Is No Labels playing by the rules in Arizona? Let's settle this and move on
No Labels’ incremental advancement in Arizona toward the 2024 election is clear on two fronts:
The state Democratic Party, like its national counterpart, sees No Labels as a threat to its candidates’ chances of getting elected (even though Democratic officials say otherwise).
No evidence has been produced that No Labels improperly gained status as a new political party.
Democrats, however, have raised a couple of valid issues to be resolved by the courts:
Is No Labels violating state law by not participating in next year’s primary election?
Does No Labels have to file campaign contributions/spending reports, which (mostly Democratic) critics say mask its donors and motivation?
No Labels won't participate in primaries
No Labels, founded in 2010 as a national political organization to support centrism and bipartisanship, submitted signatures this year to qualify as a political party in Arizona.
The move enables it to grant ballot access to third-party candidates, which No Labels leaders suggest it would do should Joe Biden and Donald Trump remain the nominee of their parties for the 2024 election.
After being granted political party status by Arizona Secretary of State Adrian Fontes, No Labels notified Fontes’ office that it wasn’t going to participate in either the Presidential Preference Election or the regular primary election next year.
And thus, it would not be beholden to filing campaign finance reports that, among other things, reveal its contributors.
State statute says, “A new political party may become eligible for recognition and shall be represented by an official party ballot at the next ensuing regular primary election.”
The operative word being “shall.”
Were voters misled by its petitions?
The petition forms No Labels backers circulated to collect signatures to qualify as a party — the form template is provided by the Secretary of State’s Office — sets up similar expectations:
“I, the undersigned, a qualified elector in the county of (blank), state of Arizona, hereby petition that a new political party become eligible for recognition, and be represented by an official party ballot at the next ensuing regular primary election, to be held on the (blank) ... .”
Now, one fair reading of the language may be that the new party is simply entitled to representation on the primary election ballot if it fields state or local candidates.
Judge to Democrats: Your No Labels lawsuit is weak
The Arizona Democratic Party believes signers of the No Labels petitions were led to believe a primary election would be held and that the nascent political party is now unlawfully reneging on that pledge.
A judge who batted down other claims by the state Democratic Party left open the door to that claim of petition signers being misled.
The Democrats have until Sept. 11 to pursue it in an amended complaint.
No Labels' hand on a primary election may be forced by another factor. Two individuals have filed their intention to run for office in next year's primary as a No Labels candidate.
Provided they turn in their paperwork, No Labels would have to participate in the election. Or else sue the candidates and the Secretary of State's Office and win to keep them off the primary ballot.
Must No Labels disclose its donors now?
Also unresolved is how much disclosure, if any, No Labels is required to make regarding political donors or campaign spending.
The party asserts that since it’s not fielding any candidates at this point, it’s under no obligation to register as a political action committee and file campaign finance reports.
Under the most recent Elections Procedures Manual the Secretary of State’s Office issued, in 2019, a group of qualified electors seeking to form a new political party is required to establish a political action committee if the group raises or spends the threshold set by statute ($1,000) “in connection with the effort to seek new party recognition.”
Such efforts presumably include signature-gathering.
Which would mean that unless the 10 qualified electors who petitioned to establish the No Labels Party collected the estimated 56,000 signatures on their own or used exclusively volunteers, they would have to register and file campaign finance records.
The bigger question: Does it even matter?
How expansive or revelatory those disclosures would be is another question.
Voters may see these as rather insignificant issues in the broader 2024 campaign.
They certainly are in comparison to who No Labels may front on the presidential ticket and the platform of those candidates.
Resolution nonetheless will help move the debate beyond Democrats’ argument that No Labels must play by the rules.
Reach Abe Kwok at akwok@azcentral.com. On X, formerly Twitter: @abekwok.
This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: Is No Labels playing by Arizona's election rules? Let's settle this
