The Forward Party is praising New Mexico Attorney General Raúl Torrez for backing a legal challenge to the state’s ballot access requirements for minor party candidates, with its national CEO calling the existing signature requirements unfair and unconstitutional.
Editorial note: Since original publication, the Tenth Circuit has declined to consider Torrez’s brief and denied the New Mexico Forward Party’s emergency request to place its two nominees on the ballot. The state party has since taken that request to the U.S. Supreme Court.
Forward Party CEO Lindsey Williams Drath said in an official statement on Monday that the national party learned of Torrez’s support after he filed an amicus brief supporting the New Mexico Forward Party in its appeal before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit. The state party is challenging requirements that forced each of its statewide candidates to collect roughly 14,200 signatures to qualify for the November ballot, compared with 2,505 for Democratic candidates and 2,351 for Republicans.
“Simply put, New Mexico’s attorney general — a Democrat — agrees that asking minor party candidates in the state to achieve many multiples of what is required of legacy party candidates is unfair, prevents reasonable competition at the polls and effectively eliminates challenges to legacy party candidates in the state,” Drath said. “We agree with Attorney General Torrez in his assessment that these burdensome signature requirements are not only unfair, but also unconstitutional.”
Drath accused both Democrats and Republicans of having a “vested interest in maintaining their duopoly” and engaging in theatrics. She compared what’s happening in New Mexico to a World Wrestling Entertainment championship match, saying it has more in common with that than what she calls the “representative, consensus-based governance” intended by the framers of the Constitution.
“The people of New Mexico deserve choices in who and how they are governed,” she added. “The easiest way to provide additional candidate options is to even the playing field and equalize signature requirements regardless of party affiliation.”
Torrez’s amicus brief also came as a surprise to the New Mexico Forward Party, with state Chair Bob Perls telling Source New Mexico following news of the filing that he had not expected Torrez’s support. “Any person on the street would say that the signature requirements are unfair. You don’t have to be a lawyer to figure that out,” he told the outlet.
The New Mexico Forward Party, Perls, and several other members sued Secretary of State Maggie Toulouse Oliver in July after he and state auditor nominee Michael Vigil failed to collect enough signatures to qualify for the ballot. U.S. District Judge Margaret Strickland denied the party’s request for preliminary relief earlier this month, prompting an appeal to the Tenth Circuit.
In response to that appeal, Torrez filed his amicus brief supporting the Forward Party’s position on the matter, arguing that New Mexico’s major and minor party candidates do not currently compete on a level playing field under its ballot access laws. Toulouse Oliver’s office has continued to defend the requirements and the lower court ruling.
The case now awaits action from the Tenth Circuit. Toulouse Oliver’s office filed its response to the Forward Party’s emergency request last Friday, with the party submitting its final reply the immediate following Sunday. The party is asking the appeals court to place its two statewide nominees on the November ballot.
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