Part of the Libertarian Party lawsuit against the Georgia ballot access laws for U.S. House is still in U.S. District Court. The remaining part of the case concerns whether the 5% petition violates Equal Protection. The briefs on this phase of the case will have been filed by February 23, 2023.
NYU Law Professor Richard Pildes has written an essay that generally says the U.S. was better off when most states did not use presidential primaries. Here he summarizes the essay. Most states did not use presidential primaries before 1972.
The Houston Chronicle, the nation’s third largest newspaper by Sunday circulation, has endorsed Joseph LeBlanc for Texas U.S. House, 22nd district. LeBlanc is running against the Republican incumbent, Congressman Troy Nehls, and also against a Democrat, Jamie Kaye Jordan.
The Daily Texan, student newspaper for the University of Texas, carries this opinion piece advocating that no one ever vote for an independent candidate. The piece says that no independent has ever won an election in Texas. Actually, an independent was elected to the Texas legislature in a special election on August 2, 2016. She was Laura Thompson.
Also, another independent, Homer LaKirby Lenoard, was elected to the Texas legislature as an independent in 1936.
The piece says that a vote for an independent or third party never has any political effect. This is far from the truth. Votes for minor party or independent candidates are sometimes more powerful than votes for major party nominees. The Prohibition Party cost the Republicans the presidency in both 1884 and 1916. Those votes for Prohibitionists were very powerful. This outcome motivated the Republicans in Congress to pass the Prohibition Amendment in Congress in 1917. The amendment had been sitting in Congress since 1875 and had never before made any headway. But Republicans passed it, hoping that it would end any threat from future Prohibition Party campaigns. They still didn’t expect the states to ratify the amendment, but in 1919 it was ratified.
This article explains the campaign for and against Question 3 in Nevada, the top-five initiative. It says the proponents have raised $17,000,000, mostly from out-of-state.
Even though this is a long article, neither it, nor any other newspaper story, explains that if it passed, it would be much more difficult for small qualified parties to remain ballot-qualified. Nevada has two ways for a party to remain qualified. The easier one, by far, is to poll 1% of the statewide vote for any office. Almost any minor party can do that, if it runs for offices for which there is little competition. But the initiative eliminates party nominees (except for president), so that method would be defunct.
The other method is to have registration membership of 1% of the state total. It is uncommon for any minor party to have registration that high, except that parties with “Independent” or “Independence” usually have registration that is at the 2% or even 3% range.
If the measure passes on November 8, 2022, it still won’t be law. In Nevada, constitutional amendments must pass two elections in a row. So it would automatically appear on the ballot again in November 2024.
