The Democratic National Committee (DNC) is forming a group of lawyers to monitor how third-party contenders seek ballot access as the party continues to worry that such candidates could potentially hinder President Joe Biden’s reelection chances, The New York Times reported Wednesday.
Lawyers Dana Remus and Robert Lenhard will lead the new team to counter what the party views as a threat to increasing former President Donald Trump’s chances of returning to the White House in November, according to the NYT. As independent Robert F. Kennedy Jr., “Justice for All Party” candidate Cornel West, the Green Party and No Labels continue to notch ballot access wins across the country, the party views policing these efforts as paramount.
The DNC’s legal group is organizing local lawyers across the country, as well as field teams, research and analytics to monitor ballot access, according to the outlet.
Candidates’ efforts will be watched to guarantee “to the degree that you are seeking status as a new political party, you are actually a political party — a large group of people who believe what you believe, not simply a single candidate wanting to circumvent existing rules,” Lenhard told the NYT.
Kennedy’s supporters are forming the “We The People” party, which will eventually nominate the independent for president, in states like Hawaii, California, Delaware, Mississippi, North Carolina and Texas. The independent has already secured ballot access in Utah, and has gathered enough signatures to get on the ballot in New Hampshire, Arizona, Georgia and Nevada between his campaign and American Values 2024, an aligned super PAC.
Lenhard added that state policies that limit ballot access “ensure that the people who are on the ballot have legitimate bases of support, and it’s not simply a vanity project,” according to the NYT.
West has secured ballot access in Oregon, South Carolina, Alaska and Utah, according to the NYT.
“I am not aware of the D.N.C. going hostile on us yet,” Edwin DeJesus, West’s ballot access campaign’s director, told the outlet. “They are probably going to surface the spoiler narrative closer to the election.”
The Green Party is on the ballot in 20 states and Washington, D.C., the NYT reported. Jill Stein, who was the Green Party’s candidate in 2012 and 2016, is seeking the nomination again.
No Labels, a centrist organization which is planning on running a “Unity Ticket” in 2024, has secured ballot access in 18 states.
The legal group’s goal “is to ensure all the candidates are playing by the rules, and to seek to hold them accountable when they are not,” Lenhard told the NYT.
“If this is the plan Democrats intend to use, to tie up third party campaigns with trumped up legalese, or to change rules midstream because they are afraid of losing voters to candidates who better represent their values and priorities, I don’t know how that can be considered an exercise in democracy. The Democrats appear to want to kill democracy in order to save it,” a spokesperson for Stein told the Daily Caller News Foundation.
The DNC also formed it’s first-ever team to combat third-party candidates in 2024 recently, which will focus on legal challenges, opposition research and an aggressive communications strategy. The party has already taken aim at Kennedy’s campaign when it filed a complaint over American Values 2024 gathering ballot access signatures on the independent’s behalf.
The DNC, the Kennedy campaign, the West campaign and No Labels did not immediately respond to the DCNF’s request for comment.
Mary Lou Masters on March 20, 2024
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