Skip to content
Search

Latest Stories

Top Stories

In the Empire State, Democrats push to perpetuate a two-party empire

New York ballot

A Democratic proposal would make it significantly more difficult for third parties to get on the ballot in New York.

Those who say the two-party duopoly is not so great for the republic will not be heartened by developments in New York this week.

Jay Jacobs, the chairman of the Democratic Party in the fourth largest state, is pushing to effectively neutralize almost all of the Empire State's minor political parties. And his proposal seems to have the ear of others on a special commission charged with revising some aspects of election law by the end of the year.

His other ideas for eliminating third parties have not gone far. This one looks like it will.

The new Jacobs plan would increase fivefold, to about 250,000, the number of votes a political party needs to receive in one election in order to get a line on the ballot in the next one. Republicans and Democrats, who routinely draw more than 2 million votes each in statewide contests, are the only parties for which this would be no problem.


The state's Conservative Party has crossed the proposed new threshold several times, but not always, in recent years. But none of the other parties, which are mostly on the ideological left, have come close. (The barrier is about 5 percent of the total vote in a typical governor's race.)

Those who understand Albany say a principal objective of Jacobs, an ally of Gov. Andrew Cuomo, is to neutralize the power of the progressive Working Families Party, which has long been a thorn in the governor's side. But Jacobs, who is on the election law revision commission, says his motive is only to reduce voter confusion and expose the "sham" minor parties led by people who trade nominations for political favors.

"A lot of people have been getting away with an awful lot for a long time," he told The New York Times. "In my mind, it will be better overall if elections are run with only really credible parties."

The nine-member commission was created by the Legislature this spring to design a system under which as much as $100 million in state funds would be spent matching small-dollar donations to candidates across the state. But the public financing plan was not an exclusive mandate, and so the commission has turned to other election law topics, including third parties.

The commission has to make its recommendations next month, and they will automatically become law unless they are changed or spiked by the Legislature within three weeks.

Virginia and New Jersey require parties to win 10 percent of turnout in the most recent governor's race to keep a place on the ballot — vestiges of when both were under the control of Democratic machines. In Alabama, where the goal was to protect the dominance of the Republican Party from insurgent moves by hard-right splinter parties, the threshold is 3 percent. Texas this year actually lowered its threshold for viable third parties to 2 percent from 5 percent of the statewide vote.

Read More

MAGA says no to Trump & Kennedy’s junk science

U.S. President Donald Trump answers questions after making an announcement on“ significant medical and scientific findings for America’ s children” in the Roosevelt Room of the White House on Sept. 22, 2025, in Washington, D.C. Federal health officials suggested a link between the use of acetaminophen during pregnancy as a risk for autism, although many health...

(Getty Images)

MAGA says no to Trump & Kennedy’s junk science

President Trump stood at the White House podium, addressing a room full of reporters.

“First, effective immediately, the FDA will be notifying physicians that the use of…ah-said-a…well…let’s see how we say that.”

Keep ReadingShow less
On Live Facial Recognition in the City: We Are Not Guinea Pigs, and We Are Not Disposable

New Orleans fights a facial recognition ordinance as residents warn of privacy risks, mass surveillance, and threats to immigrant communities.

Getty Images, PhanuwatNandee

On Live Facial Recognition in the City: We Are Not Guinea Pigs, and We Are Not Disposable

Every day, I ride my bike down my block in Milan, a tight-knit residential neighborhood in central New Orleans. And every day, a surveillance camera follows me down the block.

Despite the rosy rhetoric of pro-surveillance politicians and facial recognition vendors, that camera doesn’t make me safer. In fact, it puts everyone in New Orleans at risk.

Keep ReadingShow less
An illustration of two people holding legal documents.
llustration by Olivia Abeyta for palabra

Proof of Citizenship, No Proof of Safety

Claudia, an immigrant from Chile who lives in suburban Maryland right outside Washington, D.C., watched closely as the Trump administration ramped up its mass deportation campaign during the spring (Claudia, not her real name, asked to be identified by a pseudonym because she is afraid of federal immigration agents).

She went online and watched countless videos of masked, heavily armed Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents breaking the car windows of immigrants to wrestle them out of their cars, and detaining people at their workplaces, like restaurants, car washes, and agricultural fields. Many of her friends told her about ICE sweeps in heavily Latino apartment complexes near her home.

Keep ReadingShow less
Protest sign, We the people.
Protests have been sparked across the country over the last few weeks.
Gene Gallin on Unsplash

Why Constitution Day Should Spark a Movement for a New Convention in 2037

Sept. 17 marked Constitution Day, grounded in a federal law commemorating the signing of the U.S. Constitution on Sept. 17, 1787. As explained by the courts of Maryland, “By law, all educational institutions receiving federal funding must observe Constitution Day. It is an opportunity to celebrate and discuss our Constitution and system of government.”

This week also marked the release of an important new book by the historian Jill Lepore: “We the People: A History of the U.S. Constitution” (as reviewed in the New York Times in a public link). Here’s an overview of her conclusions from the publisher:

Keep ReadingShow less