Say “corrupt politician” & people think “$$$.” An old quip shows Indiana’s no different:
Q: How do you get a bill through the Indiana General Assembly?
A: Toss a paper bag full of cash over a transom in the Claypool Hotel in the dead of night. 1/12

The Claypool’s gone, hotel transoms are rare, but $$$ only partly defines “corrupt”: “Perverted from uprightness and fidelity in the discharge of duty; influenced by bribery or the like; venal.” [FN29] In the 1980s, R’s & D’s wrote IN’s election laws to benefit their parties. 2/12

First, they gave “bennies” to themselves, but avoided saying R or D; instead bennies go to the “two major” political parties, i.e., “the two (2) parties whose nominees received” the highest & 2nd highest numbers of votes [] for sec’y of state in the last election.” [FN30] 3/12

By contrast, Illinois confers benefits upon an “established political party,” defined as a party that “at the last election” “polled more than 5% of the entire vote cast” in specific types of elections. [FN31] IN law: blocks any but 2 parties @ the bennies trough. IL law: 20. 4/12

W/o automatic placement on the ballot, a candidate must gain placement by some variation of collecting X-number of signatures on petitions. [FN32] That’s time-consuming and, if you have a remote chance of winning, futile, because petitions are tossed. [FN33] 5/12

Second, the “two major” political parties have rights of association. In Morales v Rust, IN’s Supreme Court held the GOP corporate entity has rights of association that trumped [FN34] a potential candidate. [FN35] At oral argument, no one disputed that 6/12

the law, requiring that to enter the primary election of one of the two major parties having voted in that party’s two most recent primaries disqualifies over eighty percent (80%) of voters from seeking to run in a primary. So these types of restrictions are hurdles to clear. 7/12

Every State’s election laws can be different, but James Bopp, Jr, a Terre Haute IN attorney who has helped shape election law, was a member of the RNC. [FN36] To engage and beat back magaGOP, these laws must scrapped. And check your State’s election laws. 8/12

The RNC might have helped to metastacize Bopp’s creative approach and shut out anyone from the inner circle of hell that is magaGOP. And you should not waste time w/an alternative party. Next blog I’ll explain why the “two major” political parties love those. 9/12

Footnotes:
FN29. Oxford English Dictionary, Compact Edition, 1971, p. 566 (1023).
FN30. I.C. §3-5-2-30.
FN31. “party which at the last election in any congressional district, legislative district, county, township, municipality, political subdivision, or district in the State polled more than 5% of the entire vote cast ...” (10 ILCS 5/10-2) 10/12

FN32. See I.C. §§ 3-6-8-2, -3, -4.
FN33. The signature on each petition will be carefully examined for any means the board can find to toss it.
FN34. This was, after all, a case in which IN’s magaGOP was a party in a State in which knowledge of how to play euchre is almost genetic. 11/12

FN35. 23S-PL-371 (3/9/24) at p. 9.
FN36. Republican National Committee. Bopp also was counsel at the district court in Citizens United v FEC - yes, THAT Citizens United case. 12/12