HARRISBURG, Pa. (AP) – Pennsylvania Democrats have won legal challenges to keep the left-wing Socialism and Liberation Party out of the battleground state’s presidential race, at least for now, while a lawyer with deep ties to the Republican Party is working to help independent candidate Cornel West grab it.
The lawsuits are a series of partisan legal moves involving third-party candidates seeking to get on the Pennsylvania ballot, including a pending Democratic challenge to independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s filing in Pennsylvania.
A Commonwealth Court judge upheld two challenges from the Democratic Party on Tuesday, ruling that paperwork filed by the Socialist and Liberation Party was fatally flawed and ordering the party’s presidential candidate, Claudia De la Cruz, off Pennsylvania’s Nov. 5 ballot.
Seven of the party’s 19 presidential electors listed on the paperwork were registered Democrats, violating the law’s political exclusion clause, Judge Bonnie Brigance Leadbetter wrote. Six voted in the Democratic primary on April 23.
“They literally voted in the Democratic primary and then turned around to try to elect a third-party candidate,” said Adam Bonin, a Democratic-affiliated lawyer who filed one of the challenges. “You can’t do that.”
The Socialism and Liberation Party did not immediately say whether it plans to appeal.
Meanwhile, a lawyer with longtime ties to Republican candidates and causes went to court to argue that the secretary of state under Democratic Gov. Josh Shapiro was wrong to reject West’s paperwork.
The secretary of state’s office is denying the legal challenge, saying the paperwork lacked required certifications from 14 of the 19 presidential electors ahead of the Aug. 1 filing deadline. Efforts by conservative activists and Republican supporters are underway across the country to promote a left-leaning academic candidacy.
The Nov. 5 election, featuring Republican nominee Donald Trump and Democratic nominee Kamala Harris, is expected to be close in Pennsylvania, whose 19 electoral votes tie Illinois for the fifth most and are likely to be the most awarded of any battleground state.
Republicans and Democrats alike see third-party candidates as a threat to their candidates’ critical support, especially given that Pennsylvania was decided by margins of tens of thousands of votes both in 2020 for Democrat Joe Biden and in 2016 for Trump.
Jill Stein of the Green Party and Chase Oliver of the Liberal Party filed a petition to enter Pennsylvania’s presidential primary unopposed.
A Democratic challenge to Kennedy is pending, as is a Republican challenge to the Constitution Party. Republicans have already won a challenge to the USA Solidarity Party candidate.
In the challenge to De la Cruz, the judge cited a provision of state law that prohibits minor-party candidates from registering with a major political party within 30 days of that year’s primary.
Leadbetter, a Republican, said it is clear that seven of the party’s 19 nominated presidential electors were registered Democrats both before and after Pennsylvania’s April 23 primary.
De la Cruz’s lawyers argued that the party should be able to substitute new electors or simply accept only 12 of Pennsylvania’s 19 electoral votes instead.
But Leadbetter wrote that Pennsylvania law does not allow post-term replacement in such a situation, and the U.S. Constitution provides for special proportional representation among states in the Electoral College, so fewer electoral votes in even just one state would be destabilizing. that relativity.
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Follow Marc Levy at https://x.com/timelywriter.
