On August 9, the Reform Party National Committee facebook page announced that Rocky De La Fuente is the party’s nominee for President. The party had held a national convention in Bohemia, New York, on July 29. The delegates met the candidates but did not at that time make a selection. The selection was made a few days ago by e-mail. Only the delegates who had shown up on July 29 were permitted to vote. Rocky’s vice-presidential nominee is Michael Steinberg.
The Reform Party is on the ballot in Florida, Louisiana, and Mississippi, although the Mississippi Reform Party, headed by Shawn O’Hara, makes its own decisions regardless of what the national party does. Thanks to a commenter at Independent Political Report for the news.
Wow. I’m quite surprised with this pick. I’m guessing they believe that De La Fuente’s money and ballot access can benefit the party and perhaps rejuvenate it some. I’m curious to see how many states he can get on the ballot.
Can Rocky run for both Senate and President under two different party labels in Florida?
Rocky won’t be running for US Senate in Florida after August 30.
I’m curious to see if he will be labeled as Reform Party in any state in which he petitioned for ballot access on his own.
Question: Will Rocky keep the American Delta Party label in states he’s already on the ballot, or will he try amd go to an all Reform Party label?
Thoughts?
Huh, guess I should read the existing comments before I post. My apologies, Will Fenwick, for asking virtually the same question you did.
New Mexico requires only 0.5% of the vote to remain qualified. I wonder if Rocky will turn the New Mexico ADP over if he gets 0.5%.
Congratulations to the Reform Party on choosing a nominee.
Hopefully in the future they will find a better way to nominate, procedurally speaking — this time it took nine delegates nearly two weeks to do something that should have taken an hour and a half, tops.
Chris, legally, no, Rocky can’t appear on the ballot in Florida for president. But since the state’s Republican executive branch has already ignored that same law for the benefit of Marco Rubio this year, they probably won’t want to attract attention to it by making Fuente abide by it.
Tom, I don’t understand why you have that opinion, that the law bars anyone from running for president in November if they ran for another office some months earlier. The law just relates to simultaneous elections or simultaneous primaries.
The US Supreme Court ruled in US Term Limits v Thornton that states can’t add to the qualifications in the US Constitution. The US Constitution doesn’t have any qualifications relating to what a candidate did politically before accepting a nomination for federal office.
Will Clinton or Trump get even 30 percent of the popular Prez votes due to the New Age mini-armies of third parties and independents ???
Either the Clinton or Trump MONSTER will act in 2017-2021 as if IT gets 100 percent of the votes.
—
P.R. and nonpartisan App.V. — along with RECALL elections for ALL elected HACKS.
“Tom, I don’t understand why you have that opinion”
It’s not an opinion. It’s what the law says.
You’re probably right that the law in question wouldn’t stand up to a well-funded constitutional challenge.
But the law says what it says, not what you wish it said.
Will, Karl, and Kevin,
We are working closely with our nominee on branding. We believe that where possible we will be be merging branding and attempting to continue ballot access as Reform Party National affiliates. While there is no requirement for a state affiliate party to share our national name, it’s obviously useful from a branding perspective.
Thomas,
“Hopefully in the future they will find a better way to nominate, procedurally speaking — this time it took nine delegates nearly two weeks to do something that should have taken an hour and a half, tops.”
I will tend to agree with you that this situation should not be repeated (and this is the only time we have had this kind of delay in nomination).
However, arguing that the process should take only an hour and a half in this situation is, I feel unrealistic.
Two of the nominees that were being seriously considered (Darcy Richardson and Rocky de la Fuente) only entered the nomination process 3 weeks and 2 weeks prior to the convention (respectively). Further, we were being given information at the convention regarding ballot lines that Dr. Kahn and Mr. de la Fuente would be on which could not be verified easily other than taking some time to see whether the state governments were really going to accept the submissions.
In short, we wanted to see several days of actual, verified, petitioning results before we took their claims seriously, so we could accurately weigh the risk/reward against the very obvious strengths of nominating Darcy Richardson (expertise, issues alignment, long-time supporter) or Ken Cross (existing party member, issues alignment, past RP VP candidate).
-David
Tom, the Florida law, 99.012, says “No person may qualify as a candidate for more than one public office.” “Qualify” in that sentence is an active verb. It means no candidate is permitted to file to run for two offices. But Rocky De La Fuente is not filing to run for president in Florida. No presidential candidate in a general election who is the nominee of a qualified party is ever forced to file. Do you think President Obama in 2012 had to file any paperwork to get his name on the general election ballots? States don’t require presidential nominees of qualified parties to do that. Instead the state parties submit lists of presidential elector candidates and they tell the state whom they intend to vote for in December, if they get elected.
It would be different if the law used the word “eligible”. “Eligible” is an adjective, but “qualify” is a verb.
Richard,
I have to give it to you — you’re very good at torturing the meaning you want out of a clause no matter how plainly it’s worded.
I’ve already agreed that Rocky will likely not be held to the law, so I’m not sure why you’re so intent on convincing me that the law means something other than what it says. If it makes you feel better, I guess I can pretend to be convinced.
Thomas and Richard:
Does a Presidential candidate file when chosen by a Party or does the Party advise the Sec ‘o State?
Will Rocky be on the Nov ballot as a US Senate candidate? He would have personally filed to run for that office, correct.
However, would he be personally filing to run for President?
Here in California, the Elections Officer would remove your name from one or the other office since California Law says you cannot run for an office that would prevent you accepting the other office. In other words, if two offices conflict you have to choose [mtgs being local or in the state capitol for instance]. They kindly assume you will get elected to both . . .
Rocky will not be on the Florida November ballot as a candidate for US Senate.
Aside from that, he won’t be filing to run for President. No presidential nominee of a qualified party ever needs to file anything in any state. The state party notifies the state of their elector candidates. The national convention officers notify the state of the national ticket names.
David and Richard:
Will an NC resident registered as a Republican be able to vote for the RP presidential nominee Mr. De La Fuente?
I would guess he is not going to be on the ballot but could his name be written in?
All registered voters in general elections get the same ballot, and it lists all the candidates who qualified. The fact that a person is a registered Republican makes absolutely no difference in a general election.
North Carolina will have write-in space on the ballot, so anyone can vote for anyone they wish in November in North Carolina. However unless some lawsuit wins, write-ins for Rocky won’t be counted because North Carolina requires write-in candidates to file a petition with 500 signatures for statewide office, and Rocky didn’t do that.
Thank you Richard!