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Green Party of New Jersey |
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by Steve Welzer |
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An effort to obtain full rights and fair treatment for alternative parties in our state was launched in 1993 when two New Jersey colleagues of Ralph Nader, Carl Mayer and Renee Steinhagen, set up the NJ Task Force for the Rights of Alternative Parties. Nader had started prioritizing this avenue of activity in the wake of his 1992 mini-foray into presidential politics (he ran as a "None of the Above" candidate in both the Democratic and Republican Party primaries in New Hampshire that year). In 1993 Nader set up the Appleseed Foundation (http://www.appleseeds.net). Among the main focuses of that organization are the issues of electoral law reform, ballot access reform, and campaign finance reform. Its affiliate in New Jersey is the Appleseed Public Interest Law Center. Renee Steinhagen is the Executive Director. Carl and Renee were of great help during 1996 when the Greens in New Jersey sought to get Nader on the ballot as our presidential candidate. The following year Renee joined forces with Frank Askin of the Constitutional Litigation Clinic of Rutgers/Newark Law School as the legal team representing the Council of Alternative Political Parties (CAPP). CAPP had been formed in January 1997 in order to synergize third party initiatives advocating for a more open and responsive political system in our state. Specifically, CAPP sought "to improve the New Jersey political process by providing a forum in which citizens who are interested in supporting alternative political parties and independent candidates can exchange information and create joint strategies to ensure that candidates who share their views are provided a fair opportunity to be elected." In June 1997, CAPP won its first lawsuit when the Third Circuit federal court declared unconstitutional a state statute that required independent candidates desiring access to the ballot via petition to file their completed petitions 54 days prior to the primary election. Encouraged by this, CAPP set out to gain more victories for third parties, such as: - allowing voters to register with an alternative party; - easing the criteria for obtaining major party status; - ending the discrimination against third parties in regard to financial and fundraising regulations. In January 1999, CAPP (at that point comprised of the Green, Reform, Natural Law, Libertarian, and Constitution parties) brought suit in Superior Court against the constitutionality of various portions of the State's election law: specifically, N.J.S.A. 19:1-1, which defines "political party" for State and Federal election purposes ("An organization is a 'political party' under New Jersey law when it garners a minimum of 10% of the statewide vote cast in the preceding General Assembly election"); and the State's voter affiliation scheme, codified at N.J.S.A. 19:23-45 and N.J.S.A. 19:31-18.1. A decision was made in the fall of 1999 that our coalition would try to score an immediate victory by requesting summary judgment on the latter issues, namely the inability of voters to affiliate with a third party and the inability of alternative parties to obtain a list of supporters in the same manner as the major parties. In court, Renee and Frank detailed how the whole electoral system is stacked against alternative parties. In addition to the difficulties presented by the "winner-take-all" system, the major parties in New Jersey have imposed particularly restrictive and prohibitive laws. No third party has qualified as an officially recognized party, and hence no one in our state had been able to register under any label but "Democrat," "Republican," or "Independent," since the current laws went into effect in 1920! The decision in the case was rendered in March 2000. We won a major victory when the state's voter-registration law was struck down as a violation of the equal protection clause of the federal Constitution. Judge Anthony J. Parrillo concluded that, without access to lists of those who self-identify as members of an alternative party, it is much more difficult to organize and benefit from the voter-registration/affiliation scheme. Accordingly, the state could not justify the unequal burden it placed on alternative parties. The State, supported by the Democrats and Republicans, appealed this verdict, but in September 2001 an Appellate Court panel upheld Judge Parrillo's decision. County Election Boards have ever since been required to accept Green Party registrations. We won an important, unanimous NJ Supreme Court ruling in June 2000 in the case of Green Party of New Jersey and James Mohn v. Hartz Mountain Industries, Inc., d/b/a The Mall at Mill Creek. Frank Askin argued our case on behalf of the American Civil Liberties Union of New Jersey (Bennet Zurofsky argued amici curiae for New Jersey Peace Action, New Jersey Industrial Union Council, AFL-CIO and the New Jersey Labor Party). In an earlier case (New Jersey Coalition Against War in the Middle East v. J.M.B. Realty Corp - 1994), the Supreme Court had ruled that owners of shopping malls must permit leafletting and related political speech (subject to reasonable time, place and manner restrictions) because the malls constitute de facto "traditional public forums." In 1996 and 1997, GPNJ activists Jim Mohn et. al. applied for permission to set up information tables, hand out leaflets, and obtain petition signatures at the Mill Creek Mall in Hudson County. The mall's regulations: 1) limited an applicant's activities to one day per year (and only between January 1 and October 31) unless otherwise approved by the mall management upon written request; 2) required applicants to provide a certificate of insurance in the amount of $1,000,000; and 3) required applicants to sign a hold-harmless agreement indemnifying the mall for any claims or losses, including costs and counsel fees incurred defending the claims. Mohn obtained a quote for the insurance certificate and found it to be prohibitively expensive. The Supreme Court ruled that the private property rights of mall owners must be balanced against the rights of citizens to speak and assemble. The Court stated that (1) the mall's $1,000,000 insurance certificate requirement lacked objective proof of reasonableness and was therefore invalid; (2) more than one day per year is reasonably required to protect the expressive right involved. In considering the weight of the Green Party's political speech rights, the Court noted the "very high value" of leafletting in political discourse. In weighing the countervailing harm mall owners may suffer, the Court considered the nature and extent of risk posed by leafleteers and petition circulators. Since a mall is already faced with the risk of claims from its invitation to thousands of people per year to shop, the Court found that the primary question to be answered is "what additional risk to the mall owners is created by the occasional presence of signature gatherers?" Although CAPP has not been active in recent years, Renee Steinhagen (now working in conjunction with Emery Celli Brinckerhoff & Abady LLP) has been meeting with representatives of the Green, Conservative, and Libertarian parties to move forward with additional litigation on our behalf. It is being proposed that the next phase of litigation focus on challenging the constitutionality of New Jersey laws that (1) limit the ability of alternative parties to raise money from donors and to contribute money to candidates; (2) subject minor parties to lobbying restrictions and fees; (3) prohibit out-of-district petition circulators. The attorneys are offering their services pro bono (no charge); the plaintiff parties are being asked to cover expenses associated with the litigation. GPNJ has been and continues to be a leading force in the effort to open up the political system in New Jersey through our organizing, electoral activity, legal challenges, and support for pro-third-party legislation. Every victory, whether at the ballot box or in court or in the legislature, brings us that much closer to the achievement of true multi-party democracy.- |
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