The DNC and/or state orgs should change their rules

[Jim Lane]

62. Access to the data base and access to the ballot are totally different questions

My point has, I think, been fairly clear. The party decides who gets its own resources (data base, public statements, party offices, whatever). The state government decides who gets on the primary ballot.

You write, "Again, I note that you do not want to talk about state ballot access laws." That's an absolutely incredible statement. I have been repeatedly asking for information about state ballot access laws.

In particular, there appears to be a widespread assumption on DU that it's the DNC, rather than each state government, that decides who can appear on the Democratic primary ballot. I believe that assumption to be incorrect. So far, no one, including you, has provided any information about state ballot access laws that supports the claim.

Can the party remove LaRoucheites or other people from a party convention that's run by the party? Yes. Can the party remove people from the ballot in a public primary that's run by the state? No, unless the state's law either embodies a particular rule or delegates veto power to some party entity.

By that standard, it seems to me that any state could, by statute, decree that, in addition to whatever requirements now exist (like signatures and filing fees), appearance on the primary ballot would also require public release of tax returns. Adding a further condition of five years' party membership (the subject of this subthread, beginning with #20) might be more problematic. I could see a possible freedom-of-association argument. This gets back to the Smith v. Allwright point that a political party isn't exactly like the Boy Scouts or other private organization. As you said, the Supreme Court held that the Boy Scouts could exclude LGBT leaders, but I'm confident that the Democratic Party could not by party rule exclude LGBT candidates from the Democratic primaries. Any such rule would be ineffective unless adopted by the state government. (Even then it would probably be unconstitutional under Smith v. Allwright, but the point here is that, regardless of what party officials said, the LGBT candidates could appear on the primary ballot as long as they complied with state law.)

AFAIK the most restrictive primary law in the country is New York's. People who changed their registration to Democratic from something else the day after the first Democratic debate in October 2015 were ineligible to vote for Hillary Clinton or Bernie Sanders the next April because they hadn't been Democrats long enough. In fact, they couldn't even vote in the state legislative primaries in September, eleven months after they switched, for the same reason. With regard to appearing on the ballot, a candidate in a primary for any office other than President must either be a registered member of the party or must get the consent of the party in whose primary he or she wants to run. For the Presidency, the complication is that the voters don't choose the nominee; they choose delegates. IIRC (haven't looked at this law in years), would-be delegates must themselves be party members but don't need to be pledged to a party member. The state could amend its law, although it would then have to account for the situation of candidates from other states that don't have partisan registration. (A law that effectively barred all Vermonters from running would not be constitutional.) This conforms to the general point that eligibility for the primary ballot is determined by state law, not by party rules.

In #34 you attempted to support your position by referring to the decision in the DNC fraud lawsuit. I pointed out that the decision does not support your position, and I'm glad you now agree that "that case is not an issue here."