Category: HB 2504

David Bruce Collins for US Senate—the Official Site

Ballot-Access Chickens Remain Uncounted

27/5/2020

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."

kat Dropping District 51 Campaign, Focusing on RRC

18/5/2020

In last night's online meeting of the State Executive Committee of the Green Party of Texas, state co-chair Laura Palmer revealed that the Secretary of State's Office had some questions about katija gruene's occupying two places on the 2020 general election ballot. As a result, ms. gruene decided to stay in the statewide race for the Railroad Commission seat and drop out of the Texas House District 51 race.

The Texas Election Code does not state explicitly that one person cannot run for more than one office in the same election—or, at least, I have not found such language. However, no one person may serve in two elected offices in the event of winning both races. Hypothetically, if gruene could be elected to both positions in the event of a sudden Green Wave, she should not take a chance on a dual victory.

Possibly Moot Point
This is the paragraph where we remind readers that gruene is not officially on the ballot for either position, despite being nominated for both. She did not pay the new HB 2504 filing fees to run, nor did she submit petition signatures in lieu of the fees. The fee provision for candidates irrespective of party is in legal limbo, pending the lawsuits filed in hopes of overturning it.

Scattershots: Shaping Up for an Intriguing Summer

27/4/2020

In no particular order:

Presidential Nominating Teleconference?
According to the GPUS website, the Green Party's Presidential Nominating Convention is still scheduled to take place in Detroit. There is no information up about whether it will be conducted online. This is also a good opportunity to remind recently selected national delegates to register. Even if it happens online, the registration fee is still $100, which helps defray costs like renting space at Wayne State University; after all, at least some of the national co-chairs will still be traveling to Detroit.

Oral Argument Date Set in Ballot Access Lawsuit
The rap battle starts 23 June. This bit of information hit Ballot Access News before a lot of Texas Greens found out; I found out just yesterday. BAN refers to the federal lawsuit in question as Dikeman v. Hughs, which I guess is fair, given that 2018 Libertarian senatorial candidate Neal Dikeman is listed first among the plaintiffs. The outcome will determine whether Libertarians and Greens will still need to pay filing fees that go toward financing Democratic and Republican primary elections.

Shortest. Candidacy. Ever.

9/12/2019

Hi y'all. This blog is back in business, although its proprietor may have to return it full strength gradually.

Two months ago, I put this thing on hold. A week before that, I was making noise about running as a Green for the US Senate currently occupied by Texas's senior senator John Cornyn. The plan was to run on the standard Green platform but make a lot of noise about Instant Runoff Voting and Move to Amend's proposed "We the People" Amendment.

Today, 9 December, is Texas's deadline to submit to the Secretary of State's Office (or the various County Clerks' offices) applications to run in the 2020 elections. Last Wednesday I gave mine to Green Party of Texas co-chair Alfred Molison, so that he could take it to Austin today. However, unless something changes very dramatically and very soon, my candidacy will be over before it has even begun. Click the Read More link to get the details.

Sec'y of State Releases New Candidate Guidelines

26/8/2019

Psst. Hey you. Wanna run for office as a Green or Libertarian? There's an app for that.

As of this writing, the Secretary of State's Office has not released the petition sheet for candidates in convention-nominating parties who are too broke or cheap to pay the filing fee. That will supposed be ready next week.

The important dates to remember right now, if you are even contemplating a run for office, are 9 November and 9 December. Those are the beginning and ending dates of the period for filing an application with your county or state party. The November date is the earliest date you can walk into the SOS Office with your filing fee, the amounts for which are displayed in a table on the paged linked above.

What Multi-Party Democracy Looks Like (Sometimes)

22/7/2019

Yes, I'm late to the party on this item, but Green Party of Texas luminary Laura Palmer just posted the official press release last night. GPTX is one of several groups and individuals who are plaintiffs in a federal lawsuit against the state of Texas over its unreasonable obstacles to the ballot.

News of the lawsuit appeared in the Houston Chronicle (paywall) more than a week ago. The Green and Libertarian Parties both received mention in the headline. The Texas Tribune got its version of the story out on 11 July, and RawStory picked it up the next day.

Palmer herself is listed as a plaintiff, sharing billing with the Libertarian, Constitution, and America's Parties of Texas. TSU law professor Thomas Kleven, who in 2016 ran for Congress in TX-18, also appears on the list.

But...HB 2504! Why Sue Now?
In light of HB 2504 becoming state law this year, guaranteeing Texas Greens a ballot line through 2026, why would GPTX press the issue via a lawsuit? Why would the Libertarians and Railroad Commission candidate Mark Miller, who pulled off a 5% coup in a four-way race in 2016, join in?

Sketch Comes Through and Other GPTX News

14/6/2019

At a lunch meeting Wednesday, Laura Palmer informed me that her husband Don "Sketch" Palmer was the angel who got harriscountygreenparty.org back online for another six years. As mentioned earlier this week, hcgp.org is no longer in HCGP's possession, and the Party will not likely spend the thousand bucks to ransom it.

As of last week's Annual State Meeting of the Green Party of Texas, Sketch is the newly elected GPTX treasurer. Here is the complete listing of the State Executive Committee, delegates and the Green National Committee, and current regional coordinators. The regional coordinator system may be retired soon.

Just prior to the ASM, I relented to Laura's plea to stand for an at-large position on the SEC, and fortunately for me I was not elected.

The Post 2504 Landscape
A Green buzz is reverberating through Texas and all around the nation in the wake of HB 2504 becoming law and guaranteeing a ballot line for 2020. The National Committee has a vested interest in having a strong Green presence in the second-most populous state. Veteran Greens like me, who have faded from the scene to avoid intra-Party squabbles, are becoming active again. Among those with whom I have conversed, the focus have shifted more than ever toward recruiting candidates for 2020 and amassing the funds to back them up.

Governor Abbott Signs Ballot Access Bill

11/6/2019

HB 2504, which we have examined in several recent posts, is now state law. The Green Party of Texas officially has access to the 2020 general election ballot. I tried to make this post look like straightforward news reporting, but I failed in that endeavor. I'm pretty doggone excited about it.

Individual candidates who wish to run as Greens will have to pony up filing fees or collect a goodly number of signatures on a petition in order to run for elective office; the amount of dollars or signatures varies according to the office sought.

There's potential confusion in reading the record. The legislative history for HB 2504 says "Effective immediately," but that is merely an indication that the bill's status as statute takes effect immediately. The provisions of the bill itself go into effect on 1 September 2019, at which time the Texas Election Code will be officially modified.

I'll try to find out whether the effective date means that a prospective Green Party candidate must wait until September to begin collecting signatures; that doesn't appear to be the case, as there's nothing to stop a candidate from raising funds right now.

To be continued.

Green Party Houston ≠ Harris County Green Party

24/5/2019

At this point, it's worth reporting that there is a new Green entity in Harris County. This is not to say that the Harris County Green Party has officially bitten the dust: It hasn't. But several HCGP members who are currently not active with HCGP have formed a group that they are calling Green Party Houston. It doesn't have a website yet, so nothing to link to here.

I welcome this development, primarily because a group that is not the official county party can do things in the broader community that HCGP cannot, whether due to restrictions imposed by the State of Texas, by lack of resources, or by internal policies. However, the Green Party of Texas can grant it delegates to annual state meetings and conventions.

Let there be no misunderstanding: It would be easy to assume that Green Party Houston is an effort to compete with or supplant HCGP. But that's not the case. Nothing would stop anyone from being an active member of both. The current co-chairs of HCGP know of the group's existence. So there is no problem in naming some names: Longtime Greenie Alfred Molison and 2016 post-DNC-screws-Bernie refugee Jan Richards got the ball rolling.

HB 2504 Passes the Texas Senate

21/5/2019

Party-line vote yet again, 19-12. Start this video at about 5 minutes in to see it happen—though if you blink, you might miss it, because those senators legislate fast. On to the Governor's Mansion it goes.

Greenfolk: Assuming that Governor Greg Abbott signs HB 2504 as expected, get yourselves ready to collect dollars or signatures when you run for office. If you take the petition route, your magic numbers are 500 for districted races and 5,000 for statewide (or 2% of the vote for that office in the last election if that is a lower number).

The Secretary of State's Office provides a table of the fees and petitioning requirements for parties that nominate candidates via primary elections. When HB 2504 becomes law, candidates from so-called convention parties—e.g., Greens and Libertarians—will still be required to pay the fee or submit the signatures by roughly the end of August, even though their parties will have ballot access guaranteed.

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