"All that is old and already formed can continue to live only if it allows within itself the conditions of a new beginning."
Put Independence Party Back on Ballot
Posted 9:03 p.m., Sept. 20, 2004
|
It's outrageous. There is no other word for it. And it must not stand.
The Star Tribune editorial page has it exactly right: Any Minnesotan with a sense of fair play should be outraged by the decision rendered by the tag team duo of Minnesota's Secretary of State, Mary Kiffmeyer, (a Republican) and its attorney general, Mike Hatch, (a Democrat). Together they have rubbed the names of all 24 Minnesota Independence Party candidates off the Nov. 2 ballot.
The party that put a governor in office in 1998, and that ran a 2002 gubernatorial race that remained a three-way tie in polls through nearly the entire election season, has been summarily erased in what has all the earmarks of a cynical bid by the two major parties to eliminate a bothersome rival--and to further narrow voters' Election Day choices.
IP Chairman Jim Moore recounted for me today something that Peter Hutchinson told IP delegates at the party's convention Saturday: "'When the secretary of state and the attorney general can agree on something, you know democracy is in peril.'"
Kiffmeyer submitted a thoroughly argued legal brief to Hatch almost immediately after the results of a last Tuesday's poorly attended primary election were known, leading Moore to complain that "they had this thing locked and loaded, and they were just waiting for the ammo" of the primary results.
The secretary, for her part, claims her hands are tied by the law. But "the law" is an utterly obscure piece of 1939 legislation that everyone who knew anything about it thought was rescinded in 1996. Certainly, the legislation's 1996 sponsor, state Sen. John Marty, thought it was rescinded
Kiffmeyer and Hatch contend that the law rescinding the 1939 statute was struck down by a U.S. Supreme Court ruling that bars so-called "fusion balloting" from Minnesota elections. But Marty told the Star Tribune that the "10-percent rule" that Kiffmeyer says the court placed back on the books had nothing to do with fusion balloting, so the U.S. Supreme Court ruling actually has no bearing.
The effect of the law, as interpreted by Kiffmeyer, is that because no congressional or legislative IP candidates in last week's primary attained a required 10 percent of the average vote total garnered in their districts by the party's 2002 statewide candidates--I hope you got all that--then no IP candidate can appear on the ballot. That's the 10-percent rule.
If even one IP candidate had made the cut--and one Maplewood candidate missed by a mere 17 votes in the state's worst-attended primary election ever--then the entire IP slate would have been allowed on the ballot. The Green Party, which by all accounts is much smaller in Minnesota than the IP, did make the cut.
Were it not for the one-qualifier provision, 53 members of the Minnesota House -- 40 Republicans and 13 DFLers -- would be off the November ballot for failure to hit the 10 percent mark last Tuesday. Another 100 DFL and GOP House hopefuls also failed to reach 10 percent. Republican U.S. Reps. Mark Kennedy and John Kline missed 10 percent, too, by several thousand votes each.Among prominent legislators who came up short are House Minority Leader Erik Paulsen, R-Eden Prairie; Republican Reps. Jim Knoblach, of St. Cloud; Marty Seifert, of Marshall, and Phil Krinkie, of Shoreview, and DFL Reps. Ann Lenczewski, of Bloomington, and Joe Opatz, of St. Cloud.
-- Star Tribune,
Sept. 21, 2004Attorney General Mike Hatch--using a time-honored political trick--released his opinion backing Kiffmeyer's ruling late on Friday, making sure that news of the decision would get minimal exposure.
Moore tells me that the party will appeal the decision to the Supreme Court, probably Tuesday morning, and hopes for an expedited hearing. He challenges Kiffmeyer's assertion that the 10-percent law remains in effect despite what appears to be clear intent by the 1996 Legislature to rescind the law.
Even if the law were deemed valid, Moore says, there is a remedy built into statutes--for candidates to file a petition seeking ballot status. "That's within that statute," Moore says. "But the secretary of state is not allowing them to do that, period. And that's just a due process violation."
The timing of this decision is abhorrent. Ballots are just about to be printed. On Tuesday at noon, the state canvassing board is scheduled to meet and certify candidates for the ballot. And IP candidates are frozen in their tracks, not even knowing what is the status on the campaign funding that is supposed to be their due for having maintained major-party status after the 2002 elections.
Moore insists that the candidates can get back on track if the Supreme Court rules quickly and in the party's favor. Their campaigns, he said, are "neutralized for this week. If they can get back on [the ballot] they can kick them back up again."
Tim Penny, the former Minnesota congressman who ran as the IP's gubernatorial candidate in 2002, says he thinks the Kiffmeyer/Hatch decision is a case of the two major parties trying to take advantage of a little-noticed off-year state election to render the IP impotent.
"I just think they thought they could get away with it because this is an off year and no one is paying much attention and that they could get this done in a rather quiet and efficient fashion," Penny said. "I think they did this simply to make the Independence Party look bad and to attack our credibility and to make it look like we have such pitiful support that we can't even stay on the ballot."
If Penny is right, and even if he is not, this decision does not deserve to stand in a state as rich in third-party historic tradition as Minnesota. This state has been putting on a clinic on democracy for the past 100 years. This is no time to put an end to it.
-- Kevin Featherly