Per Missoula’s KGVO radio news:
39 year-old Thomas Breck of Missoula is the Green Party candidate for the Congressional seat vacated by Ryan Zinke, who was recently confirmed as Secretary of the Interior.
Breck, the father of three, is a carpenter and a student at the University of Montana. He explains why the Green Party has had to sue to be included on the special election ballot set for May 25.
…
Breck said the path to getting on the special election ballot was heavily weighted in favor of the three major parties, Republicans, Democrats and Libertarians.
“The way the law is written, we would have had to have gathered over 15,000 signatures in just a manner of days” he said. “It was unreasonable to expect a minor party to have been able to get that done, so we’re having to fight in court.”
He includes the LP among the “major parties?”
I’m assuming, then, that the LP has achieved ballot status in Montana, but it’s hardly a major party.
The D’s and R’s fight tooth and nail every chance they get to exclude the LP and every other “third party” from ballots, debates, etc.
The Green Party is not a plaintiff in this lawsuit. But the Green Party nominee is a plaintiff.
Yeah, according to this site, the LP is the only third party to have automatic ballot access in Montana:
http://sos.mt.gov/Elections/Parties
So the LP, like the Democrats and Republicans, can nominate whatever candidates they want in Montana, whereas any other third party has to go through the rigamarole of petition gathering. Still seems a stretch to call the Libertarian Party “major” at this point, though.