The problem with regurgitating whatever whining you hear in New Jersey politics is that you get things wrong a lot.
New Jersey is, in fact, not the only state to structure primary ballots like this. 1 in every 8 members of the state Senate elected to this term have won off the line, so it’s patently false to say no one has won off the line in decades and it doesn’t explain why candidates for local office win off the line all the time in NJ. And there is no study that shows the line confers a 30 point advantage. There is an unscientific review of one election that shows Congressional incumbents are popular among people registered with their party—the same survey shows, for example, that Congressman Pascrell did worse in places where he was on the line than he did in places that didn’t have a line; and it conveniently ignores things like a candidate won a Congressional primary off the line for a competitive seat in that same election.
I sincerely hope your law article wasn’t this poorly researched and that it at least attempted to grapple with what Thurgood Marshall did in Eu v. San Francisco. It is really, really dangerous to say state legislatures and courts have oversight of how political parties select and promote candidates for office, and cavalierly throwing out a three part test to invite that without really careful consideration is irresponsible.
The problem with regurgitating whatever whining you hear in New Jersey politics is that you get things wrong a lot.
New Jersey is, in fact, not the only state to structure primary ballots like this. 1 in every 8 members of the state Senate elected to this term have won off the line, so it’s patently false to say no one has won off the line in decades and it doesn’t explain why candidates for local office win off the line all the time in NJ. And there is no study that shows the line confers a 30 point advantage. There is an unscientific review of one election that shows Congressional incumbents are popular among people registered with their party—the same survey shows, for example, that Congressman Pascrell did worse in places where he was on the line than he did in places that didn’t have a line; and it conveniently ignores things like a candidate won a Congressional primary off the line for a competitive seat in that same election.
I sincerely hope your law article wasn’t this poorly researched and that it at least attempted to grapple with what Thurgood Marshall did in Eu v. San Francisco. It is really, really dangerous to say state legislatures and courts have oversight of how political parties select and promote candidates for office, and cavalierly throwing out a three part test to invite that without really careful consideration is irresponsible.