HARLINGEN — Area businessman Star Locke can no longer sit on the sideline and watch this presidential election.
Actually, he has been trying to get into the game for months.
But the military veteran believes the game is “rigged” to benefit only those with money and power.
All he wants is to be listed on the ballot with his fellow military veteran Oliver North who he has invited to serve as his vice president and fight for veterans.
In the process, he believes he and North would be the type of commanders in chief current and former soldiers can believe in.
“As the days pass, the incompetence and the inability of the two major candidates to be president, and Lord help be the commander in chief, is obvious that neither one of them can do it,” he said in a phone interview Tuesday while working in Port Aransas.
The construction company owner, who calls himself a conservative Democrat, is currently in a federal court fight with the Democratic National Committee.
Locke has filed a pair of suits against the DNC, one was in May as an effort to be part of the DNC debates.
His most recent filing was made Oct. 12 to be placed on the ballot in each of the 50 states with the word “veterans” next to him and North’s names.
“What I really want is a ballot position,” he said. “All I ever wanted was to be on the ballot.”
But he hasn’t been able to make that happen.
So now he hopes the court system will “order” his name on each of the state’s ballots.
According to an NBCnews.com article, in order to have your name on the presidential ballot as an independent, a person needs to gather enough signatures on petitions in each of the 50 states to be on each of the ballots.
The article stated a whole lot of money is also needed.
States can require dozens of thousands of signatures and a filing fee. Some states are more difficult to get your name on the ballot than others.
“Each state has their own laws,” Locke said. “Some are easy and some are almost impossible to get on the ballot.”
In 2004, Ron Paul talked about the difficulty to get on the ballot and be a formidable candidate in the current political system.
In a statement around that time in the Congressional Record, Paul said that “supporters of the two-party monopoly regularly use ballot-access laws to keep third-party and independent candidates off ballots.
“Even candidates able to comply with onerous ballot-access rules must devote so many resources to simply getting on the ballot that their ability to communicate their ideas to the general public is severely limited.”
Locke believes the citizens of the United States need to hear from others who could make a difference.
“Let the people see how we stack up against the candidates,” he said about the process. “They (the DNC) wouldn’t allow it. We filed and the only way now is through a court order.”
Although it is a tremendous uphill battle, Locke has had one victory.
Although the DNC motioned to have his May lawsuit completely dismissed, U.S. District Judge Andrew S. Hanen left the door open for part of the claim continuing.
In an order, Hanen wrote Locke’s claims of violations of the First, Ninth, Tenth and Thirteenth Amendments were dismissed.
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