Sunday, January 20, 2008

St. Louis representative wants to make it harder for independent candidates

Under the guise of making it fair for those put-upon Democrats and Republicans, Rep. Ted Hoskins, D-St. Louis, has reintroduced legislation which would make it more difficult for independent candidates to mount challenges to the established parties.

A hearing for HB 1310, which would require independent candidates to file at the same time as Democrats and Republicans, is scheduled for 12 noon Wednesday, Jan. 23, before the Special Committee on Urban Education Reform. It is hard to see what connection independent candidates have urban education reform, except, of course, that Hoskins is the committee chairman.

You might remember that this mean-spirited bill was first proposed last year by Sen. Gary Nodler, R-Joplin, with co-sponsor Delbert Scott, R-Lowry City, both of whom had to spend more money than they wanted to in their 2006 general election campaigns due to challenges from independent candidates Kim Wright and Michael Holzknecht.

Hoskins has said the current system is not fair to incumbents who have to run not only in primaries but in general elections since they don't know until right before the primary if they will have an independent general election opponent and they cannot properly budget their campaign funds.

Let me get this straight. Probably 80 percent of elected officials (or more) have no primary competition and are still raising money anyway, so where is the urgent need for this bill?

Candidates from the Democratic and Republican parties also have far easier access to money, both from individual donors and (especially) from special interests and lobbyists, so independent candidates are already at a disadvantage.

Plus, independent candidates already have to go through a petition drive just to gain access to the ballot.

The bill was a bad idea when Hoskins in the House, and Nodler in the Senate proposed it last year. One year has not improved it any.

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

I would hope that the other members of the Urban Education Committee will ask the same question...."why are they entertaining this bill?" Last year Hoskins explained that Independents were stealing votes from candidates--since when do incumbents own the votes?

Anonymous said...

Nothing in the bill makes it any harder for an independent candidate. That is an untrue assertion the process remains the same, the same number of petitions filed by the same date which comes about the same time as a primary, the amount of time to pass petitions is not shortened and the number of signatures’ is not altered. The issue is that as the law stands now independents may file later than Republicans and Democrats, this fact alone makes the current system violate the 14th amendment to the U.S. constitution, which outlaws discrimination based on political affiliation. Any system that lets certain candidates file later than the filing deadline is inherently unfair. The real problem is that the current system is an invitation to the two parties to mischief, as it allows a party to file a niche candidate to strip support from the other party’s candidate by attracting certain one issue voters to try to tip the outcome of the election rather than actually compete to win. No one has ever given any reasonable rationale for why independents should be allowed to file later than anyone else. There is no basis for this discrimination and Randy’s advocacy on this issue lacks any reason at all. Also the attempt to say that people who disagree with him are mean-spirited is off base, is anyone that disagrees with Randy mean-spirited?

Randy said...

This bill was first proposed last year by two senators, Gary Nodler and Delbert Scott, who faced opposition from independent candidates during the previous year and found themselves inconvenienced. If that does not fit the definition of mean-spirited, I don't know what does.

Anonymous said...

Randy you fail to understand that perhaps the fact that this occurred led them to understand why the unconstitutional disparate treatment needed to be changed. The only one mean-spirited here is you because you ascribe motives not only without facts but in spite of facts. You failed to answer the basic points of my comment but went off on your vendetta, that is the epitome of mean-spiritedness and closed mindedness.

Anonymous said...

Often times actual Independents run to offer voters a choice in districts where only one party is running for office. This choice may not be available if the longstanding rules are changed.

Anonymous said...

The fact is that the 14th amendment makes it unconstitutional to treat people differently because of political affiliation. Having a different filing time for party candidates than independents is just plain unconstitutional. People can rationalize that discrimination based on race is OK for one reason or another or sex or as in this case political affiliation. The fact that a person doesn't like the choices of candidates who filed is irrelevant. It is wrong to treat some candidates differently and give them a later filing deadline.

Anonymous said...

It is pointless to have an idea that differs from Turner's. He is a frustrated, talentless, wish I would have done something with my life old man.