Ninth Circuit Says No Labels Can’t Keep Individual Party Members from Filing to Run in its Primary for Office Other than President

Posted on by July 11, 2025
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On July 11, the Ninth Circuit issued an opinion in No Labels Party of Arizona v Fontes, 24-563.  It reversed the U.S. District Court and said that No Labels has no right to tell the Secretary of State to block anyone from filing for partisan office in the No Labels primary.  Here is the 28-page opinion.  The author is Judge Salvador Mendoza, Jr, a Biden appointee.  It is also signed by Judge Holly A. Thomas and Judge Anthony Johnstone, who are also both Biden appointees.

The opinion is a defeat for the freedom of association rights of political parties, but a win for the ability of voters to vote for the candidate of their choice.  The chief precedent that influenced the decision is a 2008 decision of the Ninth Circuit that said the Alaskan Independence Party had no right to exclude a particular candidate from filing to run in the AIP’s primary.  The new No Labels decision, minimizing party rights, is philosophically completely different from a recent Eleventh Circuit remand opinion that said the Catoosa County Republican Party (in Georgia) may have the right to exclude candidates from its primary.

The Ninth Circuit No Labels opinion boosts the right to vote.  It says on page 23, “Candidate exclusion burdens voters”, and also, in footnote nine, “Such candidate selection necessarily includes the right to vote for minor parties, a right that is ‘neavily burdened if that vote may be cast only for ‘two old, established parties.'”  These quotes will help the minor party plaintiffs who are challenging the California top-two system (California, like Arizona, is in the Ninth Circuit).

Here is a news story about the decision.

Florida Democratic Party Chair Wants Her Party to Let Independents Vote in Democratic Primaries

Posted on by July 11, 2025
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For several months, Nikki Fried, the state chair of the Florida Democratic Party has been trying to persuade her party to let independents vote in Democratic primaries.  Under a 1986 U.S. Supreme Court decision, Tashjian v Republican Party of Connecticut, every party with its own government-administered primary is free to tell the state that the party wants independents to vote in its primaries.

This lengthy article covers the conversation inside the Florida Democratic Party.  Many powerful party leaders are fiercely against the idea, which is surprising, because so many other state Democratic Parties (in states in which the party is weaker than the Republican Party)have invited independents to vote in Democratic primaries.  Among the states with primaries that are closed (unless the party exercises its Tashjian rights), and in which the Democratic Party is obviously weaker than the Republican Party, he only Democratic Parties that have never invited independents into Democratic primaries are Florida and Kentucky.

Louisiana Makes it More Difficult for a Group to Become a Qualified Party

Posted on by July 11, 2025
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On June 4, Louisiana Governor Jeff Landry signed HB 420.  It changes the procedure for a group to become a qualified party.  The old law required such a group to have 1,000 registrants and to pay a fee of $1,000.  The new law, effective August 1, says it must have 5,000 registrants and pay a fee of $1,000.

Once a group becomes a qualified party, it need not retain 5,000 registrants.  It can remain qualified if it had run a candidate for some partisan office at any time in the last four years.

The bill also says that no party can have “Independent” as part of its name, and that voters who register “independent” will be classed as though they had checked the “no party” box.  And it sets out a procedure for a qualified party to voluntarily cease being qualified.  The Independent Party of Louisiana will now cease to exist as a qualified party.