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Libertarian Party of Florida Executive Committee => 2023 => Official Records => March => Topic started by: AtLarge2 on March 09, 2023, 12:09:00 AM
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Motion to Amend Standing Rules to Provide New Member Privilege Allowing Automatic Satisfaction of Party Affiliation Requirement for Candidate Qualification
Mover: Hector Roos, on behalf of Candidates Committee
I move to amend LPF Standing Rules, Article I “Membership” by adding a new Section 5 as follows:
Section 5. LPF members who wish to run for partisan office automatically satisfy all party affiliation requirements in section 99.021(1)(b), Florida Statutes.
Rational:
On August 22, 2022, the Florida State Court of Appeals issued an opinion putting Rebekah Jones on the Democratic primary ballot for U.S. House, First District after the lower court had ruled against her. In Jones v Schiller, 1D22-2465, the court announced “Our decision today holds only that the party affiliation requirements in section 99.021(1)(b) cannot be the basis for disqualification of a duly qualified candidate.” This decision bars the enforcement that previously required partisan candidates to swear on a historically, party-provided loyalty oath that they are members of the political party for 365 days before the beginning of the qualifying period. The political parties are no longer responsible for providing the oath form to their prospective candidates; instead, candidates had to obtain the form from the qualifying officers (i.e., from the Department or Supervisor of Elections). Ch. 77-175, § 6, at 926, Laws of Fla. With these changes, the statute began to resemble its current form. Previously and this is illustrative, the law simply required a voter to not be a registered with a different political party for 365 days meaning that non-voters, no party voters and recent movers were not be affected.
Historically, this law has been used to deny political opposition ballot access. This law reflects the desire of the legislature to dictate who can be a candidate for the Libertarian Party of Florida (LPF) or any political party reducing the pool of available LPF candidates to a tiny fraction of a pool of potential candidates of less than 40,000 voters out of up to 14 million voters or 0.003% of the voting population with a threat of lawsuit for removal from the ballot under this law. This law was a major barrier for LPF ballot access.
This law used to be referred to as the “Charlie Crist rule” since it was famously used to threaten then Republican Governor Charlie Crist from jumping to the Democrat Party and running as a Democrat for US Senate (he instead ran as an independent earned the endorsement of then-President Barrack Obama and split the vote allowing then Speaker of the Florida House Marco Rubio to win election to the US Senate).
This law had never been opposed by the LPF or taken the distance in court by any partisan candidate until Jones.
By adopting this language in our Standing Rules, it would become our policy to hold that any member of the LPF automatically satisfies the 365 day requirement since the LPF does not enforce this seasoning requirement to gain ballot access for our own candidates who are members of the LPF. Under this state law and LPF rules, a registered Libertarian who recently moved here would be barred from running for office until they've been a member of the party for 365 days or risk the threat of perjury by stating they have been a registered member of the LPF for 365 days.
Legally speaking, there is no risk to the LPF to adopting this amendment because the actions are taken by individual candidates and not the party. The court did suggest that people who sign the candidate oath but not meeting their 365 day requirement could be held liable for criminal and financial consequences to lying under oath. See, e.g., § 837.012, Fla. Stat. (criminalizing false statements made under oath); § 775.082(4)(a), Fla. Stat. (authorizing a criminal sentence of a “definite term of imprisonment not exceeding 1 year”); § 775.083(1)(d), Fla. Stat. (authorizing imposition of a fine up to $1,000). The Legislature can create additional liabilities beyond the scope of this analysis.
However, it is clear that political parties are allowed to object to this rule under the basis that political parties can always add to their membership criteria beyond the minimum provided for by state statute.
This motion has been reviewed by Rules Chair Greg Peele and found to not be in conflict with the LPF Constitution, Bylaws or Standing Rules.