The Fifth Circuit closed-primary ruling is a big victory for Jim Hood and a defeat for Haley Barbour and the Republicans. I’m not sure how to count it for the Democrats, who opened this particular can of worms in the first place, and then when they got what they were seeking (an order that the Mississippi legislature enact a closed primary) found that it came accompanied by something they’d not sought at all (an order that the Mississippi legislature enact a voter ID requirement). Hood’s argument that this claim should never have been in court in the first place won the day. The opening paragraph is interesting:
Plaintiffs Mississippi Democratic Party and Mississippi Democratic Executive Committee filed a declaratory judgment action seeking to overturn as unconstitutional Mississippi’s semi-closed primary statute, Miss.Code Ann. § 23-15-575. They succeeded beyond their expectations when the district court declared the statute unconstitutional and fashioned a sweeping injunction that required not only party registration but also photo identification in order to vote in a party’s primary. The court’s ruling spawned a free-for-all on appeal. Plaintiffs themselves cross-appeal the mandatory photo ID requirement. Intervenors NAACP and the Mississippi Republican Executive Committee also challenge separate portions of the decree. The state is divided: defendant Mississippi Attorney General Jim Hood argues that plaintiffs’ claims are not justiciable, while governor Haley Barbour and the Secretary of State have filed a brief supporting photo IDs for voters. In the meantime, the state legislature has been debating changes in the primary law. We will put the parties out of their litigation misery. Because plaintiffs failed to demonstrate that their claims involve an actual case or controversy, the claims were not justiciable and should not have been addressed by the district court.
Here’s a copy of the Fifth Circuit voter ID opinion.
The ruling is a setback for the Mississippi Democrats in that the law forcing them to let non-members vote in Democratic primaries still stands.
After Judge Pepper erroneously ordered voter ID– which has no place in this case– Gov. Barbour tried to persuade the 5th Circuit to uphold the order for voter ID. The fact that Pepper was reversed was a setback for Barbour.
No court can order a state to have closed primaries, and the legislature cannot force the parties to conduct closed primaries. What the state CAN do is prohibit parties from inviting members of opposing parties to vote in their primaries– which the Mississippi legislature is very unlikely to do.
In my view, the Democrats would be nuts NOT to appeal to the US Supreme Court.
Both issues are public policy matters that belong in the legislative arena, not federal court.
This is not about Republicans voting in Democratic primaries. This is a fight between factions in the Democratic Party. This is aimed at Democratic candidates who dare to openly court independent voters and occasional Republicans.
It also is not black vs. white. Chuck Espy’s campaign for Congress is one of the things that set this off.
Well, the pro-lawsuit faction obviously won, since the suit was authorized by the state Democratic Executive Committee– the party’s governing body.
The Democrats have said that they will continue to welcome independents into Democratic primaries.
If the Democrats ultimately win the lawsuit, independents will continue to have their choice of either party’s primary, since the Republicans have said that they will keep their primaries open to ALL voters.
The only voters who would have less choice on primary day would be Republicans, who will be restricted to the Republican primary.
The Executive Committee does not have authority to decide who can vote. They need to focus on growing the party rather than shrinking it.
Would independents be allowed to qualify as Democratic candidates?
Would the current stated intention to allow independents to vote be binding on the state committee?
The fights over this would not be in statewide elections but in hotly contested primaries in local Democratic districts.
This lawsuit was a severe tactical blunder by the Democratic Party, and Judge Pepper’s decision made it worse. The best thing that can happen for the Democrats in Mississippi is for the Fifth Circuit opinion to be the final one.
And in all likelihood it will be. I cannot imagine the Fifth Circuit en banc or the Supreme Court viewing this as a justiciable controversy– as the kind of decision courts decide.
It would be a suicide pact for the state Democrats to decide to forgo appealing to independents or voters who vote Democratic locally and tend to vote Republican. I’m with Researcher on this one.
Researcher, I’d heard that one of the big things that set it off was the suit brought by the Justice Department against Ike Brown for his activities in Noxubee County.
This is an issue that comes up every four years during state/local elections and is driven primarily by local races where excluding, hasseling, or threatening to prosecute voters can make a difference. Every four years, the party has to deal with calls by candidates or partisans to refuse to certify their opponents because they once endorsed a Republican or voted in a Republican primary or some such. A dozen or so candidates that lose primaries will blame their losses on Republicans voting for their opponents.
Unfortunately, the state party executive committee attracts people who could not win elections themselves, but want to pick the nominees. Since they can’t do that, they try to pick the voters that will pick the nominees. The whole exercise is counterproductive to growing a majority party. Political parties should not be afraid of facing voters.
Frankly, this was a more legitimate issue in the 1970s and early 1980s when the Republican primary was contested in only a few counties while the Democratic primary had many more voters than would vote for statewide Democrats in the general election.
I am out of the country and knew nothing about this issue until this post. (I didn’t follow any news at all until I learned that Dickie Scruggs had been indicted, something I had been hoping for for years.)
At the risk of proposing an idea from the Dark Ages, I will express support for an open primary. That is what we used to have back in the days when there was no Republican party in Mississippi. People called it a one-party state, but it was really a no-party state.
In the first Democratic primary, everybody who wanted to run for governor as a Democrat was on the ticket. That was everybody from one extreme to the other, and every voter had the chance to vote for the candidate of his choice. He had the same choice in the sheriff’s race and every other race. If a candidate got more than 50% of the vote, he won. Otherwise, the 2 candidates who appealed to the largest number of voters had a runoff.
I cannot imagine a better system. I resent having to decide whether my vote is more important in the Democratic primary because of the sheriff’s race or in the Republican primary because of the local senate race. I resent it when the best 2 candidates for an office are in the same party, but the winner has to face opposition in the general election from a lesser candidate of the other party.
I am interested in the best PERSON for the office, not the best Democrat or the best Republican. Plus, we have to vote for a large number of offices in which political party should be irrelevant– "if it isn’t, we know we have a problem (with the judge, the chancery clerk, etc.).
The cabal that runs the political parties can announce that "The Party" backs candidate X and not the others candidates who call themselves party members. The rest of us can be free of all that.
One of the problems for the Democratic Party is the conflicts between their constitution and state law. Their constitution attempts to put restrictions on candidates and voters that do not stand up when taken to court. The attempt to throw Dale out of the Democratic Primary is the most prominent example but there were several others in the last election cycle.
Voter ID is needed. Ask the fine folks in Jeff Davis County where the dead and comatose voted in the last elections or ask the fine folks in Aberdeen, Monroe County where the same folks voted several times in the last municipal elections. Currently I do not feel confident in elections and I am a former party chairman in Monroe County.
Mississippi has a corrupt election system.
We have too many elections. We need to get the elections held at the same time. Get state elections at the same time of the federal elections. Folks get tired of hearing all of the ads all of the time. Election overload.
I like Louisana system of all candidates running together and the parties do not hold primary. Cost efficient.
Voter ID is necessary. You have to ID to cash a check, get employment. board an airplane–now is the time to ID to vote.
Researcher #5 says, “The Executive Committee does not have authority to decide who can vote. “
Our primary election law– which the Democrats have challenged in this suit– forces each party to let ANY voter participate in its primaries. If this law is invalidated, the state executive committee of each party will indeed have the authority to say who can vote in its primary– the party’s candidate-selection process.
“Would independents be allowed to qualify as Democratic candidates?”
The state executive committee certifies the candidates in the party’s primary. Another commenter has mentioned the 2007 controversy involving George Dale and several other candidates who had qualified for the Dem primary.
“Would the current stated intention to allow independents to vote be binding on the state committee?”
Again, absent the current law, the executive committe would decide who could vote in the party’s primaries. Take California this year, for example. The Democrats invited independents into their February presidential primary, but the Republicans did not. In the June 3 primaries for other offices, however, independents will have their choice of either party’s primary.
“The fights over this would not be in statewide elections but in hotly contested primaries in local Democratic districts.”
We could give voters greater choice by getting rid of party primaries for local (county and municipal) offices. All candidates for local offices would run in the same election, and each voter would receive the same ballot for local races. (We elect our county officials, of course, at the same time as our state officials, while municipal elections occur at a different time.)
Why do we need party primaries for local offices?
NMC #6 says, “This lawsuit was a severe tactical blunder by the Democratic Party, and Judge Pepper’s decision made it worse.”
The suit is, in my view, constitutionally sound but politically dumb. Pepper’s ruling on the constitutionality of our primary election law was correct, but he “muddied the water” by injecting voter ID into the case; voter ID is not necessary for a party to determine who votes in its primaries.
“I cannot imagine… the Supreme Court viewing this as a justiciable controversy– " as the kind of decision courts decide.”
The US Supreme Court has decided many election law cases, and I believe the high court would like to hear a case involving the type of primary election law that Mississippi and 20 other states have. The main precedent for the Mississippi Democrats’ suit is California Democratic Party v. Jones (2000). Under the court’s reasoning in that case, a primary election law like Mississippi’s would be in great jeopardy.
The big question is whether the 5th Circuit’s ruling will be appealed.
MsNExile #9 notes “… what we used to have back in the days when there was no Republican party in Mississippi. People called it a one-party state, but it was really a no-party state.”
You’re right… the Democratic primary in those days was, in most cases, a de facto general election. The residue of that “no-party” system is the source of many of our problems today.
You propose a system in which there are no party primaries, and all candidates run in the same election. Louisiana is the only state that has heretofore used that system for all of its state and congressional elections, although Washington state will begin using it this year. (And Louisiana has this year restored party primaries for its congressional elections.)
Again, we could give Mississippi voters greater choice by adopting that system for our LOCAL elections, since there doesn’t seem to be a Democratic method of fixing potholes.
Or a Republican method of performing autopsies…
MsNExile 9 speaks for me. This is the one thing Louisiana has got right. If I want to cast a primary vote for a Democrat in one race and Republican in another, I ought to be able to. May the best person win.
P.S. Democrats would be crazy to appeal.
P.P.S. Judge Pepper really stepped out on a weak limb on this one. Judicially imposing a voter ID requirement (which I support, via the Legislature)? Glad Jim Hood got it right and carried the day.
Finally, I’m disappointed in Haley for trying to glom on to Pepper’s ruling in support of the voter ID requirment. He really doesn’t want the courts passing laws for the state, and he knows it.
DeltaNative #15 says, “This is the one thing Louisiana has got right.”
Interestingly, Louisiana got the idea for that election system from Mississippi. Between 1966 and 1979, the Mississippi legilature passed it five different times for our state and local elections, but its implementation was blocked each time.
Today, it would be difficult to get that system enacted for just our LOCAL elections, but I’d like to see such an effort made.
Mississippi passed an open primary law but DOJ and/or federal courts stopped it under the Voting Rights Act because the main legislative intent was to prevent a black independent from winning a three-way race with a plurality.
Steve,
The party executive committee is not a legislative body and cannot make law.
Its official job is to administer primary elections according to state law. Its partisan job is to support Democratic nominees in the general election. People who cannot support an open primary process and then support the winners should not be on the committee. They are more of a threat to the party than are the people they try to purge.
The Mississippi legislature passed the “open primary” five times. It was twice vetoed by governors, twice rejected by Justice under the Voting Rights Act, and once blocked by a 3-judge federal panel. Mississippi had a recent history of black independent candidates, and that was the main reason Justice blocked the law, but making it harder for black independents to get elected was not the legislation’s main purpose.
The executive committee makes the party rules. Most lawsuits involving state election laws are prompted when party rules conflict with state law. In the last 30-35 years, the federal courts have almost always sided with the parties, as the move has been toward greater party autonomy.
In the states which do not have primary election laws like Mississippi’s, each party’s executive committee decides who votes in the party’s primaries. In those states, the only thing the state may prohibit is for the parties to invite members of opposing parties to vote in their primaries.
If a primary election law like Mississippi’s ever reaches the US Supreme Court, I’m convinced that the court will strike down that law.
See California Democratic Party v. Jones.
There is nothing Constitutionally wrong with current election law in Mississippi. States have authority over most aspects of election law.
I suppose the legislature could cede some of its authority over election law to party committees, but it would be foolish to do so.
I am a former Executive Director of the MS Democratic Party, so there is no way that you can convince me of the wisdom of the state executive committee. They do a poor job at the basic tasks they are required to do by state law, because very few members accept any responsibility and those who do either burn out or are discouraged by the dissention and disorganization and go find a more productive outlet for their good intentions, a decision they will never regret.
Unless things have changed a lot in recent years, the state executive committee has four meetings a year and rarely has half of its members at any one of them. They come to Jackson, pass a few motions with little debate and even less investigation, and then leave the state party staff to figure out what they meant and how to implement half-baked ideas that conflict with law and precedent.
Our state’s primary election law, in my view, violates the associational rights of political parties. The state forces parties to let ANY voter participate in their primaries– their candidate selection process.
In California Democratic Party v. Jones, the main precedent for the Mississippi Democrats’ suit, the US Supreme Court said that political parties have “… the freedom to identify the people who constitute the association, and to limit the association to those people only.”
How would you interpret that statement?
The high court used very similar language in ruling in favor of the political parties in New York in a case from last January.
If a party wants to open its primary to all voters, it may do so, but the state has no business forcing it to.
As to any possible dissension in the state Democratic Executive Committee, I don’t have a dog in that fight. What matters is that the committee authorized the filing of this suit. If the suit had not been properly filed by the party, it would have been dimissed by the district court, as happened last year with the Idaho Republican Party.
The Idaho suit was re-filed last month– properly this time. If it’s any consolation, there’s also internal conflict in the Idaho GOP over that lawsuit.
Voters, not committees, are the party. That decision was made when we went to primaries rather than back room deals to select nominees. This does not infringe on the rights of Democrats to assemble, etc.
Our law has it right. Choosing a Democratic ballot is declaring that at this time and for this election I am a Democrat. If voters lean Republican in some elections, but vote for Democrats in others, why would the party not want appeal to them and encourage them to vote in Democratic primaries? Those are the people who eventually decide elections. Those are the people who put guys like Childers over the top. Sore losers in both parties sometimes have paranoid delusions that the opposing party infiltrated their primary just to get them, but losers lose because they are weak candidates. No one wins a primary without strong support among the rank and file voters of that party. Those who have appeal beyond their party are not only better candidates but are better able to accomplish broad policy objectives as public officials.
The California case was a blanket primary, which is a different deal. Being free to choose which primary ballot to take is different than one ballot with all candidates but party vote counting. In a blanket primary,there is much more opportunity for supporters of a candidate who is unopposed in his party to influence the outcome in the other party.
Once a party’s nominee has been chosen, the nominee and the party certainly do appeal to non-members of that party to support them in the general election, in an effort to put together a winning coalition.
“… why would the party not want appeal to [non-members] and encourage them to vote in Democratic primaries? “
That’s the point– it should be up to the party, not the state. It’s not the proper role of the state to force parties to let non-members help choose their nominees.
In that New York case from last January, the U. S. Supreme Court (SCOTUS) said, “A political party has a First Amendment right to limit its membership as it wishes and to choose a candidate-selection process that will in its view produce the nominee who best represents its political platform.”
Sooner or later, the SCOTUS will have the opportunity to hear a challenge of a state-mandated open primary, such as Mississippi now has. When it does, I believe that the high court will strike it down.
Here’s a column that George Will wrote shortly before the SCOTUS struck down California’s blanket primary in 2000.
Steve Rankin and Researcher, I just want to thank y’all for this excellent and informative exchange. We bystanders are getting a lot out of it, so Bravi.
Let’s try again on that link from comment #24 to George Will’s column from 2000: http://southerncrown.blogspot.com/2006/04/why-mississippi-democrats-lawsuit-will.html.
Steve,
I understand what you are saying and there was a time when I probably would have agreed with you, but I have come to believe that it is not only unwise but dangerous for institutions to insist that everything must be either black or white, patriots or evil-doers, Democrats or Republicans, or any other uncompromising and artificial binary division of the world.
Most people are not naturally that partisan. Most people would identify themselves by where they live, what they do, and other self references before they ever got around to identifying themselves as Democrats or Republicans. That is a good thing and should be encouraged.
If some Prentiss Countians who generally lean Republican (and would register as Republicans if forced to choose) nevertheless support a local Democratic Congressional candidate they know and like over the Republican alternatives, I think they should be able to vote to help him get the Democratic nomination. If the law insisted that they could only vote in the Republican primary, should they not vote at all, vote for the Republican they liked best, or vote for the one who would be the weaker opponent to their preferred candidate?
This is not an exceptional case. In every election, candidates pull support from family, friends, community, and other associations not based on party or ideology.
I am from the MS Coast where Coast candidates for state offices always run up big numbers regardless of party. Obviously, party is not the most important consideration to a lot of people.
The bottom line is that, even if the Mississippi Democratic Party ultimately succeeds in having our current primary election law nullified, Republicans will be the only voters who will have less choice on primary day, as they will be restricted to the Republican primary (see comment #4 above). Democrats and independents will continue to have their choice of either the Democratic or the Republican primary.
What I have said on this thread is based on the trends in the federal courts, not my personal feelings. If I had my “druthers,” the only basic thing that would change would be the way that we elect our local (county and municipal) officials; I have proposed a plan for giving our voters greater choice.
If this plan had been in effect in 2007, for example, Hinds countians would have been able to vote in the Phil Bryant-Charlie Ross race for lieutenant governor without missing out on voting for their county officials. And Rankin countians would have been able to vote for Rob Smith in the Democratic primary for secretary of state and still vote for their county officials as well.
And no Mississippi voter would ever again be faced with the choice of voting for mayor OR council member.
You allude to the recent special US House election in north Mississippi. In MS’s special elections, of course, there are no party primaries; all candidates run– and all voters vote– in the same election. It just happened that the two runoff candidates were the same two who had won their party primaries, and who will thus face off again in November.
The 5th Circuit left the door open for future “judicial review,” and I’m wondering what the Democratic Party’s next move will be. Do you have any “inside info” on that?
There were primaries in the 1st district race for the 111th Congress, and they served as primaries for the special election. The primary losers stopped campaigning for the special election and withdrew to the extent that they could though their names were on the ballot. The primaries established Travis Childers as the only Democratic “nominee” and Greg Davis as the Republican “nominee” candidate in effect if not in fact for the special election.
Here is my last point on this issue. It should have been my first point:
Primaries are not party elections. They do not elect party officials.
They are part of the government’s process for electing government officials. That gives the state and other governments all the interest they need to establish the rules.
The states are doing the parties a favor by allowing them to nominate candidates for public office. That does not change the fact that these are public offices and that the eventual winners are public officials who are responsible to the government and to the broader public, not to their parties. Read their oaths of office and notice that no political party is included.
Parties are not in the Constitution and Madison warned against them in Federalist 10 before he and Jefferson discovered their usefulness when they found themselves and their views on the minority side.
Our party system has proven to be useful and even beneficial, I think, but only because it is constantly changing. The equilibrium that evolved and has endured gives us two large national parties that vie for majority by building a coalition and attempting to divide the opposing coalition.
Although there have always been many Americans who are not solid partisans of the two dominant parties, our system never elevates third parties to equal status. As Richard Hoffstadter said, third parties are like bees – they sting and then they die. In fact what happens is that once a third party or popular movement gains enough support to influence elections, then one of the major parties jumps in to coopt and absorb the movement.
Abolition, prohibition, populism, reform, civil rights, religious right, all started as grassroots movements outside or on the fringe of the major parties. After they built popular support, one of the parties jumped in front and claimed to be leading it. In each case, there also was a reaction in the other direction leading opponents of the movements toward the other party.
Parties constantly evolve because they are following after the people. Parties coopt popular movements and eventually try to turn them all into some version of pork and patronage. That is just what parties do – turn ideals into interests.
The Mississippi Democratic Party cannot lock in the current party membership or lock out whomever it is they are trying to exclude. They cannot control the electorate and it is foolish to try. Let Republicans vote for Democrats that appeal to them. They may never become Democrats, but at some point they may realize that maybe they are not really Republicans. That shift would help the chances for Democratic candidates to win more elections.
Researcher,
Your points are well-taken.
However, I would simply suggest that your opening premise that ‘Primaries are not party elections. They do not elect party officials’ could be tweaked to read ‘…not general elections’ and be clearer since the primaries do serve to ‘elect’/select the parties’ nominees.
Agreed ?
Are you denying, Researcher, that under Mississippi law, there are no party primaries in special elections? The special election in District 1 was for the remainder of Roger Wicker’s House term, while the party primaries were to choose nominees for the regularly-scheduled November general election.
“Primaries are not party elections. They do not elect party officials.”
Project Vote Smart says a primary election is “an election prior to the general election in which voters select the candidates who will run on each party’s ticket. Primaries are also used to choose convention delegates and party leaders… .”
In many states, the parties’ precinct officers are chosen in the party primaries.
“The states are doing the parties a favor by allowing them to nominate candidates for public office.”
Political parties have a First Amendment right to nominate candidates, but the state is not required to recognize those nominations. Almost every state (1) mandates that the parties nominate candidates, (2) specifies the method(s) for those nominations, at least one of which is the primary, and (3) limits the general election ballot to one candidate per party per office.
While certain of the Founding Fathers did indeed express doubts about political parties, almost all of them wound up participating in parties. Some of our greatest leaders through the years have been very loyal party people.
“The Mississippi Democratic Party cannot lock in the current party membership or lock out whomever it is they are trying to exclude.”
The party certainly cannot do so as long as our current primary election law is in force, which is why the MDP filed the suit challenging that law. Please review the quotes from the US Supreme Court in comments #21 and #24.
Again: in every state which does not have a law like Mississippi’s present law, each party does indeed determine which voters are eligible to participate in its primaries.
I note, Researcher, that you did not respond to my question about the state Democratic Party’s next move in the primary-election lawsuit. Guess you’re more interested in argument.
In the first place, I was talking about the 1st District primaries, not the special election. You assumed without justification that I was talking about the special because that assumption helped your argument. Then what I explained was that the special was a two-man race because of the primary result. The primaries eliminated Holland and McCullough from the special as well as the general. Not officially but in effect.
I don’t know what the state party will do. They are in the process of electing a new state committee and Dowdy is stepping down from Chair. If they cared to ask the elected officials who are Democrats, I am confident that most would tell them to leave primaries as they are and put their energy and effort into building a party organization that could be useful in general elections. But that won’t ask because the committee usually is full of people who resent the Democrats who win elections because they are not pure enough.
JOM, I meant what I said. The party can elect its own officers any way it wants, but if they have any electoral function the process is subject to the Voting Rights Act. Nomination to public office are not party offices. They are simply party endorsements of candidates for public office. The party does not pay for the primary. General taxpayers pay. The party gets to appoint pollworkers and otherwise administer the primaries, but must do it all in accordance with state election law. That is as it should be. The state should be setting the rules for electing state and local government officials.
Steve, nonpartisan elections are never nonpartisan. Look at Mississippi judicial elections. They are more partisan since the became nonpartisan. You can not stop parties and their surrogates from taking sides in elections. Wherever there are interests there will be party politics.
“The party does not pay for the primary. General taxpayers pay.”
In 1995, in an Arkansas case, a federal appeals court said that, when the state requires parties to nominate by primary, the state must pay the costs of those primaries. If left to their own devices, the parties would be very unlikely to hold primaries, due to the expense. The state will therefore continue to mandate primaries, since the voters are accustomed to them.
“… nonpartisan elections are never nonpartisan. Look at Mississippi judicial elections.”
They are nonpartisan because the parties have no way of officially nominating candidates, although, as you note, the parties frequently endorse candidates in those elections.
Our county election commissioners are also chosen in nonpartisan elections, but the party affiliations of all 410 commissioners are known.
Remember that notorious 1991 Louisiana governor’s race, in which Edwin Edwards beat David Duke in the runoff? The national Republican Party and the state GOP endorsed different candidates in the first round, and neither one made the runoff.
The Louisiana (supposedly) open primary system is not better than Mississippi’s system.
In 1991, party insiders could not block Edwards or Duke because they had large followings that were independent of the party, so they did not need the party endorsement and support.
In other elections, the parties have been quite successful at eliminating contenders by deciding the party endorsement and financial support behind the scenes without the participation of the public or party rank and file voters.
I think party primaries are a good thing. I think requiring party registration and closing primaries are not in the best interests of the public or the long-term interests of the parties.
However, all I am saying is that these are legislative issues, not legal ones. If the parties can convince the legislature to make voters register by party and allow parties to exclude some voters based on their registration, then the courts should not stop it. But the courts should not require it either.
I acknowledge your point that courts have favored parties in some rulings, but frankly, federal courts butcher election law more times than not. See Bush v. Gore. See the multiple systems for electing circuit and chancery judges in Mississippi, with different systems according to the racial demographics of the districts. That decision is bad law and bad policy, but because it was imposed by a federal court, it will be many times more difficult to amend than if it were bad legislative policy.
The only advantage to the open primary system is that it keeps the electorate from being bogged down with what seems to be endless elections. First the primary, then the runoffs for the primary, then the general elections etc. just seems to go on and on.
In an open primary, tho’, kf, you will ALWAYS have a run-off. Not necessarily true in party primaries. The danger of the open primary, as Researcher has eloquently pointed out, is that it can give the electorate a David Duke or an equally nutty “fringe” candidate.
king 38 // That’s not quite true. See MsNExile’s comment at 9, which I totally agree with.
I said there were FEWER elections. People get tired of going to the polls for the same office three or four times.
#37: “The Louisiana (supposedly) open primary system is not better than Mississippi’s system.”
I agree 1000%. As I stated above, the only basic change I favor is for us to adopt that system for our local elections (see my proposed plan, which is linked to at comment #28 above). It’s a good idea for local elections, as illustrated by the fact that the big majority of US municipalities– including most big cities– already use it.
But it’s a terrible idea for state and congressional elections, as demonstrated by the fact that only Louisiana has heretofore used it for all of its state and congessional elections (and LA has this year restored party primaries for Congress).
Washington state is this year starting to use a Louisiana-style “top two” system. The first round is in August, and already there’s confusion.
My point about the national Republicans and the state GOP endorsing different candidates in Louisiana in ’91 was that that doesn’t happen when there are party primaries, since there is then an official party nominee. BTW, President Bush I, Gov. Roemer, and other Republicans endorsed the Democrat Edwards in the runoff against Duke.
“I think party primaries are a good thing”
So do I. As for party registration, it’s no big deal either way. It’s certainly not the straitjacket that a lot of people seem to fear it is. It’s merely a way of identifying voters’ party preferences. If the Democrats succeed in their suit, the only voters who will need to be identified will be Republicans, and that can be done without party registration (Louisiana, BTW, has had party registration since 1916).
The only way our current primary election law will be nullified will be if the courts do so; the legislature certainly won’t.
Chancery and circuit judges, to be sure, are chosen in nonpartisan elections.
Sailor #39 says that in a system like Louisiana’s, “… you will ALWAYS have a run-off.”
Not necessarily. David Vitter was elected US senator without a runoff in 2004, and Bobby Jindal was elected governor last year without a runoff.
I stand corrected.