On May 23, the Ohio Libertarian Party asked the Sixth Circuit to put it back on the ballot. Libertarian Party of Ohio v Husted, 16-3537. The party was removed from the ballot in November 2014 because it did not poll 2% for Governor. It couldn’t poll 2% for Governor because its gubernatorial candidate was not on the ballot. He was not on the ballot because the Republican Party of Ohio, and the John Kasich re-election campaign, had challenged his primary ballot status.
The 39-page brief argues that the Republican Party of Ohio was a state actor when it became involved in the challenge. The brief depends on U.S. Supreme Court precedents that say political parties are state actors when they influence who appears on a ballot, either primary or general.
The robot party hacks are *state actors* in PUBLIC nominations of PUBLIC candidates for PUBLIC offices.
They may NOT be state actors in merely challenging ballot access of other candidates — i.e. are citizen-electors as in lots of other stuff — lobbying, etc.
One more point that the MORON courts are likely to screw up some more.
3513.05 paragraph 7 says that for purposes of signing a candidate petition, non-affiliation over the previous two years is also a member if they sign the petition.
Only 10% of Green Party members voted in the Green Party primary, 38% voted in the Democratic primary, 24% voted in the Republican primary, and 27% did not vote.
Of those who voted in the Green Primary, 7% were previous members, 10% had been Democrats, 10% had been Republicans, 2% had been Libertarians, and 71% were previously unaffiliated.
If very few of your “members” vote in your primary, and most of those who do vote were not members, can it really be claimed that any are members?
Since the new party petition says that the signatories are intending to organize a new political party, the party could use the results of the petition to keep track of its supporters. Or perhaps if the Libertarian Party is successful in this year’s petition drive, it could seek an injunction requiring that signatories be classified as “members”.
In Texas, particularly at the time of ‘Smith v Allwright’ the political parties conducted their own primaries – but they had to conduct them in compliance with state law. The State of Texas in effect delegated state election processes to execution by political parties. In the specific case of ‘Smith v Allwright’, the legislature deliberately changed the law so that the political party could determine who voted in their primary. (ie since Democratic-controlled Texas could not directly exclude blacks from voting, they would let the Texas Democratic Party do the exclusion). The ruling of the SCOTUS was that Texas Dmocratic Party was a state actor, and in violation of the 15th Amendment. In ‘Terry v Adams’, an organization that ostensibly represented all the White Democrats in Fort Bend County would hold a pre-primary, and then that candidate would be nominated unopposed in the Democratic primary and general election for that matter.
‘Texas Democratic Party v Benkiser’ is really not separate from the primary nominating process. The State of Texas makes it difficult to replace candidates nominated in a primary. Texas only permits nomination vacancies to be filled if the vacancy is for cause, such as the nominee dying, or being disqualified. In the case of a legislative candidate, a ploy is for the nominee to move out of his district, and then the party disqualifying him, which permits the party to name a replacement nominee. The State of Texas delegates conduct of primaries to political parties, including replacing nominees if they are disqualified. Tina Benkiser was a state actor because she was executing state law. The LPO’s claim that “Morse’s principles, moreover, extend to all kinds of constitutional violations and even
reach well beyond primaries” is false. Determining that the candidate who was nominated in a primary is no longer eligible, is not a reach well beyond. It is more like the nail of the left pinky finger tapping the table that the arm is resting on.