Procedural Win in Texas Lawsuit Over Filing Fees for Candidates Who Seek Nomination at Conventions

O June 5, U.S. District Court Judge Robert Pitman issued an order in Bilyeu v Esparza, w.d., 1:21cv-1089.  This is the case over the 2019 Texas law that candidates who seek to be nominated at a convention must have paid the filing fee before they can be considered.  In Texas, small ballot-qualified parties nominate by convention, not primary.

Judge Pitman denied the state’s request to dismiss the lawsuit, and scheduled a trial for September 8, 2025 (not 2024).  He wrote, “It is a reasonable possibility that this filing fee structure does little to advance Texas’s interest in preventing ballot overcrowding or ensuring public support.”

The Texas laws says that filing fees paid by convention candidates are kept by the government.  But filing fees paid by candidates running in a primary are given to those political parties.  The ruling says it is plausible that the Texas scheme violates freedom of association for convention parties, and also violates the Equal Protection clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.


Comments

Procedural Win in Texas Lawsuit Over Filing Fees for Candidates Who Seek Nomination at Conventions — 32 Comments

  1. Great decision. Political parties should not be scammed into thinking that legislatures and not them are best to decide how to select their candidates.

  2. When had there ever been a legal case which applied the idiotic brown decision to elections?

  3. Only a troll bot programmed by a retard moron could compare brain dead Biden to the amazing and powerful leader Trump who will save America again next year. We should all be on our knees to Trump.

  4. @AZ,

    “Segregation of white and Negro children in the public schools of a State solely on the basis of race, pursuant to state laws permitting or requiring such segregation, denies to Negro children the equal protection of the laws guaranteed by the Fourteenth Amendment — even though the physical facilities and other “tangible” factors of white and Negro schools may be equal.”

  5. What an idiotic decision that has absolutely ruined this country, along with so many others since the 1930s, but mostly since that one!

  6. It was evil, not stupid. Those inu6dtices knew what they were doing. Let’s call it what it is.

  7. The sane ought to be said, of course, of the improperly adopted 14th amendment itself.

  8. How does one defend supporting filing fees, especially ones where the uniparty gets its candidates’ fees and the uniparty government keeps third parties fees?

    @Save America
    Don’t kneel before anyone but God. Biden and Trump are two largely interchangeable heads of the same Apocalyptic beast.

  9. Pig Farmer is correct. Brown decision was evil. I said it was stupid from our perspective, not theirs.

  10. Yes, and I’m sure you’ll agree, he was right about the 14th amendment as well.

  11. GOP WAS NOT HAPPY WITH *BLACK CODES* IN 1865-1866 — EX-SLAVE BLACKS HAVING NO/FEW *CIVIL* RIGHTS IN REBEL EX-SLAVE STATES– MANY *VAGRANT* LAWS >>> EX-SLAVES KEPT AS SLAVE WORKERS

    DEC 1865 – 13 AMDT DECLARED RATIFIED.

    LARGE CONST DOUBTS ABOUT 1866 USA CIVIL RIGHTS ACT [CRA] APR 1866 – REQUIRING EQUAL *CONTRACT* RIGHTS FOR WHITES AND BLACKS.

    — SINCE BEING *FREE* DID NOT MEAN HAVING EQUAL CIVIL RIGHTS — ESP WOMEN IN 1866 — MUCH LESS EQUAL *POLITICAL* RIGHTS — VOTING/ BEING A PUBLIC OFFICER.

    THUS THE EP CL IN 14-1 AMDT.

    1866 CRA RE-ENACTED AFTER 14 AMDT DECLARED RATIFIED IN 1868.

  12. Being unhappy is no excuse to violate, rape, and vandalize the Constitution.

  13. 2025? When the case goes back before 2020? It’s going to take a decade before it’s done.

  14. Consider voting for at least one Libertarian or third party candidate. By voting for one third party candidate, you are sending a message that the two major parties cannot take your vote for granted. If the state taxes third party candidates (by requiring a filing fee), then fewer third party candidates (mostly Libertarians) will run. Show your support for freedom to vote for a third choice by voting for at least one third party candidate.

  15. Bilyeu should be in prison for being involved with Sarwark in attempting to steal the New Hampshire affiliate

  16. She is a Sarwark puppet. She was on the LNC at the time and had a vote. JBH was the fall gut, and she illegally became chair.

  17. He should come out with us and party in tent city! We’re doing DC, Philly and New York thru the Trump sentencing and then heading to Milwaukee for a week before a long sojourn in Chicago! Hot girl and gurl summer! Sex in tents! Every kind of drugs and booze, as much as you can do, no charge! Music and art and dancing and public performance of every sort! Ultra participatory! We had a blast in Atlanta!

    It will definitely help him with that droopy gut!

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