The DNC and/or state orgs should change their rules

[Jim Lane]

87. Your information about STATE LAWS directly supports my point. Thank you.

As I've made clear, my question concerns the assumption being made about the powers of party committees. Both the OP (re tax returns) and the beginning of this subthread in #20 (about party membership) appear to assume that the DNC and/or a state party organization could impose such a requirement and thereby prevent a disfavored candidate from appearing on the primary ballot. I believe that assumption to be false.

As a general rule, eligibility for a primary ballot is determined by state law, not by any party entity. It's conceivable that a state could specifically delegate such authority to a party committee, or at least give the party veto power (i.e., refuse access to the primary ballot to a candidate who met all the statutory requirements of petition signatures and the like but who didn't meet an additional requirement set by the party). Without the support of the state legislature, however, no party entity could bar a candidate from the ballot based on tax returns or party membership or anything else.

You respond with information about state laws (actual or proposed) concerning ballot access in New Jersey, California, and Massachusetts. Yes, I was aware that state law determines eligibility to run for office (duh). That tells me nothing about any basis for any alleged veto power in the hands of any party committee. Therefore, I continue to believe that there is no such power.

New York, as I noted, presents the opposite case. Every candidate who meets the statutory requirements can appear on the primary ballot regardless of what any party committee says. In certain cases, however, a candidate not meeting all the requirements can nevertheless be allowed on the ballot with the party's consent. That's obviously different from empowering a party to declare a candidate ineligible.

As for the DNC fraud lawsuit, you're apparently keen to refute the contention that "lack of diversity was the sole reason for dismissal". You should go take that up with someone who actually made that contention. It's amusing that you link to my actual post at https://jackpineradicals.com/boards/topic/tedious-legal-analysis-of-the-decision-in-the-fraud-suit-against-the-dnc/ -- amusing because a simple text search shows that I didn't even use the word "diversity" in that post.

A brief note for the nonlawyers: Federal courts are courts of limited jurisdiction, meaning that a court will dismiss a case, even if it's meritorious, if it doesn't meet the statutory requirements for being heard in federal court. This set of requirements is referred to as subject-matter jurisdiction. In this context, "diversity" means that the plaintiff and the defendant are from different states. A lack of diversity is one of the issues that sometimes defeats subject-matter jurisdiction. It's not the only one, though. There are cases where complete diversity is present but there's no subject-matter jurisdiction, and there are cases where there's no diversity but there is subject-matter jurisdiction.

In the DNC case, Judge Zloch addressed diversity but also numerous other subjects. In my JPR post that you link, I wasn't trying to re-brief the whole case. Instead, my goal was to explain some points that I thought would be of particular interest to most readers. That's why, far from contending that "lack of diversity was the sole reason for dismissal", I omitted that issue entirely.

Incidentally, anyone who wants to read the full decision can find it here: http://jampac.us/wp-content/uploads/2017/08/62-D.E.-62-Ord-of-Dismissal-8-25-17.pdf

I know that the plaintiffs have filed an appeal. As I said in my JPR post, however, I don’t think an appeal has much chance of succeeding.

You write:

The question that I have for you is what should the reaction be if a candidate for the Democratic nomination joins trump in fighting these ballot access rules? Could you support a candidate who is wiling to adopt trump's positions on anything?

You've declined to answer my question about Texas law, so I don't think I owe you anything, but I'll answer anyway. The second question is easy: Yes, I would support a candidate who met my other criteria, even if that candidate adopted Trump's position on something. I did so a year ago, when I voted for Hillary Clinton after she had adopted Trump's position on the TPP. Trump doesn't possess reverse infallibility.

On the first question, I'm conflicted. On the one hand, I think candidates should disclose tax returns. On the other hand, I believe in democracy, so I think that voters should have the final say, even if they make choices with which I disagree.

An example is the Constitution's requirement that the President be a natural-born citizen. The Obama birther nutjobs were correct in saying that that requirement is in the Constitution. For my part, I don't think it should be. For example, Jennifer Granholm was born in Canada, came to the United States at the age of two, and went on to be elected Governor of Michigan. There's no good reason to render her ineligible to be President. This is what happens when people start writing their personal preferences into the law. The Constitution was drafted when the country's independence was still very new. I assume the Framers were especially touchy about foreigners, so they embodied that attitude in the Constitution and now we're stuck with it. I'd prefer to see the requirement repealed. Then anyone who thinks that Granholm's Canadian birth is a reason to vote against her can make that case to the voters.

The tax-return thing isn't a litmus test for me. If the general election had been among Sanders as the Democratic nominee (hypothetically not disclosing returns) and Cruz, Johnson, and Stein (all hypothetically disclosing returns), I would have voted for Sanders.