Texas House Bill would make ballot access easier for independent candidates

by Vince Leibowitz of Capitol Annex

Under current law, independent candidates for public office in Texas are required to gather signatures to accompany their petitions to gain ballot access.

That's great -- still doesn't mean independents stand a chance in hell of winning.

A bill filed by State Rep. Solomon Ortiz, Jr. (D-Corpus Christi) would make ballot access easier for candidates without a party affiliation.

Under current law, independent candidates for public office in Texas are required to gather signatures to accompany their petitions to gain ballot access. The number of signatures varies. It is one percent of the total vote received by all candidates for governor in the most recent gubernatorial election for a statewide office, and the lesser of 500 or five percent of the total vote for all candidates for governor in the general election within the confines of the district, (with exceptions in districts with low voter turnout) or 500 for district, county, or precinct positions.

Ortiz’s bill would reduce the number to 500 signatures for a statewide office, and the lesser of 100 or two percent of the total gubernatorial vote within the district for district, county, or precinct positions. To give one some idea of how much difference there is between the current standards and those proposed by Ortiz’s bill, independent candidates Carole Keeton Strayhorn and Kinky Friedman were each required to gather a minimum of 45,540 signatures to gain ballot access as independents in the 2006 gubernatorial election. Both Strayhorn and Friedman each turned in hundreds of thousands of signatures, with each having well more than 100,000 signatures on their petitions declared valid.

The bill, HB 820, also lessens the signature requirement that political parties who don’t have enough precinct convention attendees to qualify for the ballot under other sections of the law must adhere to in order to have the party’s nominees on the ballot.

It goes without saying that there will be significant opposition to this bill because it makes it much easier for an independent candidate to qualify for the statewide ballot, and also gives more minor political parties access to the Texas ballot.