Cory Chandler, taking a look at the DPVA Party Plan as well as the Code of Virginia, comes to that conclusion. He says that reading the two appears to “disqualify Senator Lambert from appearing on the Democratic primary ballot.” He actualy goes further:
Note that, as I submit it, Senator Lambert is disqualified to participate in the primary now, by operation of law. (He has not complied with his party’s rules, as the statute requires for his name to be printed on the ballot.) The party doesn’t have to actively expel him to disqualify him from the primary; it may simply decline to include him in the list of candidates submitted by the chairman of the Ninth Senatorial District Democratic Committee to the SBE under Sec. 24.2-527(A). (And an argument could be made, if someone had the right standing, that even if the chairman did list him as a qualified candidate, that the SBE could not include him anyway.)
Interesting. I think Cory may be on to something here. If Lambert cannot be on the ballot, then Don McEachin could very well be the nominee from the 9th by default.
Of course, Lambert could choose to follow in the footsteps of his good friend, Tom Moss, and run as an independent.
VIVIAN J. PAIGE | All Politics is Local 
Section 10.8 of the Party Plan, if you read Chandler’s post, has a due process requirement for removal of a member like Lambert who strays from the fold. There may be added requirements in the Richmond City Committee bylaws as well.
Lambert would almost certainly appeal to the State Board of Elections and then the courts if he followed the technical requirements for primary filing and was omitted. He is not Lyndon LaRouche; he is the party’s incumbent elected official, and has been for over 20 years. The courts are going to take a very different view of the party’s wish to dissociate itself, given the explicit due process requirement. Any attempt by the 9th Senate District Committee to pull a fait accompli without the Richmond City Committee going through the formal removal process first would surely fail.
Don’t think that the GOP hasn’t been down this path before… though with the new ruling, you can certainly keep Republicans out of the decision making process, the incumbents still get to choose their method of nomination. It will be left up to his district committee to determine precisely whom can participate in that method of nomination (at least, that’s how I have had recent events explained).
I’m going to be perfectly honest here: the DPVA bylaws are not my forte, and I’m not the best person to give them a reliable interpretation (not least because I have only read the section Mr. Wilmore provided). However, standing squarely in the shoes of an objective, impartial observer with what facts and provisions available to me as I noted in my post, I would say this: “Such action” at the beginning of the third sentence of the section refers back to the removal from office mandated by the second sentence. (And the office here is the membership in the party committee, not the membership in the Senate of Virginia or the “office” of being a Democratic incumbent or candidate.)
Those two sentences, coupled with the fourth (the district committee), make removal a ministerial act: Once the committee finds that the individual has “publicly endorse[d], support[ed], or assist[ed] any candidate opposed to a Democratic nominee,” the individual shall be removed. The only question within the discretion of the committee(s) is whether the individual publicly E, S, or Aed, not whether or not an individual who has publicly E, S, or Aed will actually be removed.
I doubt that there’s an argument that Senator Lambert did not publicly E, S, or A George Allen that would pass the straight-face test.
Finally, my contention remains that, by operation of the first sentence of Section 10.8 and Va. Code Ann. Sec. 24.2-525, Senator Lambert cannot appear on a primary ballot as a candidate for the Democratic nomination next year. The first sentence is independent from, and operates with different effect to, sentences two, three, and four. The first sentence states the party rule; Senator Lambert violated the rule; by operation of law, he may not be listed on the primary ballot. That requires no act by the party.
(Presumably, the party could intervene and say that it does not consider Lambert to have violated the rule (i.e., that he did not E, S, or A George Allen), but the relevant committees (Richmond, Henrico, and Charles City, which encompass the 9th Senate District and whose chairmen would, at least on the Republican side, constitute the Ninth Senatorial District Committee) do not presently seem to be inclined to do so.)
There is, therefore, no fait accompli. The chairman of the Ninth Senatorial District Committee merely fails to certify to the SBE that Senator Lambert is qualified as a candidate for the Democratic nomination, pursuant to Sec. 24.2-525. He doesn’t even have to tell the SBE why he considers Lambert unqualified, as far as I know. (Lambert could have, for example, failed to file the right number of petitions, or a declaration of candidacy, or the filing fee. Each of those is as much a requirement of qualification as party rule compliance, and they’re all filed with the committee chairman.)
I don’t dount that Senator Lambert would challenge denial of ballot access in court. But I don’t think he would win. The Code of Virginia is very deferential to parties, allowing them to set their own rules in Sec. 24.2-508, and requiring candidates’ compliance with those rules in Sec. 24.2-525. Lambert is certainly neither David Duke nor Lyndon LaRouche, but he is a candidate who violated party rules and, while not wholly on all fours, those two cases do give strong support to the proposition that the party can disassociate from a candidate who does that.
Of course, we’re analyzing this from Lambert’s perspective as a plaintiff, presumably seeking injunctive relief in federal district court under 28 U.S.C. Sec. 1983, enjoining the SBE from excluding him from the ballot. We could, for fun, analyze it from Don McEachin’s perspective as a plaintiff, if the Ninth Senatorial District Committee were to go ahead and allow Lambert on the ballot: McEachin presumably could file in state court, seeking to enjoin the SBE from including Lambert. (If both were filed at the same time, it would make a short Federal Courts exam question, but I’m talking about cases filed in the alternative, not two actions proceeding simultaneously.) Either way, I believe Lambert loses.
Mr. Kenney has unfortunately missed the subtlety–is Senator Lambert still a Democratic incumbent if he is expelled from the Democratic Party (at the appropriate committee level)?
The question, as I noted in my post, applies equally to Senator Potts in this go round, since he has not only not supported the Republican nominee for governor as required by Article I, Section A, of the State Party Plan, but actively run against the Republican nominee.
To my knowledge, no Republican committee has ever attempted to challenge the party status of an incumbent any more than a Democratic committee has. We’re not talking about mere ideological variations within the party here (as Potts has displayed for some time and Lambert has displayed rarely if at all); we’re talking about material violation of party rules. I don’t think 24.2-525 would work against John Chichester, because RPV doesn’t have an ideological test (the State Party Plan doesn’t even mention the Republican Creed, for example–if the Creed were even adequately unambiguous to constitute a test); I do think it works against Russ Potts, if he tries to run for the GOP nomination again.