Texas State Senator Mayes Middleton (R-Galveston) has introduced SB 1705. It would require all qualified parties to nominate by primary. Current law says smaller qualified parties nominate by convention at their own expense. Texas is one of seventeen states with two tiers of qualified party, in which large parties nominate by primary and smaller ones by convention. The others are Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Georgia, Indiana, Kansas, Kentucky, Maryland, Michigan, Nevada, New Mexico, Oregon, South Dakota, Vermont, West Virginia, and Wyoming.
Texas has always has two tiers of qualified party, ever since the beginning of government-printed ballots in 1903. Two-tiers is good public policy. Smaller qualified parties are not well served by primaries. The mainstream media generally does not cover contested primaries for small parties, and members of those parties are often without guidance when they participate in contested minor party primaries. Also government-administered primaries are expensive for taxpayers.
Whether to nominate by primary, convention, mail-in voting, internet, blockchain, filing fees or petition (either with actual or virtual signatures) should be decided by each of the qualified parties on their own.
NOOOO PRIMARIES.
PUBLIC NOMINATIONS BY PUBLIC ELECTORS-VOTERS OF PUBLIC CANDIDATES FOR PUBLIC OFFICES.
SEE NOW OLDE TX WHITE PRIMARY CASES 1928-1932
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EQUAL NOM PETS/FILING FEES
ONE ELECTION DAY
PR
APPV
TOTSOP
The flip side is that, here in Tex-ass, and perhaps in other states, minor parties pay for the dubious benefits of nominating by convention, ie, starting with the state covering expenses for duopoly parties, not to mention that Tex-ass now charges major-party like filing fees for minor party candidates to boot. The expense to taxpayers is nothing new, since the state is already paying the freight for a duopoly primary.
As for the “uninformed” angle? If one is a minor party voter or leaner, they’re semi-automatically more informed. (I added the “semi-” because I know that “automatically” by itself isn’t the case.)
In other words, sorry, Richard, but these aren’t good arguments.
“This is a Republican in the Texas Lege and you should probably smell a rat” might be a better argument.
The garbage comment on March 9, 2023 at 3:49 pm is from Robert K Stock.
Dr. Joseph P. Harris was recognized as the nation’s leading expert on election administration from the 1920’s through the 1970’s. He was a professor at UC Berkeley and also he invented punch card ballots. He wrote in his 1951 book “A Model Direct Primary System” that states should not give primaries to small parties. That book was representative of the thinking of the National Municipal League, now called the National Civic League.
As to uninformed voters, in 1986 the Libertarian Party of Alaska had a contested gubernatorial primary between Ed Hoch (the state party chair) and Mary O’Bannon, who had promised to spend $1,000,000 campaign if she got the nomination. But before the primary, she was indicted for fraud and fled the state. Yet the voters in the Libertarian primary chose Mary O’Bannon, so there was effectively no LP campaign for Governor and the party went off the ballot in November 1986.
The Truth: I didn’t post that comment. I have never posted under a pseudonym. I only use my real name you cock sucking mother fucking piece of shit bastard white supremacist Christian taliban limped dick.
My apologies to Truth. I lashed out and that was wrong of me. I am deeply ashamed of myself and what I’ve become. I disavow Satanism and Communism. I apologize for making homophonic statements like that above. I apologize for being racist as I was above. I apologize for being a religious bigot as I was above. I have problems with anger and I blame it on people like Truth. In fact I hate myself for having bad relations with my family and for doing such a poor job as the night clerk at Motel 6 in El Reno, Oklahoma.
Stop using my name in vain you fucking imposter.
In Texas, a party becomes qualified to make nominations by establishing an organization. It becomes qualified to have its nominees placed on the general election ballot by a process that begins after the primary.
The bill would put a burden of millions of dollars on counties for the No Labels primary.
Stock is triggered today.
Ryan: So what if I am “triggered”? It’s not as if that is a bad thing.
It bugs the hell out of me that cowards hide behind pseudonyms and falsely claim that I post with pseudonyms. Not once have I ever posted anything that did not have my real name attached.
Stock is spewing bullshit again. If you compare the styles when he posts under his real name versus a pseudonym, it’s the same.
In my view it is improper for the state to provide the primary process for parties to choose their nominees. However, if the state is providing primaries then it should not be allowed or required for some but not others. A division of ‘major’ and ‘minor’ parties is discriminatory.
Duh, I dropped the soap.
The real you did. Not Trump.
I agree with Chris Powell, there and in any state. I, as a registered minor party voter and taxpayer, shouldn’t be shouldering the expenses of the major party’s primaries, while paying the expenses of my own party’s convention in the first place. But if they’re going to require primaries for all parties, they damn sure should be paying for ALL of them.
No need for primary at all. Winning party should pick officeholders however it wants.