Green Party of New Jersey
www.gpnj.org
GREEN PARTY OF NEW JERSEY
NEW JERSEY CONSERVATIVE PARTY
NEW JERSEY LIBERTARIAN PARTY, INC
JOINT PRESS RELEASE
CONTACT:
Renee Steinhagen, Executive Director
New Jersey Appleseed Public Interest Law Center
(973) 735-0523
rsteinhagen@lawsuites.net
November 14, 2006
Originally released October 30, 2006
Parties Charge that NJ Election Law Is Unconstitutional, Discriminatory
NEWARK - When it comes to public policy, New Jersey's three alternative political parties don't agree on much. But the political rivals--the Green Party, the Conservative Party and the Libertarian Party--have put aside their differences to take aim at a problem they share in common: New Jersey's discriminatory and unconstitutional election laws.
According to a lawsuit served on Monday, October 30, 2006 by New Jersey Appleseed Public Interest Law Center and Emery Celli Brinkerhoff & Abady LLC, counsel for the three parties, NJ's statutory scheme places a huge hurdle--the most restrictive of all 50 states--on political parties seeking official state recognition. That recognition is what exempts the dominant Democrat and Republican parties from further restrictions involving access to voter registration, campaign financing and access to legislators.
"NJ election law is patently discriminatory against our clients," said Renee Steinhagen, Executive Director of New Jersey Appleseed, "so much so, that we believe it is unconstitutional under both the Federal and New Jersey constitutions."
NJ's Narrow Definition Goes Back to 1920
New Jersey law defines a "political party" as a party that attains 10% of the total vote cast in the State Assembly races. Effectively, only the Democrats and Republicans have been able to meet this criterion since they themselves established it in 1920. "No other state in the Union has such a restrictive definition of 'political party,'" said Richard Winger, editor of Ballot Access News and a nationally recognized expert on federal and state election laws. "Some states provide for qualification of political parties by registration totals or petitioning," he added. "Of those that use a percentage of the vote, the majority use 5% or less. Of the few that use more than 5%, all but New Jersey use a statewide race, such as the races for Governor or President."
"This effort seeks judicial relief to overcome barriers created by two parties sustaining their monopoly begun in 1920 via the NJ Legislature under their control," said George DeCarlo, Chair of the Green Party. "We recognize that the US in good faith signed and pledged to support the Copenhagen Declaration of the Helsinki Accords that 'political parties ... (are to be) provided ... the necessary legal guarantees to enable them to compete with each other on a basis of equal treatment before the law and by the authorities."
Alternative Parties Seek Recognition to "Level the Playing Field"
"Our clients are political parties under the common law," said Eric Hecker, co-counsel with Emery Celli Brinkerhoff & Abady LLC. "Each of our clients has an organizational structure that includes many members; each has a body of political principles which they use to advocate for changes to public policy; and each has an established history of political activism, that includes running candidates and influencing regulation and legislation." He noted, "By any reasonable standard, the Libertarians, Conservatives and Greens are political parties, yet New Jersey sees no difference between them and political action committees."
"We're not looking for special treatment," said Ken Chazotte, State Chair of the Libertarian Party, "we want to level the playing field by ending 'affirmative action' for Democrats and Republicans." He added, "the fact that the two old parties have withdrawn as intermediaries in this lawsuit means that even the Goliaths recognize that their statutory advantages over us Davids are indefensible."
2001 Lawsuit was an Incomplete Victory
The State of New Jersey was forced to create a party affiliation declaration form that included a number of alternative political parties after it lost a 2001 lawsuit that challenged state law restricting registration of party affiliation to Democrats and Republicans. Because it did not participate in the 2001 lawsuit, the Conservative Party was not added to the list. Now, it wants to remedy that. Arguably, the Conservative Party is more qualified to be on the affiliation form than the Natural Law Party and Reform Party, which participated in the lawsuit but have since folded their tents.
"Just because the New Jersey Conservative Party didn't participate in the previous lawsuit that won the right for alternative parties to register their members is no reason to prohibit our members from registering their affiliation with us," said Steve Spinoza, NJCP Secretary. "We are every bit as qualified as the other parties to be included on the affiliation form used by every County Clerk."
Suit Specifies Parties' Demands
The lawsuit filed on behalf of the alternative political parties seeks several avenues of relief:
1) To declare the state's definition of political parties unconstitutional for purposes of campaign finance and lobbying;
2) To strike down restrictions on ballot petitioning by out-of-district petitioners; and
3) To require the inclusion of the Conservative Party on the State's voter declaration forms, and to require a unified set of
rules for updating the forms as alternative parties qualify or fail to qualify for inclusion.
The State Attorney General is expected to defend the current statute as written.