Kentucky state law is making it even more difficult for Libertarian or other third-party candidates to run for office.
Under a law enacted in 2003, any third-party or independent candidates have until April 1 to file a "statement of candidacy," saying which office they are planning to run for.
"We have to file a statement of candidacy for all of our candidates now, when we haven't even held our state convention yet," said Greg Holmes, vice chair of the Kentucky Libertarian Party. "We won't have our state convention until the end of April."
The same goes for the candidates running for president and other nation-wide offices, said Dianne Pilcher at the Washington DC office of the National LP.
"They're asking for the name and statement of candidacy information from our presidential candidate, when we haven't even selected our candidate," Pilcher said.
The Libertarian candidate for president will be selected by delegates at the LP's national convention, scheduled for May 27-31 in Atlanta, Ga.
This new law was approved by the Kentucky General Assembly, and was ostensibly written to make elections more fair -- by preventing candidates from waiting until after other parties' primaries to file, and to keep them from targeting weaker candidates. It applies to all elections in the state.
Before this law was passed, independent and minor-party candidates did not have to advance their candidacies until the second Tuesday in August.
"This is absolutely destroying us for this election cycle," said Donna Mancini, the LP state chairman. "This is a time when there's great need for change and for different opinions. Why should I be treated any differently because I choose to associate with a group of people who are not Democrat or Republican?"
One of the biggest dangers posed to third parties by the law is that many potential candidates haven't made up their minds by April 1 whether to run, haven't raised the money they'll need for campaigns, and are still trying to determine whether others in their party may want to run for the same position, Holmes said.
"It's certainly a real danger to us," he said. "We've had a frantic attempt to get people to make this commitment this year."
The LP fielded 10 candidates for the 26 Metro Council seats that were on the ballot in 2002, and because of the new restrictions, will probably have only two candidates for the 13 council seats on the November ballot this year, Mancini said.
A bill pending in the legislature would exempt federal and nonpartisan elections from the law, but the state's lawmakers have only about two weeks remaining in their legislative session and there's no guarantee the proposed bill will be approved, Holmes said.
"This law is just another barrier to ballot access, and I would contend it was intentionally created by the two major parties to make it more difficult for us," he added.
