On July 25, U.S. District Court Judge Tom Barber refused to reconsider his June 22 ruling, keep the People’s Party from nominating a candidate for Pasco County Commission. People’s Party of Florida v Florida Department of State, m.d., 8:22cv-1274. The People’s Party has been a qualified party since September 2021. Florida doesn’t permit people to register to vote into unqualified parties. Therefore, the People’s Party had no registered members until September 2021. But the law says no one can run be a party nominee who has not been a member of the party for a full year before the filing deadline. Therefore, new parties in Florida can’t have any nominees their first year on the ballot, not even presidential candidates, because in Florida, candidates for presidential elector must be registered members of the party that nominated them.
Judge Barber did not give any reason for denying reconsideration. The party will now ask for injunctive relief from the Eleventh Circuit.
Why does a nominee of a party have to be a member of the party, let alone a long-time member?
Every election is NEW.
14-1 EQUAL ballot access tests for INDIVIDUAL candidates — NOT *parties*.
I agree, Jim. The US Supreme Court in Tashjian v Republican Party of Connecticut, in 1986, said it would be a violation of freedom of association to tell a party that it can’t nominate a non-member. Judge Barber mentioned that and said it doesn’t apply to this case. But he didn’t say why it doesn’t apply.
I support this Florida law. In general, Florida laws should be the model for all other states. We need to Make America Florida! Nobody cares about some idiotic “peoples party.” What people really care about is keeping a die hard Trump led GOP and giving it total control of all branches at all levels of government. To do this we need to fight ruthlessly to eliminate rhinos and demoncrats in Republican clothing and to make those species of subhumans totally extinct, scorching and salting the earth so that no remnants of their DNA could ever be used to reconstitute anything like them ever again. There is absolutely no need for unqualified parties because they are spoilers and a distraction at this point. We are at war, and the left is the enemy. This is very literally true, and it’s time to stop treating it like a game and start to fight a total war to the death which the left has been single handedly doing all along. Hallelujah and Amen!
Mac, the Republican Party was formed on July 6, 1854, and in the fall 1854 elections, it went on to win a plurality in the US House. If Florida had had a law like the one described above, the Republican Party would not have been allowed to have any candidates in the 1854 election.
Calling the People’s group a party is an insult to actual parties trying to organize.
They’re a grift with a creep at the top of the organization.
Six years in, and the closest they’ve come to having a candidate is a weak lawsuit without standing.
Even the state doesn’t claim the plaintiffs don’t have standing. Mostly the state says courts aren’t supposed to change anything too close to an election. But in the past, the US Supreme Court has added candidates to general election ballots later than where we are now in the calendar. In 1968 the Court put George Wallace on the Ohio ballot in September. In 1976 it put Eugene McCarthy on the Texas ballot in October. In 1990 it put the Harold Washington Party on the ballot in Illinois in October. Also in 1980 it kept John Anderson on the Ohio ballot in August.
Also the federal Appeals Court put Eugene McCarthy on the Florida ballot in October 1976. Back then Florida was in the 5th circuit.
SCOTUS election law opins –
about as useful as a week ago weather forecast.