[EL] the amazing insecurity of Arkansas state legislators

[Richard Winger]

To a greater degree than the legislators of other states, Arkansas legislators seem afraid of having independent and minor party candidates file to run against them after filing for the primary has closed.  Most Arkansas general elections for legislative seats have only one candidate on the ballot, and the legislators seem to dote on that.
Six times, Arkansas petition deadlines for new parties or non-presidential independent candidates have been struck down.  One of those six opinions was affirmed summarily by the US Supreme Court.  Notwithstanding that, yesterday the legislature passed a bill moving the non-presidential independent deadline from March 2016 to November 2015.  And the same bill moves the petition for a new party from January 2016 to September 2015.  The bill moves major party primaries from May to March for 2016.

Already the state was being sued (for the 7th time) over the old independent candidate deadline, and now this.
The Green Party elected a state legislator in Arkansas in 2008 and did so again in 2012.  That was under a system in which a newly-qualifying minor party could nominate candidates by convention after primary filing had closed.  In 2013 the legislature put a stop to that, and said newly-qualifying parties had to nominate all their candidates by the same date on which primary candidates file, meaning the Dems and Reps actually chose their nominees several months after the minor parties had to finish their nomination procedure.  The new bill retains that, but now the minor party conventions must be all complete by early November 2015 (for the 2016 election).   Richard Winger
415-922-9779
PO Box 470296, San Francisco Ca 94147
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