Bryan Hughes hating on indy and third-party candidates

Bryan Hughes hates Greens, Libertarians and independents even more. Via Ballot Access News, his SB 2532 would double signature requirements for independents, and double filing fees for all candidates, which would burden third party and indy folks more than duopoly candidates. And, no, the first part isn't just keeping pace with population growth. We already have a percentage basis for petitions for statewide races and Hughes wants to double that from 1 percent to 2 percent of the last gubernatorial vote. For local and regional races, there's a lesser of a numerical amount or a 5 percent bar for governor in the district, region or county the election covers. That doubling would go up to 1,000 people. That's a lot in a West Texas county if an indy who doesn't want to be a Dem wants to run for county judge.

 

The doubled filing fee would be $10K for U.S. Senator and $7,500 for other statewide. It also doubles all petition numbers for people in a recognized party wanting to do the petition route rather than filing fees.

At BAN, Adam Cerini sums up the issue in a comment:

According to the March 2023 issue of BAN, Texas has the second highest petition requirement of any state for independent candidates for US Senate at around 80,000. Only North Carolina is higher, and barely, at around 83,000. The median is 5,000. Two of Texas’ neighbors, Oklahoma and Louisiana, don’t require a petition – only a filing fee.

This bill would double Texas’ requirement to about 160,000, far in excess of any other state. If 50 independent candidates petitioned for US Senate, one in each state, the Texan would have to gather 22% of all signatures needed. Texas has only 9% of the population. It is unknown just how much the Texan would need to pay professional signature gatherers to collect 160,000 valid signatures. The fact that the filing fee would also double to $10,000 does not help matters. The indpendent candidate, of course, saves taxpayers money by not running in a publicly funded party primary.

Oh, BlueAnon Texas Dems? None of your senators, like none of the Rethugs, asked a single question of a witness.