At least Laura Palmer is optimistic. The GPTX co-chair said last night in a Green Party Houston Zoom conference that she is interpreting as good news the Secretary of State's Office's reply to the list of electoral nominees that she filed. If there's any truly good news, it's that SOS did not remark in this reply that the candidates who had not paid filing fees would not be granted official candidate status.
I don't see how SOS could avoid enforcing the statutory fee or petition requirements for minor-party candidates as set forth in last year's HB 2504. We still have to wait for the outcome of the pending lawsuits to see whether SOS can waive those fees legally and without major parties throwing a major hissy fit. We have made it a matter of public record that only two of the eight nominees ponied up to run for office, those being Hal J. Ridley, Jr. (US House District 36) and Brody Mulligan (Texas House District 92).
As of now, it's a little less unofficial that GPTX has three statewide nominees in addition to the presidential ticket. We'd certainly feel better if all nine million or so who vote in the general election have more Green choices than just the top of the ticket, rather than the 150,000 or so in Ridley's and Mulligan's districts.
The Green nominee for US Senate, yours sincerely, may begin doing something like campaigning soon. It will be a very low-key effort. As I told Laura, as much as I'd love to travel the state as I did in 2012, the current pandemic makes that impractical; making a lot of noise on the Internet seems to be the only way to go, but there's so much other noise competing for voters' attention.
The watchword for now is "wait & see."
I don't see how SOS could avoid enforcing the statutory fee or petition requirements for minor-party candidates as set forth in last year's HB 2504. We still have to wait for the outcome of the pending lawsuits to see whether SOS can waive those fees legally and without major parties throwing a major hissy fit. We have made it a matter of public record that only two of the eight nominees ponied up to run for office, those being Hal J. Ridley, Jr. (US House District 36) and Brody Mulligan (Texas House District 92).
As of now, it's a little less unofficial that GPTX has three statewide nominees in addition to the presidential ticket. We'd certainly feel better if all nine million or so who vote in the general election have more Green choices than just the top of the ticket, rather than the 150,000 or so in Ridley's and Mulligan's districts.
The Green nominee for US Senate, yours sincerely, may begin doing something like campaigning soon. It will be a very low-key effort. As I told Laura, as much as I'd love to travel the state as I did in 2012, the current pandemic makes that impractical; making a lot of noise on the Internet seems to be the only way to go, but there's so much other noise competing for voters' attention.
The watchword for now is "wait & see."
RSS Feed