDIC BRAIN ROT.–
EACH ELECTION IS N-E-W.
Sorry to hear that the People’s Party lost their first court battle on this.
One weird thing about the order is the “free to file as a write-in candidate” part, not just because of deadlines, but because the law in question forbids someone to file even as a write-in candidate for Party X or No Party Affiliation if they’ve had that status for less than a year.
I was planning to file as a write-in No Party Affiliation candidate for Congress specifically to challenge that law (I was registered Libertarian Party of Florida until a few months ago), but Richard helpfully let me know about the planned People’s Party challenge so that I didn’t have to bother with it.
NOOO write-ins in FL ???
if so, then blatant 14-2 Amdt violation — denied/abridged – for specified offices.
Good Florida law. Florida has good laws. Make America Florida!
To dear Ron,
Watch Fox. Emulate Fox. Repeatomundo Fox. Push head up the very large rear end of Mr Orange Face gluteus maximus until only “News Speak” can be heard (I doubt you know from whence that comment evolved), but you just stay in your dystopian little world and maybe someone will actually listen for meaning from your words. Maybe, but we doubt it. We respond to your plaintiff cries only because it is so obvious that you require a gentle push toward something called education and we’d like to say we did our part trying to re-educate a Drumpie.
Fox is way too left wing. The rest of your nonsense is just reeeee.