The RTD is reporting that the SBE approved the RPV’s request to close the March 6 primary and require a loyalty oath be signed in order to participate.
The relevant code section allowing this is here.
But wait! The code says:
The requirements applicable to a party’s primary shall be determined at least 90 days prior to the primary date and certified to, and approved by, the State Board.
Given that the primary is March 6, it seems that would mean that this should have been done by December 6 or so.
So not only is it unenforceable, it seems to be illegal.
UPDATE: As NotCatherineCrabill mentions below, the Republican State Central Committee approved this at their meeting on December 3. Further, I am told that the SBE parses the sentence above to mean that the 90 days applies only to the party’s action, and not theirs. So while the oath remains unenforceable, it appears to be legal.
VIVIAN J. PAIGE | All Politics is Local 
If you like, I’ll be happy to be a test case and refuse to sign.
I intend to contact the SBE about this tomorrow. I want to know if my reading of the law is correct.
The Republican State Central Committee approved the loyalty pledge, with one dissenting vote, on December 3, more than 90 days prior to the March 6 primary.
Doesn’t matter when they approved it, the oath is unenforceable and unAmerican. Just laugh in their face as you sign it, as I suppose many Dems looking to cause mischief by voting for Paul will.
I didn’t say it was enforceable. Finally getting party registration in Virginia would obviate the need for such things.
I think an enforcement challenge would be very interesting. On the spot, so to speak. Imagine being arrested for trying to vote.
I fail to understand why conservatives are so hot for party registration. My position is that it’s none of the government’s damn business what party anybody belongs to. Also, it’s my impression that most people …not full-time politics junkies…don’t really have fixed party loyalties, they swing back and forth. By requiring party registration you disenfranchise those people in choosing the nominees.
As a staunch conservative, my position is that it is also “none of the government’s damn business” whether or not you are married, who you’re married to, or even how many you are married to. Nor is it the government’s business how many children you have, how much money you make, whether you even make any money, who you rent your property to, who you hire, who you fire, what stocks you own, what charities you contribute to, how many guns you own, what guns you own, or whether you allow your children a taste of your wine at dinner.
Frankly, the government should not be paying for party primaries, either. Neither should it pay for thousands of other things on which it wastes our money.
We agree on something. When the Tea Party goes off on one of its rants about “unconstitutional government”…I always wonder why they don’t protest the most unconstitutional part of all, that the parties…which in constitutional terms are nothing but private social clubs…have so much influence in government. The Congress organizes itself around the two private social clubs. People are proposed and nominated for federal jobs where they are supposed to the servants of all the citizens, based on their belonging to one of the two private social clubs. The Founding Fathers… when the weren’t busily creating parties and factions…warned us of the dangers that parties and factions create.
This goes to our having these Congressional Districts, which are not required by the Constitution, in which we have winner-take-all elections. That essentially necessitates only two parties, since a third would take votes away from the party it was more closely affiliated. Kill the districts, and the two-party system ends.