Two Tennessee legislators, a Republican and a Democrat, have introduced a bill to set up a qualified minor party category in the Tennessee election law. The bills are SB 288 and HB 626. Tennessee hasn’t had a qualified party (other than the Democratic and Republican Parties) since 1972, but this bill would permit a new party to qualify with 2,500 signatures. It would then nominate its candidates by convention. Existing law requires 45,254 signatures for a new party.
Missouri Senator Gary Nodler (R-Joplin) has introduced SB 409, which would require all independent candidates to file a declaration of candidacy in March of election years. As before, the independent candidate’s petition would continue to be in July. The bill has been referred to the Senate Elections Committee.
The bill is clearly unconstitutional as applied to independent presidential candidates. It is possible that it would be declared unconstitutional as to independent candidates for other office as well. A similar South Carolina law was struck down by the 4th circuit in 1991, but a similar Texas law was upheld by the 5th circuit in 1996. Missouri is in the 8th circuit and there is no controlling precedent. However, in 1976 a 3-judge US District Court invalidated a Missouri law saying independent candidate petitions had to be submitted in April.
The national Green Party has decided to hold its 2007 annual meeting in Reading, Pennsylvania, July 12-15. The choice of Pennsylvania is fraught with symbolism. No state has ever treated the Green Party worse than Pennsylvania has.
First, even though the Green Party polled enough votes in November 2004 to meet Pennsylvania’s definition of “political party”, the state treated it as though it weren’t a qualified party, and required 67,070 signatures for its 2006 statewide nominees.
When the party tried and failed to meet that requirement, its U.S. Senate candidate was told he had to pay $80,408 for the costs of checking his petition. Its gubernatorial candidate was intimidated into withdrawing so that she wouldn’t be equally liable.
On top of that, almost one-third of Pennsylvania’s counties failed to count the party’s write-in votes, even though Pennsylvania election law considered those write-ins valid.
On February 2, thirteen Maryland State Senators introduced SB 546, to establish public funding for legislative candidates. Like the public funding laws in Arizona and Maine (and like the one that existed in Massachusetts until the legislature repealed it), SB 546 does not discriminate for or against any candidate based on that candidate’s party affiliation.
The bill requires candidates who seek public funding to raise contributions of at least $5 from 350 residents of their district. The total amount of such contributions must equal at least $6,750.
Connecticut’s public funding law does discriminate on the basis of party affiliation. The ACLU is currently challenging the discriminatory aspect of Connecticut’s law in federal court.
Thanks to Howard Wilson for the Maryland news.
Montana’s Attorney General and Secretary of State are sponsoring SB 96, which would make it more difficult for initiatives to get on the ballot. The bill would outlaw out-of-state circulators for initiatives, and also prohibit paying circulators per signature. The Attorney General, Mike McGrath, is a Democrat; the Secretary of State, Bradley Johnson, is a Republican.
