scotx200708.pdf
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To be entitled to mandamus relief, Castañeda was required to establish that the Green Party co-chairs had a ministerial duty to declare the candidates ineligible. See In re Williams, 470 S.W.3d 819, 821 (Tex. 2015) (holding that mandamus may issue to compel performance of a ministerial act). “An act is ministerial when the law clearly spells out the duty to be performed by the official with sufficient certainty that nothing is left to the exercise of discretion.” Id. (quoting Anderson v. City of Seven Points, 806 S.W.2d 791, 793 (Tex. 1991)). For the reasons explained below, Castañeda failed to prove the Election Code clearly spelled out the duty of the co-chairs to declare the Green Party candidates ineligible for their failure to pay the filing fee, and the court of appeals therefore erred in ordering their removal from the ballot.

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In this case, the court of appeals concluded that because the Green Party candidates had not paid the filing fee, they were ineligible and the co-chairs had a statutory duty to declare them ineligible. ___ S.W.3d at ___. The court relied on section 145.003, which requires the co-chairs to review a public record presented to them concerning a candidate’s eligibility and declare a candidate ineligible if “facts indicating that the candidate is ineligible are conclusively established by another public record.” Id. at ___ (quoting TEX. ELEC. CODE § 145.003(f), (g)) (emphasis added). “In election cases . . . we are constrained in our interpretation by the principle that any statutory provision that restricts the right to hold office must be strictly construed against ineligibility.” State v. Hodges, 92 S.W.3d 489, 494–95 (Tex. 2002); see also In re Francis, 186 S.W.3d at 542 & n.34. We therefore interpret the statutory provisions at issue with a candidate’s access to the ballot in mind.

The state’s high court Saturday rejected an effort by state and national Republicans to remove 44 Libertarian Party candidates from the ballot for failing to pay candidate filing fees.

The Texas Supreme Court said in a 12-page opinion that it could not grant the declaration of ineligibility sought by Republicans because the particular statute they invoked regarding the applications of the Libertarian candidates did not apply to them because the Libertarian Party nominates candidates through a convention.

“We’re pleased the court did the right thing,” Whitney Bilyeu, chair of Libertarian Party of Texas, said of the ruling.

The court said the ruling did not mean the filing fee requirement was “unenforceable.” Had the Republicans filed a petition of ineligibility by the Aug. 21 deadline, “the challenged candidates could potentially have been removed from the ballot,” according to the opinion.

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Bilyeu said the real fight is taking place in federal court, where the party is challenging the candidate filing fee as unconstitutional, and in state court, where a separate challenge by Libertarian candidates is pending at the [Texas] 14th Court of Appeals.

Although the result in this instance may be that candidates who failed to pay the required filing fee will nevertheless appear on the ballot, this Court cannot deviate from the text of the law by subjecting the Libertarian candidates’ applications to challenges not authorized by the ElectionCode. The Legislature established detailed rules for ballot access and for challenges to candidates, and courts must carefully apply these rules based on the statutory text chosen by the Legislature. The available mechanism for seeking the Libertarians’ removal from the ballot for failure to pay the filing fee was a declaration of ineligibility. However, the deadline by which such a declaration can achieve the removal of candidates from the ballot has passed. The Election Code does not permit the relators to bypass that deadline by belatedly challenging the Libertarians’ applications. The petition for writ of mandamus is denied.

2018 Libertarian Senatorial nominee Neal Dikeman of Texas Free Press

While the Republicans (and the Democrats in Davis) tried to argue the law equalized the situation between 3rd Party and Major party nominees, it in fact did the opposite. Unlike the primary filing fees paid by the Republican and Democratic candidates—which are paid to their own party--to be on the party's primary ballot for nomination (ostensibly to both reduce the number of primary candidates and defray part of the state funded primary costs), the HB2504 law required 3rd Party candidates to pay equivalent dollar amounts of fees directly to state or county coffers, and to do so to be on the general election ballot, which the Republicans and Democrats are not charged to be on—because of course, the 3rd Party conventions by law are privately funded, and the Republicans had zero desire to write an equal law that would effectively fund the party they were trying to impact. (emphasis Dikeman's)