Minnesota Senator Bonnie S. Westlin (D-Plymouth) has introduced SB 786. It would provide that no one could get on a primary ballot unless he or she got 30% of the vote at a pre-primary party endorsements meeting.

If this bill had been policy in the recent past, the Legal Marijuana Now Party would have had the ability to screen out insincere candidates who had filed in its primary. The party, which had been ballot-qualified with its own primary in 2020 and 2022, was plagued with individuals who filed to run in the party’s primary even though they didn’t care about legalizing marijuana. Instead, they were recruited by Republican activists, with the goal of injuring the Democratic Party’s chances in that particular race in which the LMN Party had a nominee. Anyone can get on a primary ballot in Minnesota simply by paying a filing fee. Minnesota doesn’t have registration by party, so any voter can run in any party primary, regardless of their beliefs or loyalties.

In 2023 the Democratic-majority legislature increased the vote test for qualified party status from 5% to 8%, to get rid of the Legal Marijuana Now Party. That bill originally took effect immediately, but when the legislature realized that it violates due process to make the definition of a party more stringent and make it effective immediately, the bill was amended to not apply to the 2024 election. But then, in 2024, the chair of the Minnesota Democratic Party sued the Secretary of State to remove the party immediately, on the grounds that it wasn’t structured according to the election code. The State Supreme Court then removed the party from the 2024 ballot, even though the U.S. Supreme Court had ruled in 1989 that how a qualified party organizes itself is not the business of the state. That 1989 decision was Eu v San Francisco County Democratic Central Committee.