Several months ago, Paul Johnson, the former Phoenix mayor, and others in the open primary movement, took over the Arizona No Labels Party. The party was initially formed to potentially field a presidential ticket in 2024. In the event, a ticket wasn’t fielded.
The original party founders didn’t want to field candidates for other offices and, somehow, persuaded a federal district judge that it didn’t have to. So, even though the Arizona No Labels Party qualified for ballot access, there were no No Labels candidates in the 2024 election.
Subsequently, an appeals court reversed that and found, sensibly, that if the party has qualified for ballot access under state law then it has to follow what state law says that requires. Which includes holding a primary election to choose general election party nominees for all eligible offices.
The Arizona No Labels Party also has ballot access in 2026. The Johnson group actually wants to field candidates, focusing on providing a route to the general election ballot for pragmatic problem-solvers rather than the partisan brawlers the two major parties tend to offer up. So, a friendly change in management.
The Johnson group also wanted to change the name of the party. In a column, I floated the Arizona Independent Party as an apt name, reflecting both the intent of the party and the voters whom it wanted both to serve and attract. However, given grumblings about a possible legal challenge to a name change, I also opined that the existing name, No Labels, was also serviceable and communicated similar values and intent.
The Johnson group asked Secretary of State Adrian Fontes to approve a change in name to, yep, the Arizona Independent Party. Fontes approved the name change. And then, all political hell broke out.
The Arizona Clean Elections Commission and the Arizona Democratic Party have sued to prevent the name change from occurring. County recorders have asked Fontes to reverse his decision. The Department of Motor Vehicles has refused to make the change for its voter registration function. Gov. Katie Hobbs and her partisans are carping from the sidelines.
The complaint is, in part, procedural. The claim is that Fontes can’t just approve the name change. It has to occur through the Elections Procedures Manual, a turgid document that is supposed to be approved before each general election cycle by the secretary of state, the attorney general, and the governor. A draft of the manual is pending before the attorney general and the governor, and it refers to the No Labels Party. As does the last approved manual, which governs if a new one isn’t approved.
This procedural argument might have some merit, although I suspect at some point the party’s free speech and association rights would override it. However, the legal objections to the name change itself, as opposed to how it was approved, are overwrought and dubious.
There’s no doubt that what a party calls itself is a core exercise of the right to free speech and association. And political parties are private entities, with governing documents and governing bodies. There is no state law prohibiting a political party from changing its name. There’s no claim that the Johnson group wasn’t the current governing body for the No Labels Party when the name change was requested. Given all that, and alluding to these factors, Fontes approved the requested name change. Giving precedence to the party’s speech and association rights is, in my view, the right outcome.
The argument that having a political party with the word “independent” in it will create, in the words of the Clean Elections complaint, “mass voter confusion,” is a bit of legal hysteria. The mass confusion supposedly emanates from the custom of referring to unaffiliated voters as “independents” and a few statutes that refer to them as such.
If the No Labels Party becomes the Arizona Independent Party, nothing changes for the more than 1.5 million unaffiliated voters in Arizona. They remain unaffiliated with the ability to participate in a party primary of their choosing, although precious few exercise that ability. In fact, the only change would be that they would have one more party primary in which they could participate.
The commission and the Democratic Party cried some legal crocodile tears for the roughly 40,000 current No Labels registrants because they weren’t consulted about the name change. But there is no state law requiring political parties to make internal operating decisions through a plebiscite.
And things for this group of voters also only get better. In 2024, these voters couldn’t vote in any other party primary. They received a No Labels primary ballot. But it was blank. No candidates. If these voters don’t change their registration, they will also receive a 2026 primary election ballot, regardless of whether with the name of No Labels or the Arizona Independent Party. This time, however, assuming the Johnson group even partially succeeds, their ballot will actually have candidates on it.
Nothing about the name change would alter, or create confusion, about the meaning of the word “independent” in current statutes. It would mean the same thing it means now and everyone involved in election administration would know that.
There are only two possibilities for confusion, neither of them extensive or consequential.
One possibility is new registrants intending to register unaffiliated but mistakenly registering with the Arizona Independent Party. Guidance promulgated by Fontes in conjunction with approving the name change seeks to minimize that potential.
There isn’t actually an “independent” option on the Arizona voter registration form. It is just custom that voters who choose not to affiliate with any party are called that. On the printed voter registration form, only the Democratic and Republican parties are listed by name. Those wanting to affiliate with one of the other ballot-qualified parties have to check “other” and write in the name of the party. (Now there’s an equal protection challenge waiting to be filed.)
Under Fontes’s guidance, writing “independent” in that space would not result in the person being registered as having enrolled in the Arizona Independent Party. Instead, that person would join the unaffiliated ranks. There would have to be some indication that the new registrant intended to join the party, such as “IND Party.”
The only consequence to a new registrant mistakenly joining the Arizona Independent Party rather than being unaffiliated is that, for one election cycle, the person wouldn’t be able to vote in some other party’s primary. Unaffiliated voters who vote in the primaries tend to be pretty sophisticated. Exercising that right requires knowing of it, deciding which primary to participate in, and requesting that party’s primary ballot either through the mail or at a polling place. The number of new registrants stuck with an Arizona Independent Party primary election ballot when they intended to vote in some other party primary would likely be very small, and certainly not large enough to vitiate the free speech and association rights of the party to its preferred name.
The other possibility for confusion is if there is, in the same election for the same office, an Arizona Independent Party candidate and an unaffiliated independent candidate going directly to the general election ballot through statutes permitting that. However, the independent route to the general election ballot is daunting and vanishing few attempt it. Again, this won’t happen frequently enough to justify overriding the party’s free speech and association rights to its preferred name. Moreover, the distinction between an Arizona Independent Party candidate and an unaffiliated independent candidate isn’t that tough to discern. Or, on a general election ballot, that important of a distinction to discern.
The terms “independent” and “independence” reference fundamental American political values, similar to the terms “democratic” and “republican.” They should not be off limits to a political party that wants to associate itself with those values.
And in other states, they are not. According to Ballotpedia, there are nine states with ballot-qualified political parties with the word “independent” in their name. There are two more with “independence” in their name. Why should what is permitted in California, Florida, Nevada, Oregon, and Utah be forbidden in Arizona?
So, I think the No Labels Party should be able to change its name to the Arizona Independent Party. However, there is a tactical consideration regarding whether to press the issue for this election cycle.
While the party’s free speech and association rights should prevail over the overwrought objections raised in the lawsuits, the procedural issue involving the Elections Manual is a convenient, and tempting, way for judges to avoid getting to those weightier matters.
And then there is the distraction in time and resources. The long-term success of the party, whatever it ends up being called, lies with fielding quality candidates who offer a pragmatic problem-solving alternative and do decently when the votes are counted. Time and resources spent on anything else is a step backward.
Pursuing a name change could occur at the start of the next election cycle, when there would be plenty of time for any legal dust to settle before the next version of the Elections Manual is due.
This isn’t a recommendation. Just food for thought. And the Johnson group now has plenty of reason to treat my musings with caution.
Retired Arizona journalist Robert Robb opines about politics and public policy. Reach him at robtrobb@gmail.com. Please submit comments at yourvalley.net/letters or email them to AzOpinions@iniusa.org. We are committed to publishing a wide variety of reader opinions, as long as they meet our Civility Guidelines.
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