The League of Women Voters recently sponsored general election debates for Texas candidates for Governor and Attorney General in Kerrville. See this story. However, neither of the Republican nominees participated. The article does not explain why the Green Party gubernatorial candidate was not in the debate. Concerning the Attorney General debate, there is no Green Party nominee.
The Socialist Workers Party has released a list of its candidates for public office this year. The party expects to be on the statewide ballot in Iowa. It also expects to be on the ballot for one U.S. House race in New York, and one in Iowa. Finally, it expects to be on the ballot for Mayor of Washington, D.C. All the other candidates will be write-in candidates.
Linda Ketner said on July 5 that she will not run as an independent candidate for U.S. Senate in South Carolina this year. See this story. Ketner was the Democratic nominee for U.S. House in the Charleston district in 2008. Many Democrats had been helping circulate an independent candidate petition for her, because of dissatisfaction with Alvin Greene, who won the Democratic primary for that office last month.
The Texas election law says corporations may donate money to political parties “to defray normal overhead and administrative or operating costs incurred by the party; or to administer a primary election or convention held by the party.”
In 2006, the Democratic Party nominee for Governor of Texas polled less than 30% of the total vote cast. The Texas election law actually says that parties should be on the ballot automatically if they either got 2% for Governor at the last gubernatorial election, or 5% for any statewide race at the last election. But imagine if the Texas election law said parties are only on the ballot automatically if they got 30% for Governor at the last gubernatorial election.
Under this imaginary scenario, the Democratic Party would have needed to petition to be on the ballot in both 2008 and 2010. If corporations contributed to the Democratic Party for its hypothetical petition drives in 2008 and 2010, does anyone doubt that the petition drive would be considered an “operating cost”? Obviously, a party can’t “operate” if it isn’t on the ballot. But the Texas press, in its many articles on the subject of whether the Green Party should have been removed from the ballot this year, never actually discusses the “operating cost” phrase in the law.
The hypothetical law requiring a party to poll 30% of the gubernatorial vote in order to be on the ballot automatically is not entirely impossible. Between 1931 and 1937, parties in Florida were only permitted to be on the ballot if they had received 30% of the vote for President at either of the two preceding presidential elections. There is no federal lawsuit precedent invalidating any state’s requirement for what a party must do to be on the ballot automatically. In Jenness v Fortson, the U.S. Supreme Court seemed to think that Georgia’s law (as it existed in 1971), that a party had to poll 20% for Governor, or 20% for President in the entire nation, was acceptable.
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