Key Points:

• 9th Circuit Court rules Arizona No Labels Party can run candidates

• Judge Mendoza said he prioritizes voter participation over party control

• Ruling affects 36,785 No Labels Party members in Arizona

Arizonans are free to run for any office they want under the No Labels banner — even if party officials don’t give permission.

In a new ruling Friday, the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals rejected arguments by attorneys for the party that it alone gets to decide in which races to participate. Judge Salvador Mendoza, writing for the unanimous panel, said Arizona’s interests in having people participate in the political process outweighs any burden on the No Labels Party to decide who gets to run.

Friday’s ruling most immediately benefits the 36,785 Arizonans who have registered with No Labels, a recognized political party in Arizona. Unless overturned, it ensures they can submit petitions to run for a variety of partisan political offices, from governor and members of Congress to the state Legislature.

The opportunity to run also may reinvigorate the party, whose registration was close to 19,000 before a federal judge ruled last year that party officials had the power to prevent registrants from seeking office in the party name.

The decision sets a legally binding precedent limiting the top officials from any recognized political party from keeping adherents from running under its banner. And that could prove important if Elon Musk follows through with his plans for his new America Party and gets ballot recognition in Arizona.

“The right to vote belongs to party members, not the party leadership, and that is where it will remain,” Mendoza wrote.

“No Labels attempts to assert top-down control by dictating who may be on its ballot,” he said. “But a party does not have monolithic control over its own members and supporters.”

There was no immediate response from officials of the No Labels Party.

The party was founded in 2009 with the stated goal of combating what it calls the “polarized political climate” that has led to the most prominent voices “often found the farthest from the center.” It had the specific goal of creating a “unity ticket” to run in the 2024 presidential race, if the two parties select unreasonably divisive presidential nominees.”

It submitted the necessary paperwork and gained ballot status in Arizona.

That, in turn, resulted in a half-dozen individuals filing statements of interest to run as No Labels candidates in various other races. The party then sued Secretary of State Adrian Fontes to keep their names off the ballot.

Fontes fought the lawsuit, arguing that the party’s “freedom of association ends where the fundamental political rights of others begin,” including the right to vote.

Last year, U.S. District Court Judge John Tuchi sided with the party, blocking Fontes from accepting any requests by any individual — including those registered with the No Labels Party — to be a candidate in the 2024 state primary election.

Fontes appealed.

In the new ruling Friday, Mendoza acknowledged that political parties have a First Amendment right to associate with whom they please.

“A party may limit its membership as it wishes and choose a candidate-selection process that will in its view produce the nominee who best represents its political platform,” the appellate judge wrote.

Still, he said, there are limits.

“When the state allows a political party to have a role in the election process, the state acquires a legitimate governmental interest in ensuring the fairness of the party’s nominating process, enabling it to prescribe what that process must be,” Mendoza said. And that, he said, is broad.

“Ensuring voter and candidate participation is undoubtedly a legitimate state interest,” the judge said.

But he said it goes beyond that, including eliminating fraud and corruption.

“To maintain the integrity of the political process, states may adopt election codes to remove party nominating decisions from the infamous ‘smoke-filled rooms’ and place them instead in the hands of a party’s rank-and-file, thereby destroying the corrupt alliance between wealthy special interests and the political machine,” Mendoza said. “One way to limit the opportunity for fraud and corruption is through a direct primary, which prevents party leadership from controlling nominating decisions, while promoting democratic decisionmaking.”

The appellate judges also brushed aside the claim by party officials that allowing people to run as No Labels candidates would interfere with their objective of focusing exclusively on selecting and promoting candidates for president and vice president.

“This objective appears illusory,” Mendoza wrote. He pointed out that even after gaining ballot status in Arizona — and elsewhere — for the 2024 election, it didn’t even run any candidates.

Anyway, the judge said, he doesn’t see any real burden on party officials who want to make clear in future elections that while candidates are running for multiple offices on the No Labels ticket, the party itself is only supportive of its nominees for president and vice president.

And there’s something else.

Arizona automatically sends out ballots to anyone who is on the state’s “active early voter list” and has made such a request. And in the 2024 primary, that included members of the No Labels Party.

The only thing is, what they got from Fontes was a blank ballot, as Tuchi’s ruling barred the secretary from including the names of those seeking to run for other offices under the No Labels banner.

“Arizona’s interest in avoiding voter confusion is legitimate, and the secretary’s action in accepting eligible candidates’ statements of interest serves to avoid such confusion,” Mendoza said.

“This interest is also compelling because … it is extraordinarily confusing to a party’s members to receive blank ballots even after the qualifying petition explained that the party would be represented on the ballot,” he continued. “Arizona’s election law is narrowly tailored to advance the interest of avoiding voter confusion because it prevents a situation where blank ballots are sent to voters, at least where there are willing candidates.”

This isn’t the first litigation involving the No Labels Party and its presence in Arizona.

The Arizona Democratic Party filed suit in 2023 to keep the party — and, more to the point, its candidates — off the 2024 ballot, Attorneys for the Democrats argued that No Labels did not meet the legal definitions of a party, citing among other things its refusal to disclose donors which is a requirement of all other parties.

But Maricopa County Superior Court Judge Katherine Cooper said that No Labels had met all the legal requirements to qualify for ballot status.

Correction: This article was updated to correct the number of No Labels Party members in Arizona.