As Open Primaries continues to
build our litigation strategy and overall focus on the courts, this
new section of the newsletter will on occasion offer my thoughts,
musings and a discussion of recent legal developments of importance to
the primary reform movement.
There’s been quite a lot of
coverage lately of No Labels
lawsuits against various
Democratic Party aligned organizations and operatives that sought to
derail its 3rd party presidential bid. There has been little focus,
though, on a lawsuit brought by No Labels that was just
argued before the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals this
Monday.
In No Labels Party v Fontes,
24-563, five members of No
Labels (which qualified as a party to run candidates in Arizona in
2024) had filed to run for down
ballot office as members of the party. No Labels sued the AZ SOS to
have them disqualified, claiming party officials had only intended to
run a presidential candidate and that they had an absolute first
amendment right to approve who could run (and for what offices) from
their party.
A federal judge blocked the SOS from recognizing those candidates in January 2024 and
they failed to make the ballot. The SOS appealed. He warned that the
ruling could keep the nearly 19,000 members of the No Labels party
from voting in a primary (no candidates, no primary), and the
precedent could allow party bosses to decide who can run for office
from any party.
The 3 judge panel in Monday’s oral
arguments seemed to favor the SOS position. If the SOS does indeed
prevail, it will be a significant win for voters against the party
bosses who too often want to limit their choices at the ballot box. It
also goes to show that anti-voter sentiment runs deep, even among
certain elements of the “reform” world.
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