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: The Oratorical Snob

Election 2008: Texes Turns... Yellow?

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As some will know, I am a pretty big supporter of third-party rights in this country, believing that both of the two major parties are in need of some serious revision. So I was delighted to hear about a suit filed in Texas by Libertarian Party candidate Bob Barr, contesting the presence of John McCain and Barack Obama on the ballots in November.

According to the campaign's press release:

"The seriousness of this issue is self-evident," the lawsuit states. "The hubris of the major parties has risen to such a level that they do not believe that the election laws of the State of Texas apply to them."
Texas election code §192.031 requires that the ?written certification? of the ?party?s nominees? be delivered ?before 5 p.m. of the 70th day before election day.? Because neither candidate had been nominated by the official filing deadline, the Barr campaign argues it was impossible for the candidates to file under state law.
"Supreme Court justices should recognize that their responsibility is to apply the law as passed by the Legislature, and the law is clear that the candidates cannot be certified on the ballot if their filings are late," says Drew Shirley, a local attorney for the Barr campaign, who is also a Libertarian candidate for the Texas Supreme Court.
A 2006 Texas Supreme Court decision ruled that state law "does not allow political parties or candidates to ignore statutory deadlines."

It's true that too often, the two major parties break election rules and allowed to get away with it because both parties violated them. Essentially, why would McCain complain about Obama breaking a law, when he knows that Obama will do the same thing right back to him? This is an example of why multiple parties keep the election process [more] honest. Smaller parties are forced to know the election laws forwards and backwards, because they have to follow every letter to survive the attacks the major parties put on them (see, for example, the removal of Barr from the West Virginia and Connecticut ballots).

Other states have kicked Barr and others off the ballot because they did not meet filing deadlines. If it's fair to remove candidates for failing to meet deadlines when they represent minor parties, then turnabout should be fair play. If I were a resident of Texas (or any other state that placed their deadline earlier than August 27, the day the Democrats officially declared Obama their candidate), I would be tremendously offended that the major parties thought they were more important than my state's laws.

Of course the point of deadlines so early is to make certification for minor parties extremely difficult. But if the major parties are too cocky to read the rules of every state, then the Secretaries of State for the various states should boot the punks off their ballot and let parties that know how to read appear on the ballot.

Of course I'm not hopeful for the success of this lawsuit. The judges in Texas are elected on a partisan basis, so they owe a debt to their parties. And when it gets appealed up, the judges were all appointed by partisan elected officials, so they still owe a debt. Not quite fair, I know, but it would be nice if judges would simply read the law and apply it equally in all cases. Either they filed by August 26 or they didn't. Risk getting kicked off the bench to do the right thing.

But as we all know, "...some are more equal than others."

Full post as published by The Oratorical Snob on September 22, 2008 (boomark / email).