The Texas Democratic Party is suing to overturn a Texas law that Democrats passed back in the 1980s, News Radio 1200 WOAI reports.
The law mandates that political candidates who 'belong to the same party as the sitting governor' be listed first on the ballot. The Democrats say this law 'gives Republicans an unfair benefit in the 2020 elections.'
“For years, Republicans in the state of Texas have benefited from the unconstitutional advantage mandating that the party of the Governor is placed first on the ballot," Texas Democratic Party Chair Gilberto Hinojosa said. "For over twenty years, Republicans have used dirty tactics and tricks like ballot order to retain power."
Hinojosa said 'position bias' has been well documented to exist, giving the first candidate that the voters see an advantage.
"Position bias has been tested and widely acknowledged," he said. "In Texas, the Republican candidates have been and will be listed first on all of the state’s ballots. This has been the case since 1995, and as a result has given GOP candidates for federal, statewide and local elections over the last 24 years an arbitrary and unfair benefit that will continue through at least 2022, when the next gubernatorial election will take place."
Similar laws which exist in two other states, Georgia and Arizona, are also being challenged in federal lawsuits filed by Democratic organizations. The lawsuit is seen as part of the greater Democrat effort to break through in states which have been reliably Republican for the last quarter century or so
But Democrats felt differently when they controlled the governorship. The law allowing 'candidates in the same party as the governor' to be listed first on the ballot was passed in Texas in 1985, when Democrat Mark White was governor, and Democrats were in firm control of both chambers of the Texas Legislature.