Tribune writer Paul Giblin reported on his blog Monday the Arizona Green Party has once again qualified as a recognized political party. The Greens gathered nearly 30,000 signatures to gain “ballot status,” joining Republicans, Democrats and Libertarians as parties that get state funding to run their primaries. All four also automatically qualify party candidates for the November general election.
One issue the Green Party will have to consider immediately is whether voters registered as independents or with non-recognized parties should be allowed to participate in its September state primary. Arizona law requires primaries for state and local offices to accept independent voters. But as I noted in a Oct. 14 column, U.S. District Judge Raner Collins has twice ruled the law violates the First Amendment rights of political parties.
“… Arizona’s primary system has created a clear and present danger of a party’s candidate being chosen by people other than party members … Under the current Arizona primary system it is impossible to identify whether the party is actually changing its position and not invaders changing the party’s position,” Collins wrote in an October decision.
The court rulings have been a victory for the Libertarian Party which feared outsiders with agendas contrary to the party’s platform would take over to gain access to its coveted ballot status. So far, the Republican and Democratic parties have refused to stand up for the constitutional rights of their members and have welcomed independent voting (although not in the separate presidential primary).
Richard Scott of Scottsdale, media coordinator for the state Green Party and its Maricopa County counterpart, told me Wednesday he expects the Greens will take up the question of independent voters at a state party meeting in May. “That is among many issues we need to address now that we are a ballot-status party,” Scott said.
Unfortunately, the Green Party will have to fight the state if it wants to control who can vote in the primary. “They would have to file their own lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of the open primary as it applies to them,” state elections director Joe Kanefield told me Thursday in a voice message.
Green Party members had been grouped with the growing number of independent voters when they lost state recognition after the 2000 election. So my guess is they will be pretty sympathetic to independents this year, even if that means we have another political party that accepts the continuing erosion of our constitutional rights.
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