Jonathan Hoffman: Parties should reassert control over primaries

Primary elections are an example of this phenomenon.

Originally, party candidates were chosen by conventions. Delegates, who represented the people in their jurisdiction, would attend the convention during which they would vote for their constituent’s candidate of choice.

Of course, no human endeavor is perfect, and the convention process was vulnerable to corruption. The term “smoke filled rooms” comes from the image of powerbrokers deciding in advance what the outcome would be while smoking cigars in some back room.

The first primary election was held in 1901. It was brought about to wrest power from the “smoke-filled rooms” of the convention by, eventually, binding the electors to the will of the people as expressed through the primary election. So far so good, but the quest for power never ends.

In the last few decades, there has been some shaking up of the primary election system. Remember that the purpose of the primary was to give rank and file party members the power to select the candidate. The new purpose of the primary seems to be to do away with parties altogether.

The attacks have taken a couple of forms. One example is the “Top Two primary” in which the top two vote getters, regardless of party, will appear on the ballot. It is also known as the “jungle primary.” The other is the “open primary” in which independent voters may choose to interfere with the primary election of their choice. I say “interfere” because if you are not a member of an organization, or party, you have no business determining who will represent it. This process has found its way into Arizona elections.

Why, one might ask, would anyone register as anything other than an independent? If you affiliate yourself with a party, you would limit yourself to that party’s primaries. As an independent, you could vote in any primary you desired. You could vote for the best candidate for your party (most “independents” favor one party over the other), or for the worst candidate in the opposition party.

In a bygone era, interfering in another party’s election would be considered a “dirty trick,” but today it is just part of the game.

An example of this gaming of the system is provided by an article in the Arizona Capitol Times that included a voter interview. It read in part, “Reid is an independent voter who said he will vote for Douglas in the primary, but he intends to vote for the Democrat in November — he favors David Schapira in the Democratic primary.” Most Democrats see Diane Douglas as the easiest Republican to beat for superintendent of public instruction.

I recently spoke with Bruce Ash, Republican national committeeman for Arizona, who would like to see a return to closed primaries. He said, “Open primaries were part of the move for “reforms” in government made in the name of good governance — like campaign finance “reform”, term limits, “clean” elections and and the (not so) Independent Redistricting Committee that were largely supported by Republicans who had been duped by the left in thinking that our system which had worked pretty well over a hundred years actually needed reform.”

Maybe we should get the government out of primaries altogether and have the parties run their own elections, or go back to conventions with their smoke-filled rooms. At least the people choosing the candidate would all be of the same party.