New America First and Working People Parties certified following Nebraska Supreme Court decision

Two new political parties – the Nebraska Working People Party and the America First Party – were certified Wednesday by the Secretary of State following a ruling from the Nebraska Supreme Court.

The state’s high court issued a decision in two cases Wednesday: The Nebraska Republican Party’s challenge to the America First Party, and the Nebraska Democratic Party’s challenge to the Working People Party. Both major political parties sued Secretary of State Bob Evnen earlier this month in an attempt to stop him from certifying the new parties.

Lancaster County District Judge Darla Ideus rejected both challenges last week for different reasons. The Democratic Party did not make a timely objection to the Working People Party name, she said, and the Republican Party was incorrect in its assessment of Evnen’s broad authority to reject new parties to avoid “voter confusion.”

After a highly condensed appeal timeline, the Nebraska Supreme Court affirmed Ideus’ decision in both cases. Later on Wednesday, Evnen announced he certified both parties. The new parties must submit a party constitution and bylaws by Thursday, and have until Sept. 1 to submit candidate filing forms.

In its objection, the Nebraska Republican Party said the America First Party was intentionally named to confuse voters about the political persuasions of its sponsors. Evnen agreed that the name was confusing but said he lacked authority to disqualify it on those grounds. If allowed to do so by a court, Evnen said, he would disqualify the party.

Attorneys for the Nebraska Republican Party said the Secretary of State has “broad, implied” authority to reject party names that would cause voter confusion, even if that authority isn’t explicitly spelled out in statute. Lawyers representing the America First Party said it would be a significant First Amendment violation to allow the Secretary of State to unilaterally decide what would be “confusing” to voters.

The Nebraska Supreme Court agreed with Ideus’ decision that the statute does not allow Evnen that authority. The statutes guiding party names “are clear and are not open-ended,” the Supreme Court said, and they do “not give a general power to the Secretary of State to refuse to permit circulation of a new-party-formation petition or to determine the petitions and signatures invalid because the name… might create voter confusion.”

“[The statute] is not ambiguous, and we cannot read into it grounds for refusing a new political party formation that simply are not there,” the court said in the opinion.

In the other case, Democrats alleged that the Working People Party name violates a statute that says the name of a new political party “shall not be or include the name of any political party then in existence or any word forming any part of the name of any political party.” New parties also cannot include the word “independent” or “nonpartisan.”

Democrats said the Working People Party’s use of the word “working,” which is already in use by the national Working Families Party, ran afoul of that statute. The Working Families Party joined in the Democrats’ lawsuit and said certifying the Working People Party would cause it reputational damage.

Ideus did not address the merits of that challenge because she found that the Democratic Party and Working Families Party did not object to the name in time. Statute says objections to a new political party’s name must be made “in writing within seven days after the filing deadline.” Though a specific filing deadline is not mentioned in that statute, the text says objections should be made “in the same manner as objections to a candidate filing form.” The filing deadline identified for candidate filings is July 15.

Attorneys for the Nebraska Democratic Party and Working Families Party argued that the July 15 deadline was just one of four possible “filing deadlines.” But Ideus disagreed, finding that the July 15 date was the only applicable filing deadline. Because the objection wasn’t filed until Aug. 9, the court has “no authority to grant relief to a party that has not met those strict deadlines,” Ideus said.