Alex Law is boldly challenging the ultimate power that county political organizations have to relegate non-endorsed candidates to freeze-out status.
Now that your March Madness bracket has been shot to heck, let's discuss another group of brackets.
You can't lose any money with these brackets. But, if you're an upstart political candidate you could be severely disadvantaged.
Candidates in party primaries often attempt to align with slates of incumbents, or others are known to be familiar or popular in their party. Such candidates have the advantage of the "party line." They run under the same slogan or column as others endorsed by the county party organization.
One South Jersey congressional hopeful is challenging the status quo. Although no one can say how his lawsuit against Camden County's clerk will turn out, Alex Law deserves credit for focusing attention on the issue.
Law wants to wrest the Democrats' First District nomination from incumbent U.S. Rep. Donald Norcross. In addition to his incumbency, Norcross has an "in" as a member of one of South Jersey's most influential political families.
Law probably doesn't expect to get the line in Camden and Gloucester counties, which comprise the bulk of the district. State and federal court rulings since 1989 have backed the right of party committees to endorse one primary candidate over another, so Norcross will get the party line.
What Law is fighting against, however, is what he aptly describes as "ballot Siberia." Based on recent past practice, Law's name will appear way to the right edge of a horizontal ballot. Many voters won't even see his name, unless they're reading their ballots in Hebrew from right to left.
This is ballot mischief that has been facilitated by modern electronic voting systems that can run columns across a wide horizontal template. Similar mischief occurs in the fall general election, when independent candidates for a particular office can be listed far to the right of Column 1 or Column 2 Republicans and Democrats.
Specifically, Law alleges that Camden County Clerk Joseph Ripa, a Norcross-aligned Democrat, has "secret" procedures about bracketing that the clerk won't disclose to him. If Law runs with an alternate slate of county freeholder candidates, he still might be in Siberia. However, a full slate might move him to Western Siberia from Eastern Siberia, closer to the Democratic organization line.
Even the courts seem aligned against Law. His suit has an April 6 hearing date, two days after the April 4 ballot filing deadline. He's applied for a preliminary injunction order by March 31, which a judge should grant out of fairness.
The official Camden County response is that it's not the clerk's job to offer bracketing advice. Maybe so, but county clerks and their party machines should not have unlimited leeway to design ballots to inflict maximum pain on interlopers. To the extent that Law's lawsuit tests current practices - and could prompt reforms from the New Jersey Secretary of State's office - we wish him well.