This is getting ridiculous, folks. When in 2018 I first suggested that government stop giving special powers and privileges to political parties, only 38% of active Colorado voters were registered unaffiliated. As of February statistics from this year, over 50% are. Especially given that most voters have rejected party affiliation, why do we continue to let parties dominate our elections?
To call the Colorado Republican Party a basket case is an insult to baskets. The party is leaderless, with the resignation of Brita Horn, in debt, and dominated by crazy activists.
On the Democratic side, Rep. Diana DeGette almost got knocked off the ballot at assembly by a “Democratic socialist.” Meanwhile, Sens. John Hickenlooper and Michael Bennet petitioned their way on to the primary ballot to avoid their party radicals.
A right not to associate
Here is the latest: On March 31, Federal Judge Philip Brimmer ruled that requiring a political party to subject itself to non-party primary voters, unless their central committee votes by three-fourth majority to opt out (per 2016’s Prop. 108), “constitutes a severe burden on the major parties’ right to association and is therefore unconstitutional.”
Brimmer does not go far enough, though. As he quotes the Supreme Court, “a corollary of the right to associate is the right not to associate.” Yes! Okay, then why does Colorado government force Colorado taxpayers to finance the primaries of parties to which they do not even belong? Is that not also forced association?
The only logical and just conclusion to Brimmer’s reasoning is that government should stop forcing citizens to finance the primaries of private political parties. More: Government should have nothing to do with party primaries. If parties wish to endorse candidates, great, but government should in no way sanction or recognize any such endorsement.
Here again are the basic principles of a just approach to elections:
* Government pays no attention to party affiliation. It does not track people by party or list party affiliation on the ballot.
* Government sets fair, reasonable ballot-access rules for all comers. Government does not discriminate in favor of party members, as it does now. There’s no good reason I can think of that we don’t by now have online petitioning options, but that’s a design detail.
* What candidates a party endorses is that party’s business. If a party wishes to restrict which of its candidates may appear on the ballot, that’s up to the party, not the government, to enforce. If parties wish to kick people out for not following their rules, fine.
* Government needs a reasonable mechanism to enable voters to select a final candidate. It would be idiotic to keep a system that allows a crowded field where each voter selects one candidate and the candidate with the most votes wins; that leads to split votes and nondemocratic outcomes. The strategy I prefer is approval voting, meaning that voters can vote for as many candidates for an office as they want, and then the candidate with the most votes overall wins. If government runs primaries to narrow the field (I don’t see the need), those should not be party-based.
Clinging to party privilege
In a phrase: We should separate party from state. That is the just solution that frees us from party extremes, that is the solution most consistent with the right to freedom of association.
It’s obvious many Republicans won’t like that solution, as they now rely on election welfare (subsidized primaries) to help keep themselves relevant.
It’s also obvious why many Democrats won’t like it. The Democratic Party now has a lock on state political power, and the special government privileges for political parties now help the Democrats especially.
What we need, then, is for elected officials to look beyond party advantage and do what’s right just because it is right. I am not so cynical as to believe such a move is impossible. Alternately, we need a group of citizens to come together to run one or more ballot measures achieving the separation of party and state. I’m not saying this is easy; I’m saying it’s right.
On a practical note: The Republicans would be idiots to pull their party out of semi-open primaries, so long as government continues to immorally run party primaries. The result of disallowing unaffiliated voters to participate in Republican primaries would be to further disadvantage normal candidates who might actually win in favor of crazy ideologues chosen by a tiny number of Republican activists. How much more thoroughly can the Republican Party destroy itself?
At a certain point we have to work within the rules presented to us. Yet we have the ability to reform our election system within existing political rules, and we should do so. Separate party and state!
Ari Armstrong writes regularly for Complete Colorado and is the author of books about Ayn Rand, Harry Potter, and classical liberalism. He can be reached at ari at ariarmstrong dot com.
