« On McCain’s Call For The Firing Of SEC Chairman Chris Cox
‘The Savior Projection’: Sarah Palin, Barack Obama, John McCain, Joe Biden, Bob Barr »
Barr Seeks To Toss McCain and Obama Off Texas Ballot
Libertarian Presidential candidate Bob Barr is seeking to have his fellow candidates tossed off of the Texas ballot on the grounds that they failed to comply with Texas law. The Texas secretary of state has said that they certified the ballot on September 3rd and that all candidates qualified.
But the Texas Supreme Court did not automatically reject the lawsuit, instead asking all sides to submit arguments on the subject. Barr may actually have a point here as the law seems to require all candidates qualify by August 26th and neither convention was done before then.
However the Republican and Democratic parties of Texas contend that they are allowed to certify whoever they want as their nominee regardless of what the national parties do and that was done in time so there are no problems to worry about. In addition, the Texas SoS has said they have the right to a level of discretion with the ballot and so they also had the power to name candidates as they did.
Obviously the court is not going to toss the two major parties off of the ballot but it is an interesting move by the Libertarians. They have often had to fight tough ballot access laws in places like New York and have seen technicalities in the law used against them. Now they are offering a little payback.
6 Responses to “Barr Seeks To Toss McCain and Obama Off Texas Ballot”
[...] post by WP-AutoBlog Import 113582 Add to del.icio.us Digg This Subscribe to RSS feed Leave a [...]
hmm, heard about them missing the deadline. if it was the libertarians there'd we no wiggle room… i was wondering if barr would push it.
Well, it would be a political dream come true for the Dems. Texas' a virtual lock for the Republicans. Imagine if all those electoral college votes disappeared…. It'd be like California taken off the ballot for the Dems. Regardless, I hope both parties remain on.
Argument won't work as the court should grant great deference to the SOS and the parties likely can appoint who they want statewide rather than wait for formal convention.
The better question is whether this raises some questions regarding ballot access difficulty for third parties. They face tremendous impediments that really are meant to game them out of the election before it event starts.
Won't taking this type of legal action be used against Libertarians when they complain about the major parties using similar legal action to get or keep them off the ballot?
Well yes. And in that case it would succeed…
Food for thought. ; )