By Steve Brawner, © 2019 by Steve Brawner Communications, Inc.

There are few encouraging weeks for Americans who don’t fit into the two-party system. Last week was at least interesting.

On July 3, District Judge Kristine Baker issued a preliminary injunction blocking enforcement of a new law that makes it harder for third parties to qualify for the Arkansas ballot.

The injunction means the law won’t take effect while Baker considers the case’s merits. It was brought by the Libertarian Party, the state’s only really active third party.

Under previous law, parties have qualified for the ballot if they won 3% in the preceding presidential or gubernatorial election. Otherwise, they’ve had to collect 10,000 valid signatures over a 90-day period.

The Libertarians fell just short of that 3% in the 2018 governor’s race, so they must collect signatures for 2020. A few months later, legislators and the governor passed Act 164. It increased the required number of signatures to 3% of the votes cast in the last gubernatorial election. The Libertarians would have to collect 26,746 valid signatures in 90 days rather than 10,000. They sued, and meanwhile on June 28 submitted 18,667 signatures to the secretary of state’s office.

Collecting signatures is hard and costly. People don’t like to sign a political document for a stranger. Only registered voters can sign. Many signatures turn out to be invalid.

Republicans sponsored Act 164, which passed with mostly Republican support, though some were opposed. A few Democrats voted for it.

This was mostly about politics. Republicans control all the state’s congressional and state offices and three-fourths of the Legislature. But they don’t want a Democrat to win a close race somewhere because some people who might have voted for the Republican instead vote for the Libertarian. So they made it harder for Libertarians to qualify.

The thinking is that Libertarians want a much smaller government, so they take votes from Republicans, who often say they want smaller government. But Libertarians also have some “liberal” stances, so they take some votes from Democrats, too. And they probably attract some people to the polls who otherwise wouldn’t vote at all.

Act 164 might be needed if ballots were crowded with long lists of candidates. Instead, the opposite is true. In 2016, three of Arkansas’ incumbent congressmen would have been unopposed were it not for Libertarians. Last November, without Libertarians, voters wouldn’t have had a choice in three state Senate races and five state House races. Meanwhile, more than half the state House races had an unopposed candidate.

Baker’s injunction was issued July 3. On July 4, U.S. Rep. Justin Amash, R-Michigan, announced in the Washington Post that he is quitting the Republican Party.

Amash has gained notoriety as one of Congress’ most conservative and thrifty members. In the last Congress, he voted to cut spending more than any other representative, according to the Coalition to Reduce Spending at spendingtracker.org.

But what’s really attracted attention are his criticisms of President Trump. Amash, who said he was one of the few members of Congress who actually read the Mueller report, is the only Republican congressman to call for Trump’s impeachment.

I don’t want Trump to be impeached. But I do want Congress to do its constitutional duty to check and balance the president, regardless of the president’s party.

In the Post, Amash wrote that the two-party system has become “an existential threat to American principles and institutions.” He wrote that Republicans and Democrats “value winning for its own sake, and at whatever cost.” Congress, he said, “exists as little more than a formality to legitimize outcomes dictated by the president, the speaker of the House and the Senate majority leader.” He quoted President George Washington’s Farewell Address warning of the dangers of partisanship.

Trump responded by tweeting that Amash is “one of the dumbest & disloyal men in Congress” and called him “A total loser!”

Amash’s presidential criticisms had already gotten him in trouble with his own party. He faced a Republican primary battle next year he probably would have lost. Had he kept his mouth shut and walked the party line, he would have been safe.

There’s talk of him running for president as a Libertarian in 2020. If he wins 3% of the vote in Arkansas, the party won’t have to collect signatures to qualify for 2022.

That’s assuming legislators don’t try to change the law again.

Steve Brawner is a syndicated columnist in Arkansas. Email him at brawnersteve@mac.com. Follow him on Twitter at @stevebrawner.