On May 19, Florida Governor Rick Scott signed HB 1355, which hugely increases ballot access barriers for new political parties that wish to run someone for President. See this story. The bill also forbids anyone from running in a partisan primary for any office if that candidate had switched parties at any time during the year before filing. If this law had been in effect in Pennsylvania in 2010, former U.S. Senator Arlen Specter would not have been permitted to run in the Democratic primary, something that he actually did do, although he lost that primary.
All Florida legislators took an oath to support both the Florida Constitution, and the U.S. Constitution. The Florida Constitution says, “Article VI. Suffrage and Elections. Section One. Regulation of Elections. The requirements for a candidate with no party affiliation or for a candidate of a minor party for placement of the candidate’s name on the ballot shall be no greater than the requirements for a candidate of the party having the largest number of registered voters.”
Yet the new law requires the presidential candidate of a party that has not received recognition from the Federal Election Commission as a national committee to submit 335,000 valid signatures, on a petition that names the candidate, no later than July 15. There is no provision in the law for a stand-in. The petition must contain the signatures of approximately 10,000 registered voters from each of 14 U.S. House districts. The party must pay to have its signatures checked. Meanwhile, of course, the Democratic Party (the party that has the most registered voters in Florida) doesn’t need any petition.
The FEC will not give “national committee” status to a new party. The old parties that have that status are the Republican, Democratic, Libertarian, Green, Constitution, Socialist, Natural Law, and Reform Parties. The Green Party did not receive its “national committee” status until 2001, even though it first began contesting presidential elections in 1996. The Reform Party, which was formed in 1995, did not get “national committee” status until 1998. The only time the FEC ever gave “national committee” status to a party in its first year of existence was in late September 1992, for the Natural Law Party. But that came far too late in the year to meet the new Florida law’s July 15 deadline.
