Last month, Larry Sharpe of New York hosted a forum for four presidential candidates seeking the Libertarian nomination. See it here.
6
On March 13, the New York Green and Libertarian Parties cert petition with the U.S. Supreme Court. Libertarian Party of New York v New York State Board of Elections. There is no case number yet. The brief concerns the 2020 ballot access changes in New York. The legislature tripled the statewide petition for independent candidates and the nominees of unqualified parties, from 15,000 to 45,000 signatures. The legislature did not expand the petitioning period, which lasts six weeks in April and May.
The legislature also changed the definition of a party from a group that polled 50,000 votes for Governor, to one that polled 2% for the office at the top of the ballot, every two years (president/governor).
UPDATE: Here is the Appendix for the cert petition.
Hearings have been set for the two Minnesota bills that change the definition of a political party, from a group that got 5% for any statewide race at either of the last two elections, to 10%.
The Senate bill, SF 1827, will be heard Tuesday, March 14, at 3 p.m.
The House bill, HF 2802, will be heard Friday, March 17, at 8:30 a.m.
The median vote test of the 50 states is 2%, so Minnesota is already more difficult than the median state. Minnesota’s existing definition of a qualified party is so tough that Minnesota is one of only six states in which the Libertarian Party has never been a qualified party. The others are New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Tennessee, and Virginia. Also the Libertarian Party has only been a ballot-qualified party in Connecticut for some offices but not others; and in Georgia and Illinois it has only been a qualified party for statewide offices but not most district offices.
It is ironic that this year, it is the states with difficult ballot access already that are threatening to make it even harder. Besides Minnesota, other examples are New Mexico and Texas.
On Saturday, the New Mexico House Judiciary Committee passed SB 180. It is a very long omnibus election law bill. Among its provisions, it doubles the number of signatures needed by minor party non-presidential nominees, from 1% of the last gubernatorial vote, to 2%.
Even the 1% petition has kept all minor party non-presidential nominees off the ballot for statewide office, ever since 2012, when the Independent American Party managed to get the signatures for its U.S. Senate nominee.
Presidential candidates are exempt from the nominee petition requirement.
It is clear that the Judiciary Committee members did not understand the provision doubling the number of signatures. The bill’s sponsor told the committee that the witnesses against it were mistaken. The witnesses against the provision were limited to one minute, with no opportunity for the committee members to ask questions of the witness. The witnesses included two Green Party activists, and me.
Kansas SB 290 would move the primary for all office from August to early May. It is introduced by the Committee on Federal and State Affairs. The independent petition deadline in Kansas is tied to the date of the primary, so if the bill passed as introduced, it would automatically move the petition deadline for independent candidates from August to May. Section 25-305 says the independent candidate deadline is the day before the primary.
In 1987, when the Libertarian Party challenged the independent candidate petition deadline (which was in June at that time), the state agreed that the June deadline was unconstitutional and settled the case, and moved the deadline to August. Merritt v Graves, 87-4264-R. The settlement is dated September 20, 1988. At the time, the Libertarian Party was not a qualified party in Kansas, and had to use the independent petition procedure to place its presidential nominee, Ron Paul, on the ballot.