The Transatlantic Academy, a research institute which studies social problems in North America and Europe, has published a report, “The Democratic Disconnect”, discussing problems of democratic governance. Here is a link to the report. The chapter on problems in the United States and Canada opens by saying, “Democracy in the U.S. is ailing, and badly in need of reform. Canadian democracy is currently working better, although there is a risk of dark clouds gathering on the horizon.”
New Jersey requires 800 signatures for an independent candidate, or for the nominee of an unqualified party, to get on the ballot for a statewide race. This year, only five petitions were submitted for Governor-Lieutenant Governor. See the state’s list here. They include Steve Welzer for the Green Party, Kenneth Kaplan for the Libertarian Party, Diane Sare for the LaRouche organization, and two independent candidates: William Araujo, who hasn’t chosen his ballot label yet, and Hank Schroeder, who uses the label “Don’t Look Back” in half the counties and “Economic Growth” in the other half.
This is the smallest number of petitioning candidates in a New Jersey gubernatorial general election since 1989, when there were a total of six candidates on the ballot. New Jersey hasn’t had any ballot-qualified parties other than the Democratic and Republican Parties since the law was amended in 1920, to define “party” as a group that had polled at least 10% of the vote for Assembly in the entire state. “Assembly” is the New Jersey name for the lower house of the state legislature.
The deadline for the petitions is 4 p.m. on June 4 (Tuesday) so it is possible some more candidates will submit petitions. The link to the state list of candidates can be used to determine if more candidates enter later today.
Roll Call has this commentary by Morton Kondracke on the proposed new Centrist Party.
New Jersey Governor Chris Christie has called a special election to fill the vacant U.S. Senate seat for October 16, 2013. The primary will be in August. See this story.
On June 4, the Connecticut legislature passed HB 6580, which outlaws fusion unless both parties had polled at least 15,000 votes for one of the state statewide offices at the previous gubernatorial election. The bill passed the House on June 1 and the Senate on June 4. It also alters campaign finance laws. See this story, which is not accurate when it says the bill entirely bans fusion. “Fusion” means the practice of two parties jointly nominating the same candidate, so that his or her name appears on the November ballot with both party labels.
Assuming the Governor signs the bill and it takes effect, it is probably unconstitutional. States are free to ban fusion if they wish, but they cannot do so in a discriminatory manner. For instance, the Third Circuit struck down a Pennsylvania law in 1999 that permitted fusion between two large parties but not fusion between a large party and a small party, in Reform Party of Allegheny County v Allegheny County Department of Elections, 174 F.3d 305.
This is the same bill that temporarily had another provision, making it illegal for a party to have “Independent” or “Independence” in its name, but that provision was deleted from the final bill.
In 2010, the Working Families Party and the Independent Party each polled over 15,000 votes for some or all of the statewide state offices, so they retain the ability to engage in fusion. But the Libertarian Party’s highest statewide vote in 2010 was 14,748, and the Green Party’s highest was 10,328, so this bill eliminates their ability to engage in fusion. Those two parties don’t generally engage in fusion anyway, and the Green Party never does, but it is still unconstitutional to remove the ability from them and retain it for certain other parties. The bill also discriminates against newly-formed parties because they could not have met the requirement in the past gubernatorial election, because they didn’t exist then.
