Indiana law required candidates running in a political party’s primary election to have voted in the last two primaries for that party or get the permission of his or her’s county chair to run in a primary. John Rust met neither of those criteria, so he sued the state of Indiana in Marion County Court. On Thursday, December 7, 2023, the judge ruled that law to be unconstitutional in violation of the 17th Amendment to the US Constitution.
This ruling does not place Rust on the GOP primary ballot automatically, as petition signatures must be gathered and other requirements met. Still, this is an important victory for the people of Indiana and future candidates for public office.
State procedures that require a voter to associate with one party or another violates the right to freely associate.
Rust claimed that in the past he had voted in Democratic primaries to support friends or family members. But what if he has Democrat and Republican friends? It is not enough that he could vote for both in a general election (see Texas Whites-only Democratic Primary decisions)
The 17th Amendment claim was goofball.
Would the judge have cited Article 1 if Rust were running for the House of Representatives?
IMO, the law would be unconstitutional only if Rust were prevented from running at all. If he is able to run as an independent or as the nominee of some other primary, then it shouldn’t be considered unconstitutional.
PUBLIC NOMINATIONS OF PUBLIC CANDIDATES FOR PUBLIC OFFICES.
FACTIONS OF PUBLIC ELECTORS ARE N-O-T INDEPENDENT EMPIRES.
SEE NOW 2 OLDE TX WHITE PRIMARY CASES 1928-1932- AS NOTED BY JR ABOVE
https://electionlawblog.org/?p=140105
EMERGENCY ELECTION CASES 2000-2020
—
AUTOMATIC REDO ANY UN-CONST ELECTION —
TOO DIFFICULT FOR SCOTUS HACKS ???
Voting by party eliminates this confusion. Winning party can pick officeholders as it sees fit.
The key point is that the Government of Indiana enacted the law, and as Jim said, the government cannot restrict freedom of association like this.
If the Indiana Republican Party instituted this policy, then it would be OK … but not if the State is paying for their primary!
Do they have the option to refuse government funding?
CONNECTION STUFF OF PARTY HACK NOMINATION ACTIONS AND PUBLIC ELECTIONS–
ESP PARTY GANGS CERTIFYING USA PREZ/VP CANDIDATES — AND THEIR STOOGE/ROBOT 12 AMDT ELECTORS
@Max,
A voter has a right to associate with persons of their own choosing. Just because political organizations are comprised of persons does not mean that the voter’s political association must be mediated through any such organization.
I’m. Not. Max.
Political organizations have the right to associate with persons of their choosing. They also gave the right to dissociate with persons of their choosing.
I agree with Jim Riley. Individuals should have the right to stand alone on election night. They would in effect be shirking any real likelihood of actually serving as peacekeepers, but they would at least be contributing financially through the poll tax, whereas staying home would contribute in neither fashion.
Thanks, I had not considered that until now.
Plan FTW: Thanks for your interest in my plan, but it’s tentative, not a finished product by any means.
AGAIN –
1989 EU – POLITICAL PARTIES
PUBLIC NOMINATIONS FOR PUBLIC OFFICES
PRIVATE – INTERNAL CLUBBY STUFF
Again – court hacks were wrong, as far as that goes, although the opinion actually just said (or at least mainly said) they have freedom of association and dissociation, the opposite of what AZ wants to wring out of it.
@MaxZ,
This article was about the Indiana senate election in 2024.
Let’s call this Step A. Your plan is about a Step Z in some future (2134?) utopia.
True. That’s why the plan us tentative/ directional. I don’t necessarily know which steps come first, how quickly things might move, etc. It does not help that you confuse me with persons unknown to me who have taken exploratory musings and decided it’s a finished plan or something.
I don’t know what step A is. It could be a lot of things. It could also be quicker than you think. A lot of change happens along a punctuated equilibrium model – huge changes quickly after periods of slow, glacial changes. It’s hard to predict. I’m certainly not getting on seeing my model in action. Something could certainly change, but for now it’s directional musings. I’ve mainly stopped since I spend more time explaining than seems worth the trouble. Too many other things to do.
Maybe I should just let immitation Max whatever’s or spinoffs be Max when people address “Max” and stop thinking they must mean me. I’ll do my best to try to remember that. Not much gained here, and too much trouble to gain it.
Don’t parties have right to pick their own candidates?
It depends who you ask.
@MaxZ,
Apparently Mr.? Plan is also a “Max”. I don’t know what the post-nominal FTW means.
Step A is the status quo. Mr. Rust wants to run for US Senator as a Republican. In the past he has voted in the Democratic primary for friends from church or family members. Presumably these were for minor offices, such as road commissioner.
I don’t see why he can’t associate with different people for different offices, particularly when the geographical and political scope are so vastly different.
For the win. Not a max. Max plan fan.
I merely said Max plan eliminates the issue, not that it’s a likely short term thing.
I agree as far as that goes. Individuals should have the right to associate / dissociate with parties. Parties should also have the right to associate / dissociate with individuals.
Thus, if the government of Indiana is forcing the Republican party to dissociate from individuals it wants to associate with, that would be wrong. Likewise if the government of Indiana tried to force the party to associate with individuals it wants to dissociate from.
Therefore, suppose the party wants to impose such a rule, or whatever form of loyalty test for prospective candidates. State should not interfere with that. Conversely if the party wants to give voters in its primary more choices, government should not interfere with that either. In that case Mr Rust could still run, just not as a Republican.
Kinda how who is or is not welcome at the Riley family reunion should not be up to the state, but to whatever decision making system or group Rileys decide on for yourselves. Y’all want to welcome people who change their name to Riley or people with first name Riley, that’s up to you. You don’t, also up to you. Neither way should be up to the State.
The problem is the government ballot. Get rid of that thing.
@Max Plan,
The state government does not recognize reunions or other social events. It does not decide whether my clan is legitimate or “qualified”.
The government should also not interfere with political organizations. Recognizing political organizations as being “qualified” or formally recognizing nominations IS interference.
I would be quite happy with an end to government printed ballots, or better yet ballots altogether with a standing count.
I recognize we have a different opinion, which neither is likely to change. I think party names on ballots provide useful information for voters who are not political junkies, make it relatively less difficult for upstart and out of the mainstream groups and individuals to compete with better known and organized opposition on something marginally closer to an even playing field and build strength, support and recognition over time, and the reasons why have been discussed with you any number of times by any number of people I saw.
Tennessee elections are an example of what I mean. Thus was brought up a bunch of times in those previous discussions.
In general, I think it makes more sense to vote for parties than individuals. Parties may well have a political track record, at least unless they’re brand new or never elected anyone to anything anywhere. Even if they have no track record, they have a platform of ideas and proposals, issue statements and comments, and so forth. Candidates may or may not.
They are generally relatively easier to reach and get comments and replies from than many campaigns. It’s far easier for them to organize and retain institutional knowledge for ballot or voting access and many other things which make it possible for candidates to be candidates.
It’s possible to make the voting process extremely easy by voting by party – only one vote is taken per election cycle. Anything else is likely to require multiple votes, thus, practically speaking, either an entire (likely holiday) weekend or some kind of printed, electronic, mailed or paper ballot. The latter makes counting errors and fraud much more likely and prevalent. The former costs substantial time and money and thus presents a great barrier to entry for otherwise busy people.
Voting by individual candidates creates the likelihood that they are judged by many voters on the basis of things like looks and charm, rather than ideas and demonstrated performance. That seems suboptimal to me.
A compromise where both candidates and parties are listed is acceptable to me, but not as good as just voting by party. The last one is the only way to eschew judging on looks and charm and the need to pick candidates for an election if you don’t win.
By having just the winning party pick candidates, an ideological or job policy group can participate in an election without individuals (who may be ill suited, only technically qualified if that, unknown, socially awkward, way too busy, flat broke, etc, etc) having to pick particular offices . They can then comment on the issues they want to focus on ..to be continued