REFORM PARTY OF CONNECTICUT v. BYSIEWICZ, 254 Conn. 789 (2000)

760 A.2d 1257

(SC 16383)Supreme Court of Connecticut

Syllabus
On a complaint of an election dispute involving the refusal of the secretary of the state to place on the November 7, 2000 general election ballot any nominees of the Reform Party for the offices of president and vice president of the United States, brought, pursuant to statute (§9-323), to the Chief Justice as a Justice of the Supreme Court, held:

1. The presidential and vice presidential candidates of the Reform Party were Patrick J. Buchanan and Ezola Foster; as required by statute (§ 9-452), their nominations had been certified by the national chairman of the party, who, under the party’s constitution, served as presiding officer of the national nominating convention, and an attempted ouster of that individual during the convention was unsuccessful owing to the undisputed failure to follow procedures specified in the party’s constitution.

2. The selection by the state Reform Party of electors to vote for candidates other than Patrick J. Buchanan and Ezola Foster was a nullity, electors being required by statute (§ 9-176), to vote for the presidential candidate nominated by their party, and the state party being restricted, by its own rules and by state law, to submitting names of electors required to vote for nominees of the national party; an emergency meeting called by the vice chairman of the state party to select electors for Buchanan and Foster was made necessary by time constraints and the action of the defendant D, the state party chairperson, in certifying electors to vote for other candidates.

Heard September 18-20
Officially released October 30, 2000[*]

Procedural History
Action for an order directing the named defendant to certify certain candidates as electors for the office

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of president of the United States on the ballot for the national election of November 7, 2000, and for other relief, brought, pursuant to General Statutes § 9-323, to Francis M. McDonald, a Justice of the Supreme Court, who conducted a hearing on the complaint.

Loughlin, Fitzgerald, Kamp, Henrici, Molloy and Reed, P.C., for the plaintiffs.

Richard Blumenthal, attorney general, and Gregory T. D’Auria, assistant attorney general, for the named defendant.

Law Offices of Karen Lee Torre and Beck and Eldergill, for the defendant Donna Donovan.

Opinion
MCDONALD, C.J.

This is a complaint brought by the plaintiffs, the Reform Party of Connecticut and Floyd Atchley, against the defendants, Susan Bysiewicz, the secretary of the state, and Donna Donovan, claiming that the secretary of the state improperly refused to place upon the November 7, 2000 election ballot any nominees of the Reform Party for the offices of president and vice president of the United States.

The undersigned heard this matter under the authority of General Statutes § 9-323.[1] I conclude that, for

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purposes of General Statutes § 9-175,[2] the presidential

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and vice presidential candidates of the Reform Party of the United States are Patrick J. Buchanan and Ezola Foster, and that those candidates and the presidential electors to vote for them should appear on the November 7, 2000 Connecticut election ballot.[3]

This dispute concerns the national convention of the Reform Party of the United States held on August 10 through 13, 2000, at Long Beach, California. At the convention, factions of the party were deeply split between the candidacies of Buchanan and John Hagelin for the office of president of the United States. Challenges to the credentials of certain delegates and a fractious preconvention national committee meeting resulted in the departure from the meeting of a minority of national convention delegates who favored Hagelin. Those leaving included a number of Connecticut delegates and Donovan, the Connecticut Reform Party chairperson. Those delegates convened in another room, and the members of the National Committee in their number

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voted to remove Gerald Moan as national party chairman and to install James Mangia in that post. At the time that the convention was called and at the inception of the national committee meeting, Moan was the national chairman of the national Reform Party.

On August 13, 2000, the delegates who had left the national committee meeting held a meeting presided over by Mangia and nominated Hagelin and Nat Goldhaber for president and vice president of the United States, respectively. The remaining national convention delegates under the chairmanship of Moan proceeded with the convention and on August 13, 2000, nominated Buchanan for president and Foster for vice president.

Following these events, the Connecticut Reform Party, with Donovan presiding, met on August 27, 2000, and nominated presidential electors pledged to vote for Hagelin and Goldhaber. Donovan then submitted to the secretary of the state a certificate naming those presidential electors, together with Mangia’s certification of Hagelin and Goldhaber’s nomination on August 13, 2000, at the national convention.

The secretary of the state informed the Buchanan faction that the party would be required to file its certificates of nominations by September 1, 2000. Connecticut vice chairman Ernie Lacore then called a convention for August 31, 2000. At that convention, those attending first voted to remove Donovan and then replaced her with Atchley. They then nominated presidential electors pledged to vote for Buchanan and Foster. On September 1, 2000, Atchley certified to those nominations and also filed Moan’s certification of Buchanan’s and Foster’s nominations at the August Long Beach national convention.

The secretary of the state, having received two certifications of nominees for presidential and vice

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presidential electors from the Reform Party, refused to place either set of nominees on the ballot.

The overriding consideration of this tribunal is to avoid engaging in deciding political questions while at the same time attempting to ensure that a national political party may present to the electorate its chosen candidates.

I
The euphemistically described “boisterous” disunity within the national Reform Party, detailed in Reform Party of the United States v. Gargan, 89 F. Sup.2d 751 (W.D.Va. 2000), was evident at the 2000 national convention. I conclude, nevertheless, that, for purposes of General Statutes § 9-452, there was a Reform Party nominating convention in Long Beach, California, which duly nominated Buchanan and Foster for president and vice president of the United States.

Under the constitution of the national Reform Party, the national chairman is the presiding officer of a national convention. See Reform Party of the United States v. Gargan, supra, 89 F. Sup.2d 754. I reject Donovan’s argument that Moan was removed from his office by a vote of the national committee. Article XII of the constitution of the national Reform Party provides that “[t]he rules contained in the current edition of Robert’s Rules of Order, Newly Revised shall govern” the national convention. The constitution further provides that the national committee serves under the national convention. Robert’s Rules of Order, Newly Revised, provides that “any regularly elected officer of a permanent society can be deposed from office for cause — that is, misconduct or neglect of duty in office — as follows. . . . If . . . the bylaws provide that officers shall serve only a fixed term, such as `for two

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years’[4] . . . an officer can be deposed from office only by following the procedures for dealing with offenses by members outside a meeting; that is, an investigating committee must be appointed, it must prefer charges, and a formal trial must be held.” (Emphasis in original.) Robert’s Rules of Order, Newly Revised (1981) § 60, p. 555. There is no dispute that the anti-Buchanan faction of the national Reform Party convention did not follow these procedures.[5] Since Moan’s attempted ouster as national chairman was not in compliance with those rules, he remained the presiding officer of the national convention.

The Connecticut election laws require the secretary of the state to mail to each town clerk a list of all duly elected nominees of a minor party, such as the national Reform Party, upon receipt of a certificate from the presiding officer of the nominating convention.[6] Because Moan was the presiding officer of the Reform Party national convention, his certification is controlling. I accordingly conclude that Buchanan and Foster are the nominees of the national Reform Party.

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Questions raised by Donovan concerning the make-up of the convention, the resolution of challenges to delegates and procedures of the convention are political questions left for the party to resolve. They may not be resolved by the courts. It is well established that, whenever possible, the internal determinations of a national political party are governed by the party and its rules and regulations, not by the intrusion of the court or the state. In Reform Party of the United States v Gargan, supra, 89 F. Sup.2d 760, the United States District Court asserted that “[c]ourts are traditionally reluctant to interfere with the internal operations of political parties. Irish v Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party of Minnesota, 399 F.2d 119, 120 (8th Cir. 1968), citing Lynch v. Torquato, 343 F.2d 370 (3d Cir. 1965). Specifically, with regard to the credentialing of delegates the national party determines whether a state’s delegates are seated at a national party convention. See Democratic Party of United States v. Wisconsin, 450 U.S. 107, 126, 101 S.Ct. 1010, 67 L.Ed.2d 82 (1981); see als Cousins v. Wigoda, 419 U.S. 477, 489, 95 S.Ct. 541, 42 L.Ed.2d 595 (1975) (holding that the First Amendment protected the party’s right to determine the composition of state delegations). Ultimately, `the proper forum for determining intra-party disputes as to which delegates shall be seated’ is the convention itself. O’Brien v. Brown, 409 U.S. 1, 4, 92 S.Ct. 2718, 34 L.Ed.2d 1 (1972), vacated as moot, 409 U.S. 816, 93 S.Ct. 67, 34 L.Ed.2d 72, 73 [1972]; see also Irish [v. Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party of Minnesota, supra, 120] (`the attitude [of the courts] has been one of reluctance and of willingness to have the challenged body initially given the opportunity to attempt to reorganize itself’).”

II
Our federal constitution provides that the president and vice president of the United States are not chosen

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by direct popular vote. The constitution employs an electoral college composed of electors chosen from each state according to state law. U.S. Const., art. II, § 1. In Connecticut, those electors are chosen “to vote for” the candidate nominated by their political party. General Statutes § 9-175.[7] Once selected, they are required by law to vote for those nominees. General Statutes § 9-176.[8]

The Connecticut Reform Party on August 27, 2000, nominated presidential electors to vote for Hagelin and Goldhaber, not Buchanan and Foster. Because Buchanan and Foster are the nominees of the national Reform Party, the August 27 nomination by the Connecticut Reform Party of electors to vote for Hagelin and Goldhaber was a nullity.

Donovan argues that the August 31, 2000 meeting, called by Lacore, was not a proper nominating convention for electoral college members because of lack of timely and complete notice to all Connecticut Reform Party members. She also argues that since there was no notice to her that her removal as chairperson would be sought, she remained state party chairperson. She further claims that because she did not participate in that meeting, the nomination of presidential electors at the meeting was invalid. I conclude that Donovan was not removed as chairperson at the meeting on August 31, 2000. The same procedural defects with respect to the attempted removal of the national chairman, Moan,

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pertain also to the attempted removal of Donovan.[9] I conclude, however, that the nomination of the presidential electoral college members at the August 31, 2000 meeting, was valid.

By its own party rules and under Connecticut law, the state party was restricted to submitting names of electors required to vote for the nominees of the national party. The Connecticut Reform Party is directly affiliated with the Reform Party of the United States. State Party Rules of Connecticut Reform Party, art. I, § 2. The rules of the Reform Party of Connecticut provide that “[t]he Presidential and Vice Presidential candidates of the Reform Party of Connecticut shall be the Reform Party of the U.S.A. candidates for President and Vice President selected at the Reform Party U.S.A. national nominating convention. To this end, the Reform Party of Connecticut shall take all necessary steps to cause the names and addresses of these candidates to be certified to the State of Connecticut as provided by Connecticut law, and to otherwise ensure that the names of these candidates appear for these offices on the general election ballot in Connecticut.” State Party Rules of Connecticut Reform Party, art. IV, § 4. Section 9-175 (a) authorizes the secretary of the state to prepare a ballot for the election of presidential electors “if any political party has nominated candidates for President and Vice President of the United States, and presidential electors to vote for such presidential and vice presidential candidates. . . .” (Emphasis added.)

The time constraints and Donovan’s actions made it necessary for Lacore to assume the function of state chairperson in an emergency; see Reform Party of the United States v. Gargan, supra, 89 F. Sup.2d 751; and

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to call a convention. At that convention, in the same manner Atchley functioned as the presiding officer and properly certified to the secretary of the state the selection of electors to vote for Buchanan and Foster. Because of the restrictions upon the state party, and the consequences of failure to follow the will of the national convention, I conclude that the secretary of the state should place those electors on the ballot for the November 7, 2000 election. To hold otherwise would be contrary to the very concept of national elections of nominees of national political parties, and would create election anarchy.