Political party can keep its name
Gov. Gavin Newsom vetoed a bill that would have forced the 52yearold American Independent Party to change its name in order to appear on the California ballot.
SB696 would have prevented any political party in the state from using “independent” in its name. State Sen. Tom Umberg, the Santa Ana Democrat who carried the bill, made it clear he had the American Independent Party in mind when he introduced the legislation, saying voters were mistakenly signing up with the party when they thought they were registering as independents.
His bill would also have prevented parties from using “decline to state” or “no party preference” in their names.
American Independent Party officials called the measure unconstitutional, and Newsom said they were probably right.
“By requiring one existing political party to change its current name, this bill could be interpreted as a violation of the rights of free speech and association guaranteed by the First and 14th amendments to the U.S. Constitution,” Newsom wrote in his veto message Wednesday night. It echoed wordforword a nonpartisan analysis of the bill by state Senate staff.
The American Independent Party is an ultraconservative party formed in 1967 as a vehicle for segregationist Alabama Gov. George Wallace’s presidential campaign. It is headquartered in Vacaville and has 517,872 registered voters, more than the combined totals of California’s three other minor parties — the Libertarians, the Greens and the Peace and Freedom Party.
Umberg’s bill said the ban on “independent” was necessary because “voter education is ineffective in remedying” confusion that leads people to register as American Independent members when they really want to be independents. American Independent officials called the assertion “remarkable (and inherently insulting to voters).”
The party didn’t run any statewide candidates in 2018, choosing instead to endorse Republicans.
“By existing requiring political one party to change its current name, this bill could be interpreted as a violation of the rights of free speech.” Gov. Gavin Newsom