The Arizona Democrat Party (AZDP) filed a lawsuit Thursday against several state election officials and Secretary of State Adrian Fontes (D) in an attempt to keep the newly qualified No Labels Party (NLP) from appearing on the 2024 state ballots.
“This undemocratic and outrageous lawsuit is a national disgrace,” says Ryan Clancy, chief strategist for the NLP, in a release emailed to The Arizona Sun Times. “Next time you hear this crowd talking about protecting democracy, remember what they are really doing is protecting their turf. No Labels is confident that the court will uphold the Secretary of State’s decision to certify No Labels in Arizona.”
The NLP stated that the Democrat’s complaint is politically motivated because they fear having another potential opponent on the Arizona ballot. However, according to the lawsuit, the AZDP argued that the NLP should not be considered a political party in the first place.
No Labels is a registered 501(C)(4) nonprofit corporation founded in Washington, D.C., in 2009. According to the Revenue Code, a 501(C)(4) operates exclusively to promote “social welfare, or local associations of employees,” so the AZDP argues No Label’s primary purpose cannot be to intervene in a political campaign.
Additionally, 501(C)(4)s are sometimes called dark money groups, as the nonprofit is not required to reveal the donors behind it. The AZDP accused No Labels of being a dark money group attempting to use money from undisclosed donors to gain access to the ballot across the country. No Labels has stated it aims to raise $70 million to gain access to ballots in all 50 states.
The plaintiffs claim the NLP cannot operate as it does because, under federal law, political party committees that spend more than $5,000 to influence an election must identify their donors with the Federal Election Commission. The AZDP claimed that the NLP had not done so.
“No Labels is not following the rules for political party recognition, while attempting to be placed on the ballot alongside actual, functioning political parties who do,” said Morgan Dick, Executive Director for the Arizona Democratic Party.
Moreover, the Plaintiffs argued that the NLP’s process of becoming a party violated Arizona law. On February 10th, No Labels submitted a petition to Fontes’s office containing 56,971 signatures for review. According to a receipt shared with The Sun Times by the Secretary of State’s Office (SOSO), 585 signatures were initially rejected based on defects.
The SOSO then took a 20 percent random sample of the signatures for recorders to verify. The county officials found the random signature sample had a 23.33 percent failure rate. The SOSO used this information to estimate that No Labels submitted roughly 41,000 valid signatures, above the 34,127 minimum signatures needed to qualify. This estimation led to Fontes’ announcement that the NLP qualified for the 2024 ballot, although he himself did not decide the party made it.
However, the AZDP argued that No Labels acted incorrectly when gathering signatures. According to the complaint, No Label’s petition was accompanied by 12 “Affidavit of Electors,” which bore the signatures of 16 electors from counties across the state. The affidavit read, “We, the ten undersigned qualified electors of the state of Arizona, request that the signers of the attached petitions be recognized as a new political party, to be called the No Labels Party.”
The last of these was signed on December 9th; however, No Labels allegedly continued collecting signatures through January. The Plaintiffs then argue that the electors did not have the entire petition to be presented to Fontes. Therefore, the AZDP argued that electors did not properly verify the petitions required for a party to be recognized in Arizona.
Ultimately, the Plaintiffs asked the court to annul Fontes’s recognition of the NLP and prohibit it from appearing on future ballots.
The Sectary of State Fontes’ office had no comments on the litigation at this time.
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Neil Jones is a reporter for The Arizona Sun Times and The Star News Network. Follow Neil on Twitter. Email tips to [email protected].
Photo “Adrian Fontes” by Gage Skidmore. CC BY-SA 2.0. Background Photo “Courtroom” by Karen Neoh. CC BY 2.0.
