(C) Florida Phoenix This story was originally published by Florida Phoenix and is unaltered. . . . . . . . . . . Decision to put only Biden’s name on the FL ballot in March 2024 spawned a federal lawsuit [1] ['Mitch Perry', 'More From Author', '- December'] Date: 2023-12-08 A Tampa attorney has filed a federal lawsuit against the Florida Democratic Party (FDP) for placing only President Joe Biden’s name on the ballot for the March 2024 presidential primary election in Florida. Other Democrats challenging Biden for the party’s nomination were excluded. Democratic Party officials now say that because Biden was the only candidate placed on the ballot, state election law dictates that he has already been declared the automatic winner of the primary, and the race will not be on the ballot next year. Florida Secretary of State Cord Byrd is also listed as a defendant in the lawsuit. The legal challenge has been filed by lawyer Michael Steinberg, a former chair for the Hillsborough County Democratic Executive Committee and former candidate for congress and the Florida Legislature. In his five-page lawsuit filed on Dec. 5 in the U.S. District Court for the Northern Division of Florida, Steinberg claims that his constitutional rights as a voter have been violated by the Democrats’ decision to exclude the name of Minnesota Congressman Dean Phillips from the ballot, calling it “arbitrary and capricious” and in violation of his due process and equal protection rights. He also says that the statutory procedure governing ballot access is unconstitutional. Phillips also intends to file a challenge with the Democratic National Committee and the FDP next week for being denied access to the ballot in Florida , according to a report from the Semafor news platform. A spokesperson for the Phillips campaign told the Florida Phoenix on Friday that “we’re still working to finalize the lawsuit, but do expect to file early next week.” In his lawsuit, Steinberg says that the Democratic Party of Florida cannot dispute that Phillips is a nationally recognized candidate for president. “He has appeared on numerous television news programs and his candidacy has been discussed by multiple media sources including television, print and social media,” Steinberg says in his lawsuit. “The Florida Democratic Party cannot dispute the Democratic Party credentials of Congressman Dean Phillips. His platform is consistent with the platform of the Democratic Party, he is currently a member of Congress, and has mostly supported the position of President Joe Biden.” Steinberg goes on to note that the Florida Democratic Party “has a non-discretionary duty to prepare and approve a list of all recognized Democratic Presidential candidates, not just the ones they favor or choose. In the alternative, if the Florida Democratic Party asserts that they have the discretion to choose which candidates are approved to be listed on the ballot, based on being ‘recognized,’ this term is so vague and ambiguous that it unconstitutionally deprives Plaintiffs of due process. Congressman Dean Phillips is clearly recognized by the Federal Election Commission, the news media, and other states as a Democratic candidate for President.” He concludes by asserting that the fairest remedy by the court to preserve his rights and the rights of the public “is to order that Congressman Dean Phillips’ name be placed on the ballot.” The Florida Division of Elections website lists nine Democrats as not having qualified for their presidential primary ballot, including “The Young Turks” host Cenk Uygur. Uygur and New Age author Marianne Williamson, who ran for the Democratic presidential nomination in 2020, expressed outrage last week during a Zoom call when they learned that they were omitted from the Florida presidential ballot and discussed the possibility of potential litigation. Uygur told the Phoenix in an email on Friday that he intends to present a formal challenge to his exclusion from the ballot. “We’re going to do an implementation challenge with both the DNC and the Florida Democratic Party. I applaud the Florida citizens who are fighting for their right to vote. We thought they’d have to take on the Republican Party to protect democracy; it’s deeply disappointing that they have to fight their own party to be able to vote.” FDP officials have maintained that it was the candidates themselves who erred in not reaching out to them before the state deadline of Nov. 30, 2023. “The process to be on the Florida ballot has been publicly available on our website. It clearly states that the Florida Democratic Party’s primary ballot is submitted to the Secretary of State by November 30, 2023,” Eden Giagnorio, communications director for the party told the Phoenix in a written statement last week. “This is the standard process. The State Executive Committee meets to vote to place candidates on the presidential primary ballot at the Florida Democratic Party’s State Convention every four years.” Giagnorio said the three candidates did not receive any votes from the State’s Executive Committee in late October and that’s why they are not on the primary ballot. Party officials did not respond to news of the lawsuit. FDP officials also said that it is the responsibility of their Executive Committee to approve candidates to be considered for their presidential primary, and that only Biden received votes when they met on October 29 of this year. But in an email sent to the Phoenix on Friday, Steinberg questioned the Executive Committee for voting only for Joe Biden on Oct. 29, when in fact the party still had another month to submit the candidates names to the Secretary of State’s office. “The Florida Statutes give the party until November 30, 2023 to provide the names of recognized candidates,” he said. “What if Bernie Sanders or Hillary Clinton announced on November 1, 2023, that they were running and filed the appropriate paperwork with the FEC. Would it be too late for their name to appear on the ballot? Could the party exclude them? This doesn’t seem very Democratic.” Williamson did appear on the 2020 presidential primary ballot in Florida, but has been excluded this year. That’s despite the fact that she polled last month at 13% in a Fox News survey, and 12% in an NBC News poll. She said last week that the only difference that she was aware of from four years ago is that she had appeared in two nationally broadcast presidential debates in the 2019-2020 cycle. There have been no Democratic presidential debates this year. Her campaign did not respond to a request for comment. Joe Biden leads in all national polls against his next closest Democratic Party competitors by nearly 60 percentage points, according to RealClearPolitics. [END] --- [1] Url: https://floridaphoenix.com/2023/12/08/decision-to-put-only-bidens-name-on-the-fl-ballot-in-march-2024-spawned-a-federal-lawsuit/ Published and (C) by Florida Phoenix Content appears here under this condition or license: Creative Commons CC BY-NC-ND 4.0. via Magical.Fish Gopher News Feeds: gopher://magical.fish/1/feeds/news/floridaphoenix/