ST. PAUL, Minn. (CN) — The Minnesota Supreme Court could revoke major-party status for the state’s Legal Marijuana Now party, ending the group’s six-year stint as a thorn in the side of the state Democratic and Republican parties.
At oral arguments Tuesday morning, the party argued that Minnesota’s requirements for major-party status are unconstitutionally burdensome.
Legal Marijuana Now is Minnesota’s smallest “major” party. It attained that status in 2018 after its candidate for state auditor, Michael Ford, received 5.28% of the vote.
Major parties in Minnesota enjoy various benefits: they are qualified to receive campaign subsidies under state income tax checkoffs, can issue political contribution refund receipts, can have their members appointed as election judges and their candidates are chosen in state primaries.
Most relevantly to political opponents, they also have a guaranteed spot on ballots in state elections, meaning that a candidate running with Legal Marijuana Now need not file a nominating petition to be placed on the ballot.
Democratic Farmer Labor Party chair Ken Martin petitioned for revocation of Legal Marijuana Now’s major-party status early in February 2024, arguing that the group had not only failed to keep up the required 5% vote totals but had not fulfilled other requirements of major parties, particularly a collection of requirements passed last year.
These largely require major parties to imitate the structure of the Democratic Farmer Labor Party and of the GOP, dictating that major parties place “final authority” over their affairs in the hands of a convention, to be held at least once every state general election year. The requirements also say that the convention may delegate management of the state party’s affairs in a central committee and that the central committee can further delegate administration of the party’s affairs to a state executive committee; and that the party must file a copy of its constitution with the secretary of state.
Attorney for the party, Erick Kaardal of the firm Mohrman, Kaardal & Erickson, argued Tuesday that these requirements infringed on free speech and free association rights.
“I think the state legislature didn’t even really think about free speech rights, associational rights, didn’t think about tailoring it, and they just created a compliance requirement,” he said.
“Look how your proceeding turned out,” Kaardal continued, referencing a process in which a referee appointed by the Supreme Court recommended the party’s decertification.
Tuesday’s arguments concerned Legal Marijuana Now’s motion to disregard those findings and dismiss Martin’s petition.
“It really was just a big search through the LMNP’s internal affairs ... From my client’s perspective, that these are unconstitutional, it’s a little bit of a star chamber,” Kaardal said.
Kaardal’s argument followed those of David Zoll, who argued in favor of the party's decertification on behalf of Martin, and Assistant Attorney General John Woodruff, who defended the statutes’ constitutionality on behalf of Secretary of State Steve Simon.
Both argued that Minnesota’s law was less restrictive than that upheld in the 1979 U.S. Supreme Court case Marchioro v. Chaney, which required major political parties to establish state committees with two representatives from each county in the state.
The requirements, Woodruff said, were a bare minimum.
“It’s certainly possible that if we all sat down and came up with alternative methods for advancing these interests, we could,” he said. “In my mind, the 202(a)(1)(2) requirements are more of a requirement that [the Secretary of State’s office] understand that the party has the minimum sort of organizational structure required to ensure active participation in the electoral process.”
He pointed out that even without major-party status, Legal Marijuana Now candidates would have access to the ballot and the benefits afforded to minor parties in Minnesota. For the party to raise an equal, protection argument, he said, they would have to show that that status made it harder for an individual to make it onto the ballot.
“That argument would presume that winning a state primary election is easier than getting five hundred, six hundred signatures on a nominating petition,” he said.
Zoll, meanwhile, pointed out that even if the court did find some of the requirements of the statute to be unconstitutional, Legal Marijuana Now had failed to meet any of them.
“[LMN] could have read the statute when they became a party in 2018, and complied with the statutory requirements … that had been in place in Minnesota for … nearly 4 decades,” he said, adding that they had failed to do so. “So long as one of those [requirements] is constitutional, this court must rule that they are not a major political party.”
Legal Marijuana Now’s major-party status has been troublesome for the Democratic Farmer Labor Party.
In the years since 2018, Minnesota Democrats have largely adopted a pro-marijuana stance, and Democratic majorities in the House and Senate sent a legalization bill to Democratic governor and outspoken cannabis booster Tim Walz’ desk last May.
Legal Marijuana Now candidates did not notch any victories in 2020 or 2022, but the Democratic Farmer Labor Party’s adoption of pro-marijuana stances have not stopped them from campaigning — and seeing repeated untimely candidate deaths — in the highly competitive 2nd Congressional District. Candidates there and elsewhere for Legal Marijuana Now and the Grassroots-Legalize Cannabis party have reportedly been courted by Republican operatives in an effort to draw votes away from Democratic Farmer Labor candidates.
Organizational issues have also landed the party in the news. Recently, former Legal Marijuana Now national chairperson Krystal Gable was the party’s top vote-getter by a substantial margin in its Minnesota presidential primary, even after she said she was put on the ballot without her knowledge or consent and publicly encouraged voters not to vote for her.
Subscribe to Closing Arguments
Sign up for new weekly newsletter Closing Arguments to get the latest about ongoing trials, major litigation and hot cases and rulings in courthouses around the U.S. and the world.
Additional Reads
-
-
Pennsylvania AG race heats up in final primary push April 16, 2024