Unsurprisingly, the group promising a bipartisan presidential ticket in 2024, No Labels, has managed to qualify as a political party in Maine – or at least, it has enough signatures to should it choose to do so.
It’s not surprising that it was successful, because despite the inherently poorly thought-out nature of the group’s plan, it does seem to be both well-organized and well-funded. Moreover, the ballot access standards, both for individual candidates and to establish political parties, are quite reasonable in Maine. Unlike many other states, candidates almost always get enough signatures to get on the ballot, and they rarely end up being disqualified. So it’s easy to see why No Labels was so able to meet the challenge; indeed, it’s a bit of a surprise that more groups haven’t.
So, in Maine at least, the group will probably be able to field a presidential candidate. The problem is that, even though it might be solely focused on that race, a political party isn’t confined to one election: It has ballot access across the board. That means that if No Labels moves forward with becoming a political party, anyone can use its ballot access to run for any partisan elected office in the state. We could end up seeing No Labels candidates running for the Legislature or for Congress, which might end up causing extraordinary confusion and chaos – and there’s nothing the national organization can do to stop it.
Political parties in Maine can’t simply deny their ballot line to somebody; the only way they can stop them is by defeating them in the primary. Otherwise, if candidates get enough signatures, they’re on the ballot in the general election. We’ve seen this in action before in Maine, where there’s always a Democratic candidate against Sen. Angus King, even though he’s a de facto Democrat. While the Maine Democratic Party is free to completely ignore its own nominee and support King in every way, shape and form, they can’t wave Democratic candidates out of existence. So far that hasn’t been a problem for Sen. King or Democrats in general. He’s popular enough that he’s going to win reelection regardless – indeed, it’s not clear that he’s going to have even a semi-viable Republican opponent. Even if he did, and the race unexpectedly became close, ranked-choice voting would kick in, saving him in the end. Although they might be interesting, a No Labels candidate wouldn’t have any effect on federal races in Maine – including the presidential election – thanks to ranked-choice voting.
The story becomes quite different, though, when one examines legislative and gubernatorial races. For one, ranked-choice voting doesn’t apply there at all; in order for that to be implemented, a state constitutional amendment would be needed. That’s why federal elections in Maine use ranked-choice voting while state elections do not. So, in state elections, No Labels candidates wouldn’t just be swept aside in the end; instead, they could wind up winning with a simple plurality of the vote.
Now, it’s tempting to think that any candidate who elected to run for office under the No Labels banner would be a centrist, since the stated intent of the organization is to encourage bipartisanship. While that may be the most likely outcome, there’s no guarantee – and there’s little the national organization can do to ensure it. No Labels might be focused on next year’s presidential race, but once it exists as a political party, it loses some control. This isn’t a big problem for the two major political parties in office because they have a well-established infrastructure, ideology and organization, but No Labels is a different story: a blank slate, ideologically, so far.
As a political party, No Labels could serve as a way for people to completely skip the primary process in legislative races, whether they’re moderates or extremists. If it became widespread, that could certainly muddy the waters for control of the Legislature, expanding the playing field dramatically. In a closely divided Legislature, a few No Labels legislators could wind up holding the balance of power in their hands.
That’s why, hopefully, No Labels will reconsider moving forward with becoming a political party in Maine. Doing so would have the potential to cause extraordinary chaos, especially if an ideological faction or one of the two major parties usurped it to cause mischief. It’s nice to think that a new political party will help lead to more moderates to get elected, but it’s a distinct possibility that it could also be exploited by extremists.
Jim Fossel, a conservative activist from Gardiner, worked for Sen. Susan Collins. He can be contacted at:
jwfossel@gmail.com
Twitter: @jimfossel
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