On March 30, the Texas Senate State Affairs Committee heard testimony on SB 2532, which doubles the number of signatures for independent candidates to get on the ballot, and also doubles the filing fees for all types of candidates for federal, state, and county office. The Committee hasn’t voted yet.
Eleven witnesses testified against the bill. No one testified in favor of the bill. The hearing lasted for 25 minutes. No Senator asked any question of any witness. The witnesses included six Libertarians, one officer of a group that assists independent voters, and four other witnesses representing themselves. One can watch at this link. Start at the 52-minute mark; the hearing ends at the one hour and seventeen minute mark.
Here is a copy of the bill.
ALL 99 HOUSES IN THE 50 STATES ARE ANTI-DEMOCRACY MINORITY RULE GERRYMANDER OLIGARCHIES –
WITH MONARCH BOSS TYRANTS.
1/2 OR LESS VOTES X 1/2 RIGGED CRACKED/PACKED GERRYMANDER AREAS = 1/4 OR LESS CONTROL
— WITH SUPER-WORSE EXTREMIST PRIMARY MATH.
—-
PR
APPV
TOTSOP
Why start low? Just triple everything until its 100% impossible for a minor party to obtain ballot access.
Yeah, maybe the petition signature requirements can be indexed to inflation.
Let me try writing a little spiel:
According to the March 2023 issue of BAN, Texas has the second highest petition requirement of any state for independent candidates for US Senate at around 80,000. Only North Carolina is higher, and barely, at around 83,000. The median is 5,000. Two of Texas’ neighbors, Oklahoma and Louisiana, don’t require a petition – only a filing fee.
This bill would double Texas’ requirement to about 160,000, far in excess of any other state. If 50 independent candidates petitioned for US Senate, one in each state, the Texan would have to gather 22% of all signatures needed. Texas has only 9% of the population. It is unknown just how much the Texan would need to pay professional signature gatherers to collect 160,000 valid signatures. The fact that the filing fee would also double to $10,000 does not help matters. The indpendent candidate, of course, saves taxpayers money by not running in a publicly funded party primary.