The GOP Is Having A Pot And Kettle Moment While Criticizing Efforts To Remove Trump From The Ballot
The GOP Is Having A Pot And Kettle Moment While Criticizing Efforts To Remove Trump From The Ballot
In the aftermath of the Colorado Supreme Court’s ruling using the 14th Amendment to keep former President Donald Trump off the ballot, the Republican Party seems to be having a pot-and-kettle moment. The GOP rightly complained about the politically-motivated effort to influence the outcome of the 2024 presidential election, but some pointed out how the party has engaged in similar tactics against the Libertarian Party.
On Wednesday, the GOP wrote a post on X, formerly known as Twitter, arguing that banning Trump from the ballot “is the behavior of a third-world dictatorship, not a democracy.”
The GOP is right. Democrats’ efforts to use the legal system to remove Trump from the race is abhorrent and shows just how little the left cares about “democracy.”
But the Republican Party has pulled similar tricks to keep Libertarian candidates at the state and federal level off of the ballot for years, as some pointed out in response to the GOP’s post.
Earlier this year, the Texas Supreme Court rejected an effort by Republicans to remove 44 Libertarian candidates from the November ballot. The issue arose after the legislature, which the GOP dominates, issued new requirements for third parties that made it even more difficult for their candidates to obtain ballot access.
The Texas Supreme Court on Saturday rejected an attempt by Republicans to kick 44 Libertarians off the ballot in the November elections.
Several Republican Party candidates and organizations had sued to remove the Libertarians, arguing they did not pay filing fees — a new requirement for third parties under a law passed by the Legislature last year. But the Supreme Court dismissed the suit, finding that the Republicans missed the Aug. 21 deadline to successfully boot people from the ballot.
“The available mechanism for seeking the Libertarians’ removal from the ballot for failure to pay the filing fee was a declaration of ineligibility,” the court wrote in a per curiam opinion. “But the deadline by which such a declaration can achieve the removal of candidates from the ballot has passed.”
In New York, Republicans worked with Democrats to prevent Libertarians and the Green Party from appearing on the ballot by changing the state’s election laws to favor only the two major parties. The measure drastically increased the number of signatures required for a party to get ballot access while also expanding the geographic distribution requirement for these signatures. As a result, the Libertarians and Greens in New York filed a petition for a writ of certiorari with the Supreme Court, which later declined to hear the case.
A press release from the New York Libertarian Party (NYLP) sums up the tightening of ballot access requirements in its state that led to the lawsuit, in which it is joined by the Green Party of New York: "The threshold for a party to maintain recognized party status and ballot access was increased from 50,000 votes to 130,000 votes or 2% of the vote in the previous gubernatorial or presidential election, whichever is higher."
This led, the press release points out, to four parties that used to have ballot access in New York suddenly losing it: the Libertarian Party, the Green Party, the Independence Party, and the SAM Party. The NYLP press release points out that of the four, only the L.P., whose 2020 presidential candidate Jo Jorgensen got 60,000 votes in the state, would have kept the party's ballot access under the pre-2020 lower threshold.
Larry Sharpe, the New York Libertarian candidate for governor, was unable to make it onto the ballot in 2022 under the new rules. He gathered 42,000 signatures but needed 3,000 more to appear on the ballot. According to the press release, this means that Sharpe “actually got more signatures than any other candidate, and yet he was denied a ballot spot due to the increased thresholds for ballot access.”
The GOP’s efforts to keep Libertarians off the ballot go as far back as 2012 when the party worked to keep presidential candidate Gary Johnson off the ballot in several states just as Democrats are doing with Trump.
Despite this official disregard of Johnson, the lawsuits continue being filed. Recently, Johnson and the party he represents scored a significant courtroom victory when a judge in Pennsylvania ruled that four Libertarian Party candidates — including Johnson — may remain on the ballot in Pennsylvania. This put an end to an attempt by the Keystone State’s Republican Party to block the country’s largest third party from keeping spots on the November ballot.
The reality is that Libertarian involvement in the electoral process can pose a threat to Republican candidates. If the Libertarian contender garners enough votes, it could result in the GOP candidate losing the race to the Democratic contender. It appears this reality is driving the Republican Party to employ these tactics to limit competition.
The bottom line is that, regardless of who people support, voters should have a choice beyond Team Red and Team Blue. But both parties have skewed the process in their favor, which means third-party candidates have even more hurdles to clear just to have their names on the ballot, which isn’t exactly conducive to a democratic process. Now, it appears Republicans are in a similar spot with former President Trump, who is being unfairly excluded in Colorado. But this controversy also raises valid questions about how both parties leverage their dominance to limit electoral competition.
Jeff Charles is the host of "A Fresh Perspective" podcast a political commentator and satirist who has appeared on Fox News, The Hill's "Rising," Fox Soul, Newsmax, Sky News, and more. Twitter: @jeffcharlesjr Email: jeff@afreshperspectiveshow.com
Wrong Speak is a free-expression platform that allows varying viewpoints. All views expressed in this article are the author's own.
The Uniparty continues to work to keep we the people from our right to select government officials. The DNC has put up one candidate and told America you will like who we have selected for you. New ideas are not allowed because they would disrupt the agenda of the Uniparty.