New Jersey election law?

[Blumstein, James]

I am curious how, Professor Weinberg's approach accounts for the tension
between ballot access by party committee nomination vs. access via primary.
The electoral choice perspective seems focused on the November general
election and assumes the existence of a vacancy on the ballot.  Of course,
there would have been no vacancy on the ballot, only an impaired candidate
who had found himself in a politically difficult (and possible unwinnable)
election.  The name of Sen. Torricelli would have remained on the ballot,
for better or for worse. But if one focuses on the process of how names get
onto a ballot, then the openness vs non-openness issue becomes harder;
rather the issue seems whether the state has an interest in maintaining the
integrity of its primary system rather than a party committee appointive
system.  Using a hypothetical to raise the point, suppose that the party
leadership in a state whose political process is dominated by that party
favors candidate A.  Suppose further that candidate A is unlikely to win an
open primary within that dominant party. The party leadership agrees with
candidate B, a popular political figure, that B will run in the primary only
to step down before the election (with the party leadership filling the slot
with A).  As I understand the NJ statute, that would be possible up to a
certain period before the election but is not expressly provided for
afterwards.  This seems reasonable as an accommodation among competing
interests.  With a lengthy time before the election, the opposing candidate
would have an opportunity to investigate the party leadership preferred
candidate, to make the case that such a substitution was anti-Democratic,
would have husbanded resources to investigate and make the case through
advertising, etc.  Closer to the election, these opportunities become harder
-- money has been spent, campaign strategy and approach have been developed,
issues have been focused on a particular opponent, etc.  Allowing for a late
substitution, absent some uncontrollable event (and perhaps not then, as per
Missouri in the Ashcroft/Carnahan race in 2000), would seem to tip away from
reliance on and finality of the primary system and would seem to favor
party-appointed or favored candidates.  In response, it may be that the
First Amendment rights of political parties (Tashjian, Eu,  LaFollette,
Calif. Dem Party v. Jones, et al)  should trump such considerations and
allow party leaders to have their way, but the Supreme Court has tended to
allow considerable state regulation of the ballot by requiring primaries and
restricting access to the primary to protect party voters (Rosario v.
Rockefeller; but see Kusper v. Pontikes)... Jim Blumstein



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