The full archives weekly newspaper of the Socialist Workers Party has been put online for posterity. A new post on Ballot Access News by Richard Winger had the story. According to the post, the party “has had more election law cases decided by the U.S. Supreme Court than any other minor party”. From the post:

The Militant, weekly newspaper of the Socialist Workers Party, can now be seen on-line for all issues 1946 through the present. See this link. In the near future, the issues from 1928 through 1945 will also be posted. The Militant is the only printed weekly newspaper published by a U.S. political party. Most parties that still have print publications only publish once per month, or less frequently.

Between 1969 and 1980, the Socialist Workers Party was the most active party in the U.S. challenging restrictive ballot access laws in court. The issues of The Militant for those years are a valuable resource for anyone researching the history of the fight against such ballot access laws. Leaders of the Socialist Workers Party established a separate pressure group called CoDel (Committee for Democratic Election Laws) to gain support for these lawsuits. Such lawsuits won against various laws in Arizona, California, Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Indiana, Louisiana, Michigan, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Texas, Washington, and West Virginia.

The Socialist Workers Party ran Alyson Kennedy for U.S. president and Osborne Hart for vice president in 2016. According to the party’s page at Rational Wiki:

The Socialist Workers Party in the U.S. party is historically Trotskyist but these days is better described as Castroist. Their party-affiliated book publisher, Pathfinder Press, publishes a number of titles by Malcolm X, who spoke at some SWP forums after his break from the Nation of Islam. They also publish English translations of many books by Fidel Castro and Che Guevara, as well as their newsletter The Militant.

About the party from their 2016 election material:

The capitalist economic crisis is battering workers and farmers in the United States and around the world. It’s a slow-burning global depression, and it’s working people who are paying the price. Alyson Kennedy and Osborne Hart, the Socialist Workers Party candidates for U.S. president and vice president, are discussing with workers on their doorsteps and on strike picket lines from small towns to big cities, from coast to coast, how we can organize to overturn the dictatorship of capital, which is at the root of the crisis.

The bosses throw job safety out the window as they impose speedup or slash hours to boost their profits. They scapegoat immigrant workers, seeking to drive down wages and divide the working class. Millions have no jobs, or temporary, part time work at minimum wage. Workers wages are stagnating.

The bosses try to convince us that they’re rich because they’re smart and we’re stupid. And they run the government because they say they know what’s best for us. They have unleashed a propaganda war against the working class, churning out articles saying things like, “the white American underclass is in thrall to a vicious, selfish culture whose main products are misery and used heroin needles. Donald Trump’s speeches make them feel good. So does OxyContin.”