Texas Representative Robert Alonzo (D-Dallas) has introduced HB 246. It would move primary elections from early March to early February, in all election years. Because the date of the Texas primary is tied to the deadline for petitions for both new political parties and for independent candidates (for office other than president) to submit petitions, those deadlines would become even earlier.
Existing law puts the new party deadline in late May, and the non-presidential independent candidate deadline in early May. If the bill is passed, those deadlines would be in April. That would give Texas the 2nd earliest petition deadline for new parties (except for states in which new parties must nominate by primary) in the nation. Only New Mexico, which has an early April deadline for new parties, would be earlier (again, except for states in which new parties nominate by primary).
The bill would also move the date on which independent candidates (other than president) must file a declaration of candidacy from January of the election year, to December of the year before the election. In some years, depending on the calendar, that deadline would even be in late November.
In Texas, larger parties nominate by primaries; smaller parties, including new parties, by convention. But the conventions are equivalent to primaries. Precinct conventions are held on the same date as the primary general election (parties that hold primaries also hold precinct conventions the evening of the primary general election). Would-be nominees must file at the same time whether they seek the nomination of a party that nominates by convention or one that nominates by primary.
While Texas does not have party registration, it restricts voters to participation in the nominating activities of a single party. If you participate in the Libertarian convention process, you can’t vote in the Republican primary or conventions, or vice versa.
What Richard Winger refers to as a “petition” for new parties, is actually a register of participants in the precinct conventions of the new party. Since Texas does not have party registration, it uses a count of participants in the nominating process to qualify new parties. Texas does permit this count to be supplemented for a period after the primaries/conventions. But signing the supplementary petition is an act of affiliation with a party.
So in reality, Texas should be judged on the same basis as States that require new parties to nominate by primary, except that it permits voters to affiliate at the same time and a bit later than the nominating activities.
It is stupid to hold a party primary in February or March or May, but that stupidity is not biased against new parties or independent candidates.