Your humble servant has said from time to
time that political parties are a public nuisance. One reason for that is that
they distort the manifestation of the public will in our legislatures. The
mechanism for doing that is the primary election or caucus system.
Consider a group of people holding an
extreme political view. (I won’t say an extreme “right” or “left” view, since
that would only serve to obfuscate the point I’m trying to make.) Let’s suppose
the holders of this view are a quarter of the total population, but they comprise
a majority of a political party. We’ll call their view “Position X,” and the
political party they belong to “Party A.”
Now suppose there is a Party B, and that
the majority of the members of Party B hold to Position Y. But those who hold
to Position Y also comprise only a quarter of the total population.
Party A and B are the major political
parties, meaning they are the only two parties who have a meaningful electoral
chance in nearly every election. There are reasons for this, and they aren’t
solely because of partisan rigging. Everyone has political interests, and such
groupings rarely amount to a majority of the population. In order for these
interest groupings to have any impact on governmental policy, they must ally
themselves to one of the major parties.
Consider now that three-quarters of the
population oppose both Position X and Position Y. But because of their
particular interests, they must vote for Party A or Party B. In most states,
when they vote in the primary, they will receive either a Party A or a Party B
ballot. Because of the way those parties are made up, Party A will end up with
a candidate that supports Position X in the general election, and Party B will
have a candidate supporting Position Y. But if the majority of the population
had their preference, they would vote for a candidate who supported neither
position; the victorious candidate will be one that supports a policy favored
by only a quarter of the population.
Third parties have been one attempted
remedy for this situation. But they have not been successful for one very good
reason: they are a bad bet. An interest grouping has a chance to influence
public policy by being part of a major party. But if it throws in its lot with
a third party, it guarantees that it will have no influence on government
regardless of the outcome of the election. The choice is between having a 50%
chance versus having a 0% chance, and in that situation there is only one
rational decision.
The only solution is a non-partisan
blanket primary. Only three states use this method right now. It involves all
candidates appearing on one ballot at the primary stage, and, if no candidate
wins a majority, the two candidates with the most votes compete in a subsequent
run-off election. All of this is done without regard to party affiliation, and
two candidates from the same party can run against each other in the run-off.
Right now the practice appears to be that
candidates may indicate a party preference if they so wish in a non-partisan
blanket primary state. But they mean nothing other than that the candidate
self-identifies in that manner. One wonders what purpose allowing the practice
serves, since the reason for non-partisan blanket primaries is to make party
nominations irrelevant to the general election. It would be more in line with
the philosophy behind such an electoral system to keep party affiliations off
the ballot entirely.
The most pernicious aspect of partisan
politics is that it causes elected representatives to represent their political
parties rather than their constituents in their states or districts. The power
of political parties should be reduced to the extent that Freedom of Association
will allow. The non-partisan blanket primary is a necessary step in that
direction.