On January 16, U.S. District Court Judge John Tuchi, an Obama appointee, issued a ruling in No Labels Party v Fontes, 2:23cv-2172. It says that No Labels Party has a freedom of association right to bar anyone from running in its primary for congress or partisan state or county office.
In Arizona, all qualified parties nominate by primary. Arizona is in the Ninth Circuit, and the Ninth Circuit had ruled in an Alaska case that the Alaskan Independence Party could not prevent a particular person from running in its primary. But Judge Tuchi distinguished that case from the current No Labels case, by saying that in the Alaska case, the state had an interest in preventing a corrupt party leadership from determining which individuals could run, which is different from an instance when a party has a blanket ban on anyone running for certain types of office. Here is the ruling. Thanks to Richard Grayson for this news.
Thanks for the text of the ruling. It’s Judge Tuchi, not Judge Fontes.
ONE MORE HACK APPOINTMENT OF A MORON JUDGE.
FACTIONS OF PUBLIC ELECTORS ARE NOT INDEPENDENT EMPIRES IN NOMINATIONS OF PUBLIC CANDIDATES FOR PUBLIC OFFICES IN PUBLIC ELECTIONS VIA PUBLIC LAWS.
ON TO APPEALS COURT ASAP
Thank you, fully.
I don’t find it stunning, or even surprising. I predicted it months ago when it was first discussed here. Richard Grayson told me something like I had no idea what I was talking about, and I said something like we’ll see or hide and watch.
It’s come up a few times on different discussions here since then, with approximately the same things being said, perhaps with different people.
Sometimes I don’t like being right, but I’m rarely surprised anymore.
The Secretary of State has announced they will be appealing the decision to the 9th Circuit.
https://azsos.gov/news/358
As the SOS notes the decision would disenfranchise 19,000 Arizona citizens who have affiliated with the party.
This is another example why candidates should qualify as individuals, rather than representatives of “qualified” political parties. It forces States to get involved in determining who controls the political party.
Is it the voters who have affiliated with the party, or is it leaders who have been appointed by some corporation?
The latter, obviously. They organized the petition drive and paid for it. The participation of the registrants was limited to agreeing to help out a hired registration contractor in the field.
It’s not clear what kind of pitches these various contractors used to entice people to do that, but a lot of people don’t care much what party if any they are registered to vote with, and “no labels” can be made to sound like nonpartisan, which is the highest plurality registration preference nationally when you add up all the different names it goes under in various states – unenrolled, independent, no party preference, etc.
I’d venture that the level of attachment of no labels registered voters to the “non party party” is very low. The ones who have registered that way since they became an official party probably overwhelmingly thought they registered without any party. It’s quite likely that most of the ones who registered during the paid registration drive did too. No Labels website even has, or at least had, statements that they are not a political party, which registration contractors could have used to help bamboozle people.
I’m sorry, I said petition drive. I meant registration drive. Although, many registration drives use an unofficial petition to stop potential registrants or make the registration sound like a petition, from what I have gathered.
The notion that the decision disenfranchised 19,000 people is ludicrous. It thwarted a tiny handful of people who plan to piggyback off the national (non)party’s registration drive to run as local candidates. 19,000 people mostly registered with the goal of voting in the general election and no interest in the qualifier event (“primary”). If they subsequently discovered an interest in the qualifier event, they could have changed their registration, and maybe still can.
@MaxZ,
You may have confused different events and States.
In Arizona, a new party qualifies by petition:
“Petition For Political Party Recognition
I, the undersigned, a qualified elector in the county of [Winslow], state of Arizona, hereby petition that a new political party become eligible for recognition, and be represented by an official party ballot at the next ensuing regular primary election, to be held on the [6th of August, 2024] and accorded a column on the official ballot at the succeeding general election to be held on the [5th of November, 2024]” … “Said party shall be known as the [No Labels Party]”
In Arizona, a /political party/ makes nominations at the primary that appear on the general election ballot.
43,000 voters signed the petition.
The signers of the petition might have been attracted by the circulator, but we can only assume that people understand what they were signing.
After the No Label party was recognized by Arizona (in early 2023), voters could affiliate with the party, just as they can affiliate with the Republican, Democratic, Libertarian or No Party.
Most persons don’t actively register to vote. Most register to vote in concert with procuring/updating their driver’s license. In America, everyone drives a car. When someone goes to the DMV they are asked if they want to register to vote. This is a federal law (Motor Voter). When it was originally implemented the DMV would thrust a voter registration card at the driver along with a stubby pencil. The card would be deposited in a box, which would be discarded, or if lucky sent to the voter registrar. Since the information for registration has already been collected, it is now more likely that the driver is simply consenting to be registered, and may have to sign. In Texas, this is the preferred method since driver’s licenses can be used as Voter ID’s.
Depending on the State, the voter may be given a list of parties. In others it is pure write-in. I suspect in Arizona that voters must have been provided with a list. In the April 2023 statistics, 17 (sic) voters had affiliated with the NLP. By July, it was 8.5K; and by October 2023, it was 18.8K. There should be a January 2024 report but it has not been published yet.
The number disenfranchised is likely around 25K.
A few voters will actively register before the presidential primary on March 12 (fewer than past years since the races are foregone conclusions), others will register before the August 6 primary or November 5 general election.
I have not commented on this article until now. I can’t speak for my “fan.”
@MaxZ,
My apology.
Max Plan FTW appears to have confused party qualification schemes used in different States.
I did, but the principle doesn’t change. Generally, few people understand what they are signing. Most people are incredibly ignorant, confused, disinterested etc when it comes to the technical details of the election process.
That’s one big reason I like the Max plan, because it makes everything as simple as possible and keeps all but the elite men who lead society from being able to vote at all. The rest are, in my experience, far too stupid, ignorant, and easily manipulated to be allowed to vote.
The chance that 40,000+ Arizonans were clamoring for a “no labels” party to vote for local candidates in the primary of is right around zero. I don’t know what most of them thought they were signing, but that’s ok, because they probably don’t either.
The 19k, 25k, or however many voters registered as No Labels party members since then almost assuredly have very nearly zero interest in a no labels primary as well. Probably about 99% of them, maybe a bit more, mistakenly thought they were registering without any political party, and have no interest in voting in any primary. They mostly just want to vote in the general election, primarily for president.
They are not disenfranchised. They’re registered for the general election. They mistakenly checked no labels instead of no party, which was what they actually meant, with a very small number of exceptions – almost certainly 1% or less.
Jim Riley is correct about the pernicious motor voter law, which has made the problem of ignorant voters even worse ever since it’s been passed. A few states have opted out of it, seven the last time I checked, which was a few years ago. At that time, at least, in Wyoming voters had to go to the county voter registration office in person to register to vote – no check boxes or mail in forms. Unfortunately, they could also register to vote in person on the spot on election day.
The best thing for starters in the US would be to federally repeal the motor voter law and make it federal law that voters must register to vote in person at their county voter registration office, and vote in person on election day, with no exceptions. The voting restrictions that have been done away with over the years, including through constitutional amendments, should be restored by repealing those amendments, and then added to on the way to the Max Plan.
@MPFTW,
The legal presumption is that the petition signers and registrants knew what they were doing.
States that are exempt from motor voter either have no registration or permit election day registration. There is no reason to have pre-registration in those cases.
Should states be permitted to exclude men, whites, those over 40 from voting?
The legal presumption is out of touch with reality. The motor voter law should be repealed. The 13th, 14th, 15th, 16th, 17th, 19th, (low priority – 21st), 22nd, 23rd, 24th and 26th amendments should be repealed on the way to Max Plan.
States should be able to do as they wish, as far as the federal government is concerned. Ideally, the federal government should be dissolved entirely, the sooner the better. As far as localities below state level are concerned, no, states should not be able to invert the proper electorate.
@MPFTW,
What about the 4th, 5th, 6th, and 8th amendments?
The antifederalists had a good point regarding the Bill of Rights, in that its explicit statement encourages the mode of thinking that we have only such rights as government grants us, and absent explicit grants of rights the default natural order is government omnipotence.
Nevertheless, at present, this mindset having long since taken root in the governing consensus opinion, I’d leave the amendments passed prior to Lincoln’s unnecessary war in place.