Washblog

Stop the Grange's Disinformation Campaign

Let's get things straight, a primary is a primary and a general is a general.

Primary elections - in THIS country - are elections where parties choose their candidates. Because we have two very large parties, it has been found to be in the public interest to run PARTY primaries with the same apparatus as GENERAL elections.

In Washington state, this has apparently caused hopeless confusion, resulting in wasted effort, disinformation and unconstitutional laws.  

Look, I am not a member of the Democratic party. I could be. I've been asked to join, even chided - many times - but I'm not. I'm not a member of any party (except the Italian Communist party, but only in spirit because I like their songs). Therefore, I do not expect to vote in any party primaries here in Washington state. I am happy with that because I love the Constitution.

When I lived in New Jersey, I was a registered Democrat for quite a while, and so every Summer I went to the polls and voted in the DEMOCRATIC PARTY primary. I didn't vote in the primaries of parties in which I was not a member. I never shed a tear about that, because I love the Constitution. In a state that was the Crossroads of the Revolution, we had long ago dropped the notion that declaring party affiliation was some sort of insult. Rather, we embraced it, and the underlying Constitutional principle of free association and did so many decades ago, like so many other states.

Out here in the Wild West of Washington, before it was tamed by the Constitution, the 9th Circuit, and, presumably, Wyatt Earp, you had Republicans voting in Green Party primaries, Democrats voting in Libertarian primaries - for all I know Italian Communists infiltrated the place. Why the anarchy? Apparently when you opened those voting booths on primary day in Cowboy Wasington, anybody who asked a fella what party he was a-votin' for got a belly full of lead.

Such was, it seems, the Code of the West.

But now the cowboy days are, sadly, behind us. No longer do the cokpokes come a-ridin' on in from the Palouse with six-guns on their hips, liquored-up, just itchin' to turn Primary day into the Battle at the OK Corral at a single question from a poll worker. That threat to public order gone - those Wild West days behind us - the 9th Circuit has gently asked (three times now) that the people of Washington state follow the Constitution like everybody else in America.

But apparenly that cowboy spirit lives on. The progeny of the men and women who tamed the Okanogan and the Cascades still reach for those six-guns as if for long-amputated limbs when they are asked for party affiliation. But let us view this as what it is: a vestigial reflex born of a time long-past. Yet politicians, always keen to stir up trouble and keep myths alive, have encouraged Washingtonians to believe that being made to declare party affiliation is still reason enough to smite each other with cap and ball. This is not so.

Gentle Washingtonians, read the Constitution and the decisions proferred by the 9th Circuit. Please realize that we no longer live in that Wild and Golden Age and have not for some time. Political parties all over America select candidates peacefully, every year. People happily pick parties - sometimes even donning a colorful button or cap to declare party affiliation - and there is no gun play. We need no longer placate the cowpokes of old.

Parties, with the Constitutional right to poll their members AND ONLY THEIR MEMBERS are going to select candidates. We can either help them make this selection process easily accessible to the great numbers of people who desire to participate, or we can make it solely the province of poorly-funded parties who will inevitably restrict that selection process to insiders and squeaky wheels.

In a system with so few parties, and therefore so few candidates, post-primary winnowing processes will be tragic, useless affairs - mere formalities used mainly to excise our small third parties from the democratic process. Yes, we may dream of bigger things. We may dream of a system of many parties. But a post-primary winnowing hardly seems a reasonable path to such a paradise of political choice.

No, these post-primary winnowings are security blankets and pacifiers for old-timers who cannot accept that the cowboy days are over and that now the Constitution reigns as supreme over the Palouse as it does over the bustling cities of the East (and we are a better people for it). Old timers who want to go to SOME election and not declare party affiliation are free to go to the general election. But these relics are only to be pitied and, sadly, forgotten. Let us turn our attention instead to the leagues of young Washingtonians who dream of open, accessible PARTY primaries, where all of THE MEMBERS OF A PARTY may participate with ease and convenience, using the apparatus of our general elections. Let us turn to the them, Gentle Washingtonians, and not to the mouldering relics and dead cowboys.

Let us turn to the future and not the past.

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Poll

Will Washingtonians drop this ridiculous notion that declaring party affiliation is bad...
...before they become a national laughing-stock?
...after they become a national laughing-stock?

Votes: 0
Results | Other Polls
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   But, as you plainly demonsrate, you have no idea how fond the people of Washington were of their former system. I'm not arguing with SCOTUS or the 9th circuit and nothing I've said indicates I don't accept the descision(s). I can even understand the logic.
   I'll go vote a party ballot in September. And, although cross-over voting was largely mythical, there is nothing stopping me from doing it next month, it's even tempting, I have no Democratic primary races and I can still vote for the judges with any of the three ballots.

   The recently declared unconstituional Grange initiative passed with over 60% of the vote and all three parties were working against it.

   And, a top-two non-partisan (lousist idea short of drawing straws) will likely pass muster, what ever you might think.

Dave Gibney Pullman

by gibney on Thu Aug 24, 2006 at 01:19:30 PM PST

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It's time for private nominating conventions.

Most primary elections around the nation produce a turnout of 30 to 40% if that. Can you imagine if an organization offered the same ballot initiative, year after year, that garnered those kinds of numbers?

But the conventional wisdom tells us that primary elections are important because they winnow the field of candidates thus protecting a political party from diluting its vote in the general. And partisan primary elections were devised as a way to cure corruption in politics. They were supposed to clear the air in the smoked filled rooms where kings were made.

Regardless of primary elections claimed utility, most voters stay away.

And they stay away for good reason. Too many general elections in our nation are uncontested or uncompetitive. And primary elections just exacerbate the problem. Voters face primary ballots with very few choices thus increasing the futility of participation.

Until 2004, Washington State had a blanket primary system. All candidates appeared on the same primary ballot, and the top vote getter from each party would advance to the general election. This system was deemed unconstitutional on free association grounds. And I believe rightfully so. Regardless, Washington voters loved the wide-open choices of this system.

I have worked toward increasing youth involvement in our democracy. I was shocked when I received my partisan ballots for the first time. There were practically no choices on the any of the party ballots. I never voted in closed primaries before. And I shuddered to think of the first time voters who wanted to try out democracy only to get ballots where the most races were uncontested.

Primaries have many more problems.

The state finances what are supposed to be the internal functions of private organization's. This is deemed legal because voters who choose a partisan ballot are effectively made members only by choosing a particular ballot. I believe this charade causes the freedom of association to suffer. Public partisan ballots sideline the party faithful, whose shared values drive them to regular meetings and events.

Also, a candidate, though never having attended a single local party meeting or event, can claim the moniker of that party when they file for office. This could confuse the public and harm the message of the political organization.

When the US Supreme Court Struck down the California Blanket Primary, Justice Scalia, in writing for the majority of the court, encapsulated the essence of political participation, "In no area is the political association's right to exclude more important than in the process of selecting its nominee. That process often determines the party's positions on the most significant public policy issues of the day, and even when those positions are predetermined it is the nominee who becomes the party's ambassador to the general electorate in winning it over to the party's views."

A local political association could give a candidate an official endorsement but with partisan primaries, the rank and file are relegated to mostly organizing picnic's and pancake breakfast's; hardly the ideal provided by the Court. Members volunteer their time while professional campaign consultants and media companies reap the financial yield of the election industry. And this all occurs while the overwhelming majority of primary voters stay home.

Low turnout primaries benefit motivated ideological minorities. In an election with only a 30% turnout, a little over 15% of voters can determine the winner of the election. With Gerrymandering that benefits a single incumbent party, this means the minority will carry the general election.

In the exception of a contested primary, rival candidates need to raise funds for two elections. This amplifies the influence of money in a campaign and only benefits the election industry.

And finally, primary's lack voter turnout but the cost to taxpayers is the same regardless.

I believe that if we stopped having primary elections, most voters wouldn't miss them. And I've said this enough to where I know what kind of response I will get. "But Krist, what about the party bosses and the smoked filled rooms?"

First off, I believe that if a voter is offended by a party that nominates its candidates in an occluded centralized fashion, that voter need not support that party. In contrast, a party that is transparent and decentralized could claim inclusiveness as an attribute to attract voters, along with its other policies.

People are recognizing the problems with primary elections. In my home state of Washington, we've been fighting over primary systems for years and still have not settled the issue.

I've voted in Blanket Primaries my whole life in Washington State. Even though they had many problems, the open choices of the Blanket Primary was very popular. Regardless the Washington Blanket Primary was unconstitutional foremost on Free Association grounds.  

But the Grange is only speaking to the frustrations of voters.  Let's not discount that - or pompously write off voters as ignorant.

I propose we go to a system of privately funded political nominations.

by knovoselic on Thu Aug 24, 2006 at 10:23:20 PM PST

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We're going to disagree on this topic, and the main reason for that disagreement is our concept of the purpose behind the primary.

<i>"Primary elections - in THIS country - are elections where parties choose their candidates"</i>

Herein lies the basic disagreement.  <b>States</b> (not the nation as a whole) run their election systems, and in this <b>state</b> we have always used the primary as a winnowing tool, rather than a tool to choose the party's candidate.

We like it that way, and the voters of this state have made their preferences known.  You are welcome to disagree, and there is a method available for you to make those changes, should you manage to convince the voters of this state that your system is better.  It is the initiative process.

The parties want to use the primary for the