The Atlanta Progressive News has this story about the Georgia Green Party, and the Georgia Constitution Party, and their plans to petition for president in Georgia. Both parties have hopes of having their presidential nominees on the ballot for the first time in Georgia.
On April 25, a bill to establish a Colorado presidential primary was introduced by Representative Dominick Moreno (D-Commerce City) and Tim Dore (R-Elizabeth). Under current law, Colorado uses caucuses. Here is the text of HB 1454.
The bill would let the Governor choose any Tuesday in March for the presidential primary date. Only parties that polled at least 20% for President in the last election could have a presidential primary. Candidates would need 1,500 signatures of party members; and in addition they would need to have raised enough campaign funds to theoretically qualify for primary season matching funds ($5,000 in each of 20 states). It is not clear how the Secretary of State of Colorado would know whether that qualification has been met.
Independent voters could vote in a presidential primary. By asking for a presidential primary ballot, they would be deemed to be members of that party, but their party membership would automatically expire a few weeks after the primary.
The Harvard Law Record has this article by Richard Winger, showing that ballot access laws have been getting somewhat better during the last 40 years, even though progress has been uneven and the problem has become worse in certain states.
On April 25, U.S. District Court Judge John A. Woodcock denied injunctive relief to the Maine Libertarian Party, in its ballot access lawsuit to become a qualified party in Maine. Libertarian Party of Maine v Dunlap, 2:16cv-0002. The 27-page order says because the Maine primary (for office other than President) is on June 14, there isn’t time to provide the party with its own primary. Twice it says “chaos” would result if the party were put on the ballot.
The judge appears to have completely missed the point that the Maine Libertarian Party wasn’t asking for a primary. In many other ballot lawsuits, courts found ballot access laws for new parties unconstitutional, but made the decision too late for a primary for that party; so the judges let such parties nominate by convention instead. The U.S. Supreme Court made such a ruling in 1968, when it put the American Independent Party on the ballot in Ohio even though it was too late to give the party a primary. At the time, the Ohio law said all parties nominate by primary.
Other courts that did the same thing include a U.S. District Court in Arkansas in 1996, for the Reform Party; a U.S. District Court in Hawaii in 1986, for the Libertarian Party; a U.S. District Court in Nebraska in 1976 for the Libertarian Party (the 8th circuit agreed with this ruling, after the election was over); a U.S. District Court in Nevada in 1986 for the Libertarian Party; an Ohio state court in 1976 for the American Independent party; a U.S. District Court in Ohio in 2008 for the Libertarian and Socialist Parties; a U.S. District Court in Oklahoma in 1984 for the Libertarian Party; and a U.S. District Court in Tennessee in 2012 for the Green and Constitution Parties. Like Maine, all of these other states had laws saying new parties must nominate by primary, but these courts still crafted relief allowing conventions instead.
The party will file a request for reconsideration. The Maine deadline for a newly-qualifying party is December 1 of the year before the election, and that was the main issue in the case.
On April 22, U.S. District Court Judge Andre Birotte upheld a California law that won’t let candidates show their party label on the ballot unless the candidate is a member of a qualified party. Soltysik v Padilla, c.d. cv-15-7916. The plaintiffs were two candidates who are registered as members of the Socialist Party. Because the Socialist Party is not ballot-qualified in California, their ballot label is “party preference: none.”
The decision says that the burden on a candidate to be denied a partisan ballot label is “not severe.” The decision won’t allow a trial so that the plaintiffs can present evidence that the burden is severe. The decision merely assumes that denial of a party label is “not severe”. The decision makes no mention of the U.S. Supreme Court opinion Bullock v Carter, 405 U.S. 134 (1972), which says it is not reasonable for Texas to force candidates who can’t pay a filing fee to run for office with no party label.
The decision also does not mention the U.S. Supreme Court opinion Cook v Gralike, 531 U.S. 510 (2001), which said that states cannot discriminate against candidates relative to party labels, and which says, “The adverse labels handicap candidates at the most crucial stage in the election process – the instant before the vote is cast…the labels surely place their targets at a political disadvantage.”
The decision depends on Chamness v Bowen, a Ninth Circuit decision that said California could bar independent candidates from being listed as “independent” on the ballot. But the Chamness decision depends on the fact that the plaintiff presented no evidence that denial of the word “independent” does any harm, and said the outcome might have been different if there had been such evidence. In the Soltysik case, the plaintiff was ready to present evidence that the campaigns are injured by denial of the word “Socialist” on the ballot, but Judge Birotte won’t permit such evidence to be submitted.
