Minnesota Stiffens Definition of a Qualified Party

On May 23, Minnesota Governor Tim Walz signed HF 1830, which makes it more difficult for a group to become or remain a qualified party. The old law required a vote of 5% for any statewide office at either of the last two elections. The new law raises that to 8%. This gives Minnesota the fourth highest vote percentage in the nation for qualified status. Only Alabama, New Jersey and Virginia have higher percentages.

In addition a party must have an organization in approximately two-thirds of the counties, or alternatively in approximately two-thirds of the state legislative districts. The new law is vague about what that means.

The new definition of a qualified party does not take effect until after the November 2024 election, so for now the Legal Marijuana Now Party is still ballot-qualified and has its own primary in 2024.

There is an (old) alternate procedure to become or retain qualified status, that the party run a great many candidates. But that law requires a party to run for the statewide state constitutional offices, and those offices aren’t up in 2024, so the Legal Marijuana Now Party can’t make use of that provision. Besides the statewide offices, it requires the party to have at least 45 state representative candidates, 23 state senate candidates, and four U.S. House candidates. Minnesota has 67 State Senators and 134 State Representatives.

Minnesota allows parties to change their names. It is expected that Governor Walz will soon sign a bill legalizing recreational marijuana, so even if the state had not stiffened the definition of a qualified party, probably some of the impetus to keep the Legal Marijuana Now Party going would have receded. But there is still a federal law against marijuana and the party wants to continue in existence to fight the federal law, and it has other goals as well.

Thanks to lobbying by various minor party activists, at least the bill says, “A petition must not be rejected solely because the petition is on paper that is smaller than 8.5 inches wide by 14 inches long.”


Comments

Minnesota Stiffens Definition of a Qualified Party — 14 Comments

  1. ANTI-DEMOCRACY MINORITY RULE GERRYMANDER HACKS IN ALL 50 STATES.

    PR IN ALL REGIMES.

  2. Legalizing marijuana is utter madness and idiocy. Ideally, possessing, distributing, manufacturing, and promoting marijuana should all be death penalty offenses. The scourge of marijuana and other dangerous and evil narcotics should be fought literally like war.

    Given the unwise policy of warehousing criminals, I think the years long sentence of the American basketball lesbian was if anything too lenient, and it’s a great shame she was released early, much less unrepentant and still in physical shape to play professional basketball. Ideally, if she was ever to see freedom again, it should have been with her best years behind her, her mind and body broken from the harsh conditions of the penal colony, and after many corrective gang rapes by penal colony guards for her lesbianism.

  3. IS MAXZIM A FORMER COMMIE GULAG PRISON BOSS/GUARD ???

    OR MERELY ONE MORE BARBARIAN ASIAN ???

    SEE OLDE REEFER MADNESS MOVIE 1938.

  4. Glad to see that recreational marijuana may be legalized soon in Minnesota, despite what that may mean insofar as Legal Marijuana Now party membership is concerned.

    Damn shame that Indiana isn’t likely to legalize any time soon, though, so it’d be nice if the federal government just gave up the foolish war on drugs and legalized weed throughout the country.

  5. Meanwhile, AZ defends his ridiculous claim that Trump is just like Hitler, and doesn’t deny that his screen name is him claiming to be God. Maybe he uses drugs himself, and the drugs have caused madness, as they have in so many others.

  6. Ear at 12:27 should have been war, if that’s not obvious to anyone from context.

  7. Drug fueled insanity would certainly explain brain aberrations such as believing Trump is just like Hitler and one is the Lord Almighty. Here I was thinking AZ may have been an Alcoholic Zebraphile, but maybe he’s a drug Addict Zombie.

  8. WHO CAN DETECT THE A AND Z IN MAXZIM ???

    WITH HIS STONE AGE TYRANT SCHEME FOR CURRENT REGIMES.

    A X Z = ???

  9. It’s just Maxim, as in Maximillian, or Max even more concisely, with Z added in support of our heroic Russian military, where it fits phonetically. I’m not claiming to be God, love modern technology (at least some of it), and hate tyranny. Unlike A “Trump=Hitler” Z, in most likelihood, I experienced actual tyranny and have no desire to go back.

    I also experienced some of the closest conditions to stone age today, in Afghanistan during war. Also not a fan. The closest I came to being a prison guard was helping to guard some Islamofascist prisoners of war in a transportation convoy. Their ways, shall we say, did not make a positive impression.

    During Soviet times, I was primarily a child, student, young pioneer (similar to boy scout), and soldier. I then spent the 1980s as a student abroad in the U.S. and UK, served as a diplomatic attache while completing a doctorate and postdoctoral work, and at the very tail end of Soviet times became a businessman, as private enterprise came to be legalized in the USSR.

    I do not claim to be the Alpha and the Omega. Is it true that AZ calls himself that because he claims to be God? Yes or no.

  10. ONLY PUTIN THE KILLER FELON IN RUSSIA (ONE MORE MONGOL MONSTER) CLAIMS TO BE GOD / ANTI-CHRIST 3 ???

  11. No dodging the question. Vladimir Putin is the elected President of Russia. I’ve never voted for him, but plan to vote for him next year. He’s not any of the things you claim, nor does he claim to be any of them. You did not answer the question.

    You claim to be AZ, is it true that this is to be meant like the Alpha and the Omega? If so, are you claiming to be God, or what other explanation do you offer for the moniker AZ? If not, what else does the screen name AZ represent? Stop dodging the question.

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