Decision will clarify rights of multiple-party candidates

By Yvonne Wenger
Reprinted from The Post and Courier

COLUMBIA — The future of candidates in South Carolina running under more than one party label will be decided after state Supreme Court justices rule on a case before them this week.

The American Civil Liberties Union is arguing the case on behalf of Eugene Platt, who tried to run in 2008 as a Green Party candidate for House District 115 after losing the Democratic Party nomination.

At odds in the case are South Carolina’s unusual election law that allows a candidate to represent more than one party on the ballot and the state’s “sore loser” statute that the Democratic Party said stops a candidate defeated for one party’s nomination from appearing on the ballot for another party.

The justices will hear the case at 9:30 a.m. Wednesday.

State Rep. Anne Peterson Hutto, a Democrat, represents District 115, and her seat in the Statehouse is not at stake. Action by the high court would provide clarity for future candidates.

Platt said he will run against Hutto for her seat in the 2010 election as a Green Party candidate.

Platt was denied a spot on the 2008 ballot after he lost the Democratic primary to Hutto. His case has been tied up in court since then.

“We’re optimistic, fellow Greens and I, that the state Supreme Court will rule on our behalf,” Platt said. “It is extremely gratifying that the preeminent institutional guardian of the Constitution, which is to say the ACLU, has taken up our case. Conversely, I can’t imagine the Democratic Party can be proud.”

A federal case on the same matter is pending before the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Richmond, Va.

The Charleston County Democratic Party, represented by local lawyer Truett Nettles, argues that the case comes down to a loyalty pledge that Platt signed when he sought that party’s nomination. The pledge states that the candidate agrees not to run in the general election against the Democratic nominee, Nettles said.

Platt said that he had the nominations from the Green Party and the Working Families Party prior to his bid in the Democratic primary. But, according to arguments in earlier court appearances, Platt first officially declared his candidacy as a Democrat.

Bryan Sells, senior staff counsel with the ACLU Voting Rights Project, said the case in state court is simple. Loyalty oaths long have been held to be unconstitutional, Sells said. The ACLU wants to protect the First Amendment, he said.

“His (Platt’s) defeat in the Democratic primary left the Green Party and Working Families Party without any candidate and it infringes on those parties’ First Amendment right,” Sells said.

Reach Yvonne Wenger at ywenger@postandcourier.com or 803-926-7855.