A bill that would raise the bar for third party candidates to be eligible for placement on election ballots appeared to lack support as lawmakers debated it Wednesday night, prompting the Republican bill author to postpone the measure to next year, killing it.

House Bill 4416 would require a party's candidate to get at least 10% in any statewide race to be guaranteed a slot on the next election's ballots without needing to gather petition signatures. Currently, a party’s candidate must receive at least 5% of the vote in any statewide race or 2% in a gubernatorial election to earn slots on the next election's ballots.

The Texas Libertarian Party is the only third party that has recently met the 5% threshold. It has only reached the 10% threshold in recent statewide elections in which no Democrat has run.

Rep. Mayes Middleton, R-Wallisville, said his bill would ensure that candidates on the ballot have been selected by primary voters.

"Right now, 5%, you're seeing a lot of situations where in the third party conventions, there's really not much voter input," Middleton said. "When you have a handful of people at a local restaurant picking someone to be on the ballot, that's a lot different than how we all got here. We got here by running in party primary elections and having to go out and earn a lot of votes to get on the ballot as our party nominee."

The Libertarian Party chooses its candidates in conventions rather than in primaries.

Rep. Celia Israel, D-Austin, said the 10% threshold felt arbitrary. Middleton noted that Georgia and Alabama have thresholds at 20% while New Jersey and Virginia have thresholds at 10%. Wes Benedict, former executive director of the national Libertarian Party and of the Texas Libertarian Party before that, pointed to the lower number of signatures parties need to reach in states smaller than Texas to earn a place on the ballot.

"Third parties in New Jersey and Virginia can get a single candidate without a whole lot of money and signatures," Benedict said. "It’s not like what it would be in Texas."

If a party does not reach the vote percentage threshold, then that party must get a number of signatures greater than 1% of the total votes cast in the previous gubernatorial election minus the number of party convention attendees.

Rep. Travis Clardy, R-Nacogdoches, told the House he would vote against the bill because third parties throughout history have maintained a balanced spectrum of opinions, especially when Americans feel "a real antipathy" toward major parties like he said they do today.

"Those third party movements have forced the institutional parties to address an issue that they could otherwise ignore," Clardy said. "They were unsuccessful in getting elected, but they were successful in moving the mean and focusing attention in a creative way on issues in that moment."

He added that it was a bad look for one party to make a move to shut out minor parties, particularly without bipartisan support.

Benedict raised the specter of primary challenges from Libertarians.

"Do they want us to invade the Republican Party and fight them there?" Benedict said. "We’re not Republicans or Democrats. We don’t want to join one or the other."