On February 8, the Ninth Circuit refused to rehear Soltysik v Padilla, 16-55758. This is the lawsuit that challenges California’s refusal to put the party label of candidates on the ballot (for congress or partisan state office) if the candidate is a member of an unqualified party. This means that the case goes back to the U.S. District Court for a trial.
Originally the U.S. District Court had dismissed the case without permitting evidence, but now the case is revived and evidence can be submitted. The plaintiff, Emidio Soltysik, is a registered Socialist, but the law did not permit that word to be on the ballot next to his name when he ran for the legislature in the 2014 primary.
Richard, Thanks for posting this. I will be following it since one of my goals is to eventually see all party labels removed from the ballots. This forces an informed electorate because even in states where the straight ticked device has been removed, uninformed voters can still go down the ballot selecting candidates by their label (which in many cases is only three letters and uninformative or misleading in and of itself). Lets see if the tables can be turned on this.
PS: How many states besides West Virginia also use only a 3-letter label?
The only other such states, I believe, are Hawaii and Florida. Hawaii only allows one letter, except when the Reform Party was on the ballot, they had to give “Rf” because otherwise there would have been no way to distinguish Republican from Reform. Each county in Florida decides for itself but many counties just give 3-letter party abbreviations.
PR – always super-partisan
AppV – Exec/Judic – NON-partisan
I think, contra Jeff, that this is good for it to go to trial. I do my reasonable due diligence about write-in candidates here in Texas (slightly different kettle of fish), but in general, the more information available, the better. And, Jeff, that is an “informed electorate.”
My above comment is doubly true in a state like California with its jungle primary, which is generally designed to boost the duopoly parties. Jeff, as long as they’re in place, there’s no way “R” and “D” are being removed. Therefore, more information rather than less is the politically preferable route.
What alleged *disputed* FACTS in the USDC ???
NO appeal to SCOTUS ???
Any delayed appeal = likely NO time in SCOTUS before 2020 election.
When parties stood for something, they were stronger. Now, except for some pushbutton issues, there is little difference between the two larger parties. They don’t stand for anything of substance. List PR would tend to make the parties stronger because they would need to stand for something. RCV PR puts emphasis on the individual candidate. To me, voting is much more confusing when every candidate has a different platform.
The Cailfornia ballot label law the Socialist Party is challenging is just one of hundreds of US laws guaranteeing an uninformed electorate, i.e., one whose voters are unable to vote for an alternative to the capitalist parties. In Texas, the Green Party lost its ballot listing because none of its 2016 statewide candidates received 5 percent of the total vote. They were unable to gather the 50,000 petition signatures needed (which cannot be people who voted for any non-Green candidates) to be listed again in 2018, so only 3 capitalist parties were listed – Republican, Libertarian and Democratic. Now that the Democrats have won all local elections in major Texas urban counties, the Republican controlled legislature has abolished straight-party ballot voting, so voters will we forced to scan through 15-page ballots to vote in each individual contest, multiplying the time each spends in voting, while the voter lines snake around the block. The moneyed class has many ways of suppressing non-white and working class votes, but keeping the word “Socialist” off a candidate’s ballot listing is one of the most despicable.
Interesting.
Need more information on this as how it affects the Communists running in the United States.