This Los Angeles Times story about California’s redesigned voter registration form also discusses the American Independent Party. The article reveal that some California county election officials want the legislature to pass a law making it illegal for any party to have the word “Independent” in its name.

Tennessee has a law making it illegal for any party to have the word “independent” in its name, but that law was held unconstitutional by a U.S. District Court a few years ago as a violation of free speech. Later the Sixth Circuit reversed that on the grounds that none of the plaintiff political parties had standing to challenge that law, because neither of them had “independent” in their names. The plaintiff political parties in that case were the Green Party and the Constitution Party.

North Carolina elects all of its state legislators this year. Republicans managed to recruit someone in every district except one, the State House district, 24th district. It is too late for any new candidates to be added to the May primary ballots. So the Republican Party is backing an independent candidate in that district, Ken Fontenot.

Because the ballot access reform last year did not ease the petition requirement for independent candidates for the legislature, Fontenot needs 2,200 valid signatures, due April 23. That deadline, which was made worse by a bill that was signed into law in early 2017, is certainly unconstitutional. In 1980 North Carolina also had an April petition deadline for independent candidates, and it was struck down that year in Greaves v North Carolina State Board of Elections. The legislature then moved it to June, but in 2017, it forgot why it had done that, and moved the deadline back to April. A lawsuit is currently pending against the April deadline for independent candidates. See this story about how hard the Republican Party is working on the Fontenot petition. Thanks to Kevin Hayes for the link.