On January 2, 2015, the Republican Party of ten Montana counties filed an amended complaint in Ravalli County Republican Central Committee v McCulloch, 6:14cv-58. This is the lawsuit which challenges Montana’s open primary as applied to the Republican Party. The amended complaint adds a challenge to the part of the law that requires election of party officers in an open primary.
Although the state Republican Party is still not a plaintiff, the Republican Party state convention in June 2014 passed a resolution, almost unanimously, that “it is the position of the Montana Republican Party that the voters that select candidates to appear on the general election ballot should be limited to members of the Republican Party who have registered themselves as members of the party if a primary election process is used.”
The ten county Republican Parties which are in the lawsuit already are those of Ravalli, Gallatin, Sanders, Dawson, Stillwater, Richland, Carbon, Flathead, Madison, and Big Horn Counties.
It seems Republicans aren’t obligated to follow state law if their bylaws and party rules don’t follow a state/county committee structure. This seems like a moot point. Of course the Republicans would still want political tax payer welfare to pay for these closed primaries. Shouldn’t the members or the party pay for this closed primary? If I were a Democrat would I want to provide welfare to my competition.
The party hacks in party gangs are NOT independent empires.
Public nominations by Public Electors for Public offices —
ALL Electors nominate — as in top 2 primary States
SOME Electors nominate – the rest of the States —
ALL according to PUBLIC L-A-W-S.
The SCOTUS MORON hacks messed up the point in the 2000 CA Donkey case — per usual for the SCOTUS hacks.
Well… that clears things up Demo Rep. Thanks a lot!
Montana should change its statutes so that party precinct officers have no role in filling legislative and local vacancies.
Texas has demonstrated that legislative elections can be held in 3 weeks, including the filing period and early voting. Montana has fairly short legislative sessions, so that vacancies during or immediately before a session should be rare.
Eliminate a formal role for the political hacks and it won’t matter how the political hacks are chosen.
Open Primary defenders and the party winning the governorship have been linked for 100 years. Previously the Republicans have protected the Open Primary from Democrats wanting to close it. The Republicans always elected their governor candidates after such fights (1985 was most recent dust up).
But the newbie Republicans are clueless about their party history which shows that it could control the governor’s office for about 20 years after the Open Primary defense. Amazing thing is it works the same for Democrats when they defend the Open Primary. Conclusion: look for Democrats in the Montana governor’s office till 2035.