Republican lawsuit seeks to overturn novel Virginia primary law

Here is one from Markus Schmidt at The Virginia Mercury with a potential impact on the presidential nomination process:

On March 1, members of the district’s GOP committee by a 22-1 margin agreed to file a lawsuit seeking to overturn what has been dubbed Helmer’s law, named after Del. Dan Helmer, D-Fairfax, who sponsored the legislation in 2021. The law effectively forces parties to nominate candidates through state-run primary elections rather than their own party-run contests.

The lawsuit, which Republicans said will be filed by Staunton attorney Jeff Adams, argues that the law — which went into effect in January 2024 — violates both the U.S. and Virginia Constitutions by removing a party’s ability to determine how it selects its own nominees.

Republicans have long expressed concerns that because Virginia does not require voters to register by party, the law allows Democrats to participate in Republican primaries, and vice versa, potentially influencing the outcome.

No, Democrats being able to participate in a Republican primary (or vice versa) in a state without partisan registration is not a new issue, but it is the one that Republicans in the commonwealth are so loudly vocalizing in the context of this law/lawsuit. But there are remedies to that that are not judicial. After all, legislative fixes are available to the Virginia GOP on that front as well. 

Regardless, crossover voting is an easier story to tell than what is likely at the heart of this case. The intent of the law is to provide for the equality of participation in the nomination process for all eligible voters, especially those who may be outside the jurisdiction at the time of the election or those unable to appear in person at a firehouse primary, caucus or convention for a variety of other reasons. The state-funded primary option guarantees that equality but the available party-run alternatives do not. And it is not that those alternatives necessarily cannot guarantee the same equality of participation for all eligible voters, but rather that state and local parties would find it difficult to finance such options.

The 2021 law, then, does not prohibit alternative nomination processes outside of the state-run primary. That is what is novel about it. Instead it places a burden on state and local parties to go that route. That burden is what is driving the lawsuit. That is the origin of the "effectively forc[ing] parties to nominate candidates through state-run primary elections..." argument. Those political units -- state and local parties -- might argue they cannot pony up the requisite resources for any alternative and that, as a result, their first amendment freedom to associate is being threatened. 

This is an interesting one, but the current law's applicability to the presidential nomination process deserves some attention as well. I will dig into that in the coming days over at FHQ Plus.