The Colorado bill that would greatly injure ballot access for qualified minor parties will be heard in the Senate State, Veterans and Military Affairs Committee on Thursday, February 16, at 1:30 p.m. It had originally been set for that date, but then taken off the calendar by the sponsors. But now it is back on the schedule.
Before 1998, Colorado had a very difficult definition of qualified party, a group that had polled 10% for Governor. This made it virtually impossible for a minor party to be ballot-qualified. But the harm was not so great back then because the petitions for the nominees of unqualified parties were so easy. The statewide offices needed 300 signatures and were not due until September, although that was raised in 1973.
But having to submit separate petitions for each nominee was nevertheless somewhat burdensome, so in 1998 Colorado’s minor parties persuaded the legislature to create two tiers of qualified party. Large parties continued to nominate by primary; small ones could nominate by convention. The new definition of a qualified minor party was easy: a group with 1,000 registered members, or which had polled 1% of the vote for any statewide race at either of the last two elections. The Libertarian, Green, and Constitution Parties became ballot-qualified when the new law went into effect. This model election law is now threatened; the new bill would eliminate the ability of qualified minor parties to nominate by convention, and would force their members to submit difficult petitions to qualify for a primary. If SB 23-101 passes, the number of minor party candidates on the Colorado ballot will plunge sharply.
CO- ONE OF THE VERY FEW MARGINAL GERRYMANDER EC/PREZ STATES IN 2016 / 2020.
THUS THE PURGE EFFORT OF THIRD PARTIES.
NOOO CAUCUSES , PRIMARIES AND CONVENTIONS FOR CANDIDATES
—-
ONE ELECTION DAY
EQUAL NOM PETS / FEES FOR BALLOT ACCESS
PR
APPV
TOTSOP
Zero fees, Zero petition signatures. Don’t print any candidate names on the ballot. Let the voters vote uncensored.
Zero fees. Zero petition signatures. Zero voters. Zero ballots. One absolute monarch. One crown. One throne. Many pagan gods.
Prior to 1998, an independent or alternative party candidate for statewide office in Colorado needed 1,000 verified petition signatures to qualify for the ballot, not 300.
Planned National Convention of Independents Could Generate Election Reform in America.
New post at The PLAS Place.
https://rwm4prez2012.wordpress.com
This post is good here. It involves ballot access. It attaches an article from Independent Political Report which if I was able I would have put it in comments there.
But I have evidently been banned from commenting there.
Apparently everyone has been banned from comments there unless they constantly kiss George from Philly’s pedophile covering (if not himself pedophile) butt and solve first grader arithmetic problems to amuse him and perhaps satisfy some strange sexual fetish he has. I have heard unconfirmed reports that he did the same thing to his college students when he was a professor up in Massachusetts. He retired successfully with a full pension, so it’s hard to know how credibly we can take anonymous reports that he habitually acted inappropriately with students, graduate assistants, and even more bizarre accusations that he somehow gained access to and mistreated laboratory mice, which was completely outside his department. He does however have a good friend Tony from Long Island who spent twelve years in prison for sexually molesting children.
As for George he is not known to have married or dated any consenting adult humans, male, female, or anything else, but again we have yet to confirm allegations that he has ever had sex with anything or anyone other than a consenting adult human. Perhaps he is just asexual. Asexual people do exist, and should not automatically be presumed or accused of being pedophiles, engaging in bestiality, being sexual predators, etc. Some people may have misunderstood or misrepresented references to his Greek ethnicity as referring to a preference for something or another having to do with the butt, but we should not dignify such things by treating them seriously.
George has made several million dollars by investing large chunks of his middle class government salary in stocks over the course of several decades. While not known to be extraordinarily wealthy, he has also spent a considerable portion of that money self-publishing various books and websites that basically no one ever reads unless he pays them, and meddling in Libertarian Party internal politics in highly divisive ways for unknown reasons, but most likely just because he is bored and has strange tastes in hobbies (and other things).
He bought IPR after several owners and managers have successively driven it downhill and killed off most of its previous engagement, and has taken it further downhill with an extremely totalitarian style that he may have learned in an alleged previous career he rarely mentions. Something to do with being some kind of bureaucrat in Eastern Europe. Various reports claim it was Yugoslavia or Albania or East Germany when they were under communist control, while others less dramatic accusations claim that it was the right wing authoritarian Greek government under the Colonels Coup. If any of that is at all true, it is not known at this point what exactly he may have been over there doing for those regimes. There is also no confirmation that he was over there engaged in espionage for the US government, or that he has been involved in espionage as part of or as the actual reason for his domestic political activities.
Inquiring minds are starting to ask questions. Perhaps someone can gain an interview with the retired professor and web forum proprietor and find whether there are any allegations here he will not deny. While I don’t have time to do it myself, additional interviews with people who have known him in various capacities outside the libertarian politics bubble might help. It may also be helpful to find out exactly when, how or why he got involved with the LP, which is something most people actively engaged with that party and movement are usually eager to talk about, but the good Professor Emeritus generally dodges, along with any other questions regarding his background or associations outside of his official biography. One thing that is known without any doubt is that he has for a long time made a habit of asking for and often getting access to privileged internal information he is not supposed to have had access to, allegedly to root out internal corruption in the party, but perhaps for other reasons.
Robert, the alleged independent convention is most likely a cover for the Fred Newman cult and its current obsession with pushing top two and top X systems. You can find out more about this bizarre cult by looking up Fred Newman Fulani through Google or some other search engine. There’s plenty there. If it’s not them, it’s almost certainly cover for some other cult which uses fringe political involvement as a way to fish for prospective cult followers and to bilk both cult members and casual supporters of various causes out of money, time or in kind donations.
Speaking of cult activities in politics, the Ron Paul cult takeover of the once Libertarian Party is a predictably snowballing disaster. The libertarian party has long maintained that government doesn’t work. Having pretty consistently demonstrated that libertarian party attempts to get people elected to government positions don’t work, especially above the local nonpartisan level which few voters or media pay much if any attention to, it is increasingly demonstrating by example just how spectacularly its own internal government doesn’t work. That strategy shows much more promise of success.
Staffers are on their way out the door, the national vice chair and another national board member recently resigned, and there are multiple state parties in several states have disputes over which group is the legitimate state party or state party leadership organization. The first two things are not uncommon in LP history, but the last one, while not unprecedented, used to be rare. This may well be the first time that multiple states are having such issues all at the same time, and the number of states having them keeps growing.
The “Mises” Caucus was created when then LP leadership pissed off some Ron Paul cult insiders and cult followers calling out Nazi blood and soil rhetoric from “Mises” institute leadership. The institute takes its name from an economist who, although he worked as economics minister in the authoritarian Austrian Catholic government which was allied with fascist Italy prior to the Nazi anschluss, then fled because he was himself a Jew, and wrote books denouncing both socialism and fascism (although he did say that socialism was the greater evil and fascism the lesser one if he has his druthers). Lew Rockwell, originally from Massachusetts and not known to be related to American Nazi Party commander George Lincoln Rockwell, best known for the Rothbard-Rockwell Report and Ron Paul newsletters, convinced Mises’ widow to let him use the name for a think tank, publishing house and eventually political lobby group which he headquartered in Alabama because he so greatly admired the slaveowners’ secessionist insurrection which began there.
More recently, Rockwell has been promoting Donald Trump, while the institute has been promoting “blood and soil” in conjunction with the Charlottesville unite the right march organized by former libertarians Augustus Invictus, Christopher can’t well (the “crying Nazi”) and Robert Spencer, the punched Nazi in the punch a Nazi incident who used to be a Ron Paul acolyte and coined the term alt right along with Paul Gottfried, a professor frequently featured by Lew Rockwell in his publications.
It was at the time of these events that the LP reacted negatively to the blood and soil, pro-Trump, pro-confederacy, “Mises” institute statements occurring in conjunction with swastika wearing Nazis beating and killing significantly less violent counterprotestors at a pro-confederate event organized by ex-libertarians and then president Trump equating both sides, and that the “Mises caucus” was created to take over LP leadership on behalf of Ron Paul cultists and “Mises” institute followers, heavily overlapping groups that span the libertarian and racist far right movements and seek to bridge the two as the Rothbard-Rockwell-Ron Paul cult has tried to since at least the 1980s.
Fast forward a few years and the massive meeses cucks have taken over the LP as they long dreamed and organized for. State parties are seceding, board members are dropping out, staffers are on their way out, donors are withdrawing financial support, and the political pac operating jointly with the caucus is in trouble with the federal election commission. Sounds like a great time for an antiwar rally to shift focus.
Except that it actually turned out to be a pro-war, pro-Putin rally. That’s par for the course, because the alt right and Rothbard-Rockwell cults have long been pro-Putin. Ron Paul Institute jefe Daniel McAdams used to run the Daily Putin fansite and currently features the flag of Belarus as his Twitter profile header pic, has even denounced the LP – and the Moose’s cuckus- as “100 percent dead” to him. This was because the LP helped get convicted pedophile Scott Ritter disinvited from speaking at the rally, not even for his pro-war and pro-invasion views, which many of the remaining sponsoring organizations and speakers still hold, but specifically because he’s a convicted pedophile.
We do indeed live in interesting times. Stay safe, stay aware and stay tuned.
What is the Jay Doughty word salad supposed to signify? He goes on at great length about groups, people and views most of which are good, a few bad or questionable such as one guy who turned out to be a Jew, and tries to suggest some conspiracy theory without connecting the dots? And why should anyone care about this other internet board you all keep referencing? Internet boards come and go. I’d say they are a dime a dozen, except that would still be overestimating how much they are worth by nearly a penny per board.
I do find it troubling, but not surprising, that libertarians have convicted as well as alleged pedobears involved in their groups. They should clean house thoroughly and remove all known and suspected chomos, preferably from the groups altogether, or at least from any titles, positions of authority, or anything that can even remotely be used to help them gain trust to access and potentially abuse more underage victims, including as groomers for sexual activities to take place after those children reach the legal age of consent. The presence of pedos and chomos discredits any group or activity they associate with. Get them out as thoroughly and quickly as you can if you know what is good for you.
Gary, the 300-signature requirement for statewide independents and the nominees of unqualified parties was in effect until 1973.
Well, at least they are making the laws better now. Or at least trying to.
Richard, I have not commented here for quite some time.
I noticed the link function for commenters to link to something seems to be gone.
Has it been disabled?
I miss it!
The only thing about George I am interested in is whether he is jewish. Or pro Israel, pro Zionist. Which is inconsistent with libertarianism. That would explain a lot about his negative actions towards me.
As far as the convention maybe cult, I only care that it might lead to some movement in getting Duvergers Law off my back.
He’s Greek-american if you judge by his last name. You can look that up. Of course he might be mixed parentage, adopted, or even changed his name for whatever reason but the name is Greek. If you think top x systems will help you with duvergers law try moving to California, Washington state or Alaska and try running for office there.
I am not interested in Top X.
Top Six.
I looked up the name Phillies some time ago.
6 is one possible value of X. I don’t know of anyone except you who thinks it has to be 6.
I have explained it several times here and elsewhere.
In America 6 parties cover the entire political spectrum.
If all six had full or nearly full ballot access, the polling would level out to: Progressive left Green 27%, nationalist right Constitution 27%, left leaning centrist Democratic 17%, right leaning centrist Republican 17%, neither right nor left Libertarian 13% The Libertarian Vote Cato Institute, third centrist party Reform/Alliance/Forward etc X/unknown/variable probably at least 15%.
I will leave the rest for you all to figure out.
Kind of like telling you E=MC2. Figure the rest out. You can do it.
Flaco the Owl can survive in Central Park after escaping the Zoo.
Somebody vandalized his cage. That is how he escaped.
One other thing. In the upper left side of Independent Political Report there is a posting of Open Threads and Discussions.
The PLAS ll (Two) Open Thread should be there.
Don’t you think?
Thanks for the historical information, Richard.
When the Colorado Coalition for Fair and Open Elections lobbied for ballot access reform in 1995, we wanted to reduce the petition signature requirement for independent presidential tickets from 5,000 signatures to 1,000 petition signatures, but our bill sponsors wouldn’t go for it.
The proposal for a (then $500) independent presidential filing fee was originally my idea. Major party presidential tickets had the option of either paying a $500 filing fee or petitioning. They consistently chose the filing fee. After the filing fee option was enacted for independent presidential candidates, billionaire Ross Perot was the only independent presidential candidate to chose a petition drive over the filing fee.
I think the filing fee option was the best detail of the 1995 ballot access reform bill. Rather than repealing the filing fee, the option should have been extended to Congressional, state, and county offices. Having the filing fee available only for presidential tickets was arguably backwards, as it made it easier for independent candidates to get on the ballot for President than for any other office in Colorado. (Of course, independent presidential candidates also must have a slate of eligible presidential electors.) I’d like to have the option for independent candidates to pay a $200 filing fee to get on the ballot for US Representative like major party candidates do in Wyoming, or $500 for statewide offices.
Our 1997 bill enabled minor parties to nominate candidates by assembly.
By the way, yesterday the Denver Westword published my editorial on major party efforts to keep independent and alternative party candidates off Colorado’s ballot.
https://www.westword.com/news/democracy-colorado-third-party-candidates-16161237
Well, I know George Phillies. He is a cantankerous, old Libertarian, who has been out of phase for a long time with the establishment Libertarian Party in Massachusetts because he believed that they favored national candidates over local ones. But, he seems to be even less favorable to the Mises Caucus, I think because he disfavors their apparent emphasis on identity and cultural issues.
Robert,
Just being on the ballot does not by itself translate into polling or votes. Voting is mostly learned repetitive behavior. People are most likely to vote they way they have been voting. If they have not been voting, they are most likely going to keep not voting. Sometimes people change how they vote, start voting after passing it up a bunch of times, or stop voting after habitually voting in the past. But it’s relatively rare.
Secondly, it’s a bandwagon effect. People want to see a charismatic candidate, or conversely a low key one if they are tired of political bombast at that moment. They want to see someone who has already held high level positions in government, business, the military, or some field. And that candidate better already have a lot of money and campaign infrastructure to earn their vote. Being closer on the issues is of relatively little value. You don’t all of a sudden go from zero to viability just by being on the ballot.
Six is also too many given the presidential debate criteria being 15% in polls. It’s mathematically possible for 6 candidates to all get 15% each, but very unlikely. It’s even less likely that a candidate who can’t even get in the debates could be seen as viable. If the percentages work out as you give in your example, the libertarians would be excluded from the debate. That doesn’t bode well for them.
A party has to build up from the bottom and get candidates who are seen as qualified to run for higher office, a base of donors, volunteers, campaign staff professionals, and so on. Or, they have to convince candidates, donors, volunteers and staff to migrate over from another party. It’s very unlikely to happen all at once on a national level, although it could.
Getting 50 states is really difficult, too. The libertarians have done it some years and fallen short others. The times they made it, they barely made it with a lot of work pulling out all the stops they can and a lot of luck in some states. No other third party has been hitting that mark, and most don’t come close, because they don’t have the resources and know how. It’s not looking very good for libertarians chances of 50 states in 2024 either.
If you want to run for office, get involved and well known in a good way in your community, run for the lowest level office you can, and go knock on as many doors as possible before the election. If you win, you can start thinking about moving up a level and what that would take. If you’re shy, or not a great people person, you’re better off volunteering on someone else’s campaign.
Thinking you become a major party or six major parties just by getting on the ballot everywhere – itself and extremely tall order – is like thinking you can go to the gym if you never worked out and bench 700 pounds. Or that you can have a successful business just because you got a business license. It doesn’t work that way. It takes a lot of hard work. And even then the odds are against you. There’s a payoff, maybe, but it won’t come easy. There are no shortcuts.
Why are some people so worried about some other discussion board and its owner? What’s wrong with this one?
David:
“Why are some people so worried about some other discussion board and its owner? What’s wrong with this one?”
Some people who are annoyed that they get censored on some other discussion board come here to vent because Richard Winger has a much more libertarian posting policy.
I just ignore boards like that and move on.
Not sure of scheduling now – their URL subdirectory system seems convoluted.
It seems we’re playing whack-a-mole.
Nevermind – I think I got the Senate and House committees mixed up.
“I just ignore boards like that and move on.”
Some folk take rejection personally.
LOL. So sad. Here is a virtual hug for those folks.
Neiil,
Good comment.
You are caught up in how things are and have been since the beginning…of voting. Particularly in the USA.
The second such convention of independents INC 23 in Austin has the potential to foster a movement. Sometimes called a revolution.
Upon the formation of a third centrist party, there is the potential for it and the other three to help each other get full ballot access. The Democrats and Republicans will not do that. Quite the contrary. They will get their full ballot access as usual. They may actively try to thwart the 4 third parties. So a lot depends on those four to recognize their existential position and help each other. Yes, the GP is going to have to help the CP get full ballot access. That is called a revolution.
As that approaches the polling should follow suit.
There are polls that include the 4 third parties. It usually starts in the low double figures high single figures. Particularly the LP and GP. BUT…once FOUR third parties start getting that, all four should start gaining.
THe debates are at the 15% cut off. The Libertarian polling is problematic, but it should be a little above 15% by the time of the debates. The third centrist party also is possibly problematic. But as we saw with Perot it has great polling potential.
When you see six candidates on the debate stage from these six parties you will know the voting Revolution is afoot in America.
It seems like the trend with legislation and court cases has shifted more in the direction of making ballot access worse overall. It used to be the other way around. There’s still good bills passing and bad bills failing some places, and same with lawsuits, but I’m talking about the overall trend.
See link for background story on this bill. Both bill sponsors also had a Libertarian opponent in a recent race. State Sen. Kirkmeyer lost her bid to be the first representative in Colorado’s new 8th congressional district despite being narrowly favored in polls. Rather than focusing their efforts on revising the voting system to deal with “spoiler candidates” and the “wasted vote” problems of Plurality Voting (and STAR Voting is better than Ranked Choice Voting in almost every way), they are seeking to oppress minor parties.
“It seems like the trend with legislation and court cases has shifted more in the direction of making ballot access worse overall”
The political divide between Democrats and Republicans is so close today that both of them fear losing votes to third party and independent candidates Thus, both their legislators and judicial appointees are more likely to dismiss political changes that challenge the status quo in any meaningful way.