Date: Sun, 25 Mar 2001 20:40:09 -0800
From: ban@igc.org ("Richard Winger")
Subject: Re: [lpaz-discuss] Funding Liberty Part IV
To: lpaz-discuss@yahoogroups.com
Reply-To: lpaz-discuss@yahoogroups.com
George Phillies is a "good guy" and a wonderful activist. My message is
certainly not intended to distress him. But I must say, his message below
is not entirely accurate. He says qualified parties in Massachusetts are
mandatorily governed by state committeemen and women elected at the
presidential primary. This is not true. The US Supreme Court unanimously
ruled in Eu v San Francisco County Democratic Central Committee that states
cannot tell parties how to be organized. One of the plaintiffs in that case
was the Calif. Libertarian Party. As a result of that 1989 decision,
California Libertarians no longer need to bother with electing party
committeepeople at our primary.
George's message also says, "Massachusetts has a substantial history of
using its election laws and the September primary to knock small-major-party
candidates out of the race." Actually, such an occurance has only happened
once.
George's message says the Reform Party received enough votes to qualify as a
major party in the next election cycle. Actually, the Reform Party only got
enough votes to be a qualified party in 1996, and lost that status in1998.
Most importantly, George makes his point that ballot access is more
difficult for qualified parties, than for unqualified ones, yet never seems
to want to acknowledge that we could solve this problem with a By-laws
change and a court case, which would be based on the First Circuit's Cool
Moose precedent, that no matter what the election laws say, a qualified
party is free to invite all registered voters into its primary. Then all
registered voters could sign petitions to get someone on our primary ballot,
and ballot access would no longer be more difficult.
----- Original Message -----
From: "George D. Phillies" <phillies@wpi.edu>
Newsgroups: talk.politics.libertarian,alt.politics.libertarian
To: <liberty_1st@excell.net>; <lpaz-discuss@yahoogroups.com>;
<lpus-misc@dehnbase.org>; <PALibernet@yahoogroups.com>
Sent: Sunday, March 25, 2001 7:09 PM
Subject: [lpaz-discuss] Funding Liberty Part IV
>
> {\Large Appendix B: Massachusetts Election Law}
>
> Every state has its own election laws, with their own features and quirks.
> To understand the electoral significance of Major Party Status, we have to
> consider a slew of details.
>
> Massachusetts recognizes minor political parties (called "Party
> Designations") and Major Political Parties. Party Designations status is
> obtained by petition. The would-be party submits a petition signed by at
> least 50 registered voters, and receives Party Designation status. Under
> Massachusetts Law, any candidate may place a label of up to three words
> (Recall Mr.\ Ferguson, who ran with the label "Larouche Was Right" by his
> name on the ballot.) Any voter may register ("enroll") as the member of
> any party. Party Designatin status means that a central count is kept of
> the numbered of voters enrolled under that designation.
>
> Major Party Status is obtained if (1) the Party has enrolled at least 1%
> of the registered voters in the state, or (2) any of the Party's
> candidates received at least 3% of the vote in the most recent statewide
> election. In recent memory, only the Democrats and Republicans have had
> enough registered voters. Several Parties, including Libertarian, Green,
> and Reform, have received enough votes to qualify as a major party through
> the next election cycle. With Major Party Status, the Party's name
> appears on the Voter Registration form, so that people can enroll in the
> party by checking a box.
>
> It is important to understand that in Massachusetts Major Party status
> makes it substantially harder to put candidates on the ballot. This
> circumstance is the opposite of that found in many other states, where
> Major Party Status makes it easier to get candidates on the ballot. The
> core issue is that in Massachusetts all candidates go on the ballot by
> petition. There are "nominating conventions", but these conventions are
> decorative, not functional.
>
> Why is Major Party Status a disadvantage? The signature count requirements
> are exactly the same for all candidates. For example, to run for State
> Representative, you need 150 valid signatures, no matter if you are a
> Democrat or from a totally new party. If you are running with a Party
> Designation, any registered voter may sin your petition, and if you get
> enough signatures you go on the November General Election ballot. If you
> are running as a Major Party candidate, registered voters enrolled in
> other major parties are not allowed to sign your petition; if you get
> enough signatures you go on the September Primary Election ballot. This
> restriction efffectively doubles or more the number of signatures that a
> small-major-party candidate needs to collect in order ot have enough valid
> signatures, relative to the numer of signatures that a Democrat needs to
> collect.
>
> Worse yet, Massachusetts has a substantial history of using its election
> laws and the September Primary election to knock small-major-party
> candidates out of the race, Under these laws, a small-major-party that put
> its candidate on the September Primary Ballot can be left with no
> candidate whatsoever on the ballot in the General election. The path to
> this predicament is straightforward. The large Major Party seeking to
> eliminate a small-major-party candidate from the ballot waits until the
> Summer before the election. It then re-registers a very small number of
> its faithful members as members of that small party, or lines up the
> "Unenrolled" (other states would call them "Independent") registered
> voters of its support groups. Come the September Primary, these people go
> to the polling place, take a small-major-party ballot, and write in a
> straw candidate, or the candidate of the large major party, rather than
> voting for the candidate of the small major party.
>
> If the write-in candidate wins [this has happened at the U.S. Congress
> level], he has two choices. He can accept the nomination, in which case
> he gets a second party designation under his name. He can decline the
> nomination, in which case under State Law the small-major-party ballot
> line is left blank. In neither case can the small major party get its own
> candidate back on the ballot. Furthermore, Party Designations may govern
> themselves as they see fit, but Major Parties are mandatorily governed by
> State Committeemen and State Committeewomen elected for four-year terms
> during the Presidential Primary by the registered voters in each State
> Senate District. Under current State Law, this governance requirement
> would permit a large-major-party to elect its own puppets to a majority of
> the State Committee posts of the small major party, and convert the Small
> Major Party to its puppet.
>
> In Massachusetts, Major Party status thus makes it much harder to petition
> to get candidates on the ballot. Major Party status makes it much easier
> for other major parties to make those candidates go away before November.
> Major Party Status does not change how or where a candidate's name and
> Party Designation appears on any ballot. In 1998, when we were a Party
> Designation and not a Major Party, I ran for U.S. Congress. My ballot
> line read "George Phillies -- Libertarian".
>
> There was thus absolutely no sense whatsoever in which the Howell 2000
> campaign was a race for ballot access.
>
>
>
>
>
>
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