re: #56 Cheechako

Just yesterday the Alaska Supreme Court ruled it was unconstitutional for the established political parties to prevent Independents from running in party primaries. The Court ruling specified the rule violated freedom of association rights under the First Amendment. Up here the main issue is Governor Walker could now run as an Independent in the Democrat primary. Governor Walker is a former Republican who ran and won as an Independent in the last election.

One of the fall-outs from this decision is that 3 way races (D, R, & I) could be curtailed giving the Democrats more of an advantage over the Republicans. Rep. Don Young has been re-elected several times because 2 other candidates split the vote against him.

Of course, this opens the door for Bernie Sanders to jump into the Democrat primary as he could declare himself to be an Independent.

We are living in interesting times.

Independents can run in party primaries, Alaska Supreme Court says, opening door for Gov. Walker

And that’s a bad ruling. The SCOTUS ruled years ago that groups, like the Boy Scouts, have the right to exclude people (later, after that ruling, the Boy Scouts would sue to try to get funding denied to them because they refused to let gays in and SCOTUS said nope). Groups do not have to let people in so long as they don’t violate any civil rights of a person. And a person wanting to be in a party doesn’t qualify.

It’s why Charles can keep people out of here.