Put a Blanket on Blanket Primaries

Freedom of association isn’t enumerated in the Bill of Rights, but the right to associate for religious, social and political purposes is a fundamental free-speech right guaranteed by the Constitution. Political parties were created to allow people who share beliefs to organize for the purpose of advancing their ideology by nominating candidates for elected office. Nothing a political party does is as important. California’s blanket primary interferes with that central purpose, and the U.S. Supreme Court, which will hear arguments on the issue today, should rule that California’s primary election is unconstitutional.

Blanket primaries allow voters who have no affiliation with a given party to play a role in choosing that party’s standard-bearers--those who define the party’s agenda and chart its course. Enacted by voters in 1996 with Proposition 198, the measure makes California the fourth state to hold what we call a “free love” primary--voters go through the list of candidates from party to party with no pledge of fidelity to any party. This differs from the open primary, in which voters on election day choose on which party’s ballot they will vote and then can only vote for members of that party.

To be sure, most people vote for the person they believe will do the best job, but the blanket primary invites those with less honorable intentions to influence the outcome of an election. When John McCain won this year’s Michigan GOP primary, only about 25% of his votes were cast by registered Republicans. His victory is attributed to crossover Democrats, some of whom may have been more interested in embarrassing Michigan’s Republican governor--an early and ardent supporter of George W. Bush--than they were in putting the strongest Republican candidate on the general election ballot. In that instance, election rules were exploited to undermine the other party--perfectly acceptable in the general election, but not the primary, which has no other purpose but to allow the parties to nominate their best candidates.

Closer to home, crossover Democratic voters probably made the difference in two Orange County legislative primaries decided in March. Local labor unions, believing that a moderate would be more palatable than a conservative in the heavily Republican 67th Assembly District, urged their largely Democratic membership to vote for Tom Harman in the Republican primary. Harman won, although his opponent, Jim Righeimer, got more Republican votes. Many observers believe crossover Democrats also were responsible for Lynn Daucher’s victory over two more conservative Republicans in the 72nd Assembly District.

The freedom to associate implies the freedom to decide with whom to associate, who leads the association and the rules by which its leaders will be chosen. To allow otherwise impairs the ability of the association to make collective decisions that further its purposes. The explicit goal of the blanket primary is to give non-party members a role in choosing party nominees--precisely the reason we believe blanket primaries violate the 1st Amendment.

California has the longest, most complicated ballot in the country. The most important factor upon which voters rely is party identification. If the party label is diluted by the blanket primary, voters will know even less about the candidates than they do now.

The Peace and Freedom and Libertarian parties have joined the two major parties in challenging the constitutionality of the blanket primary. Members of these and other so-called “minor parties” band together to pursue their own ideologies, with the hope of winning public support and influencing public policy. The blanket primary allows the entire California electorate to join in the minor parties’ nominating process, flooding the minor party primaries with voters who know nothing about the parties’ agenda. The blanket primary fundamentally denies minor party members the right to choose their own nominees and pursue their own political interests.

One common argument for blanket primaries is that independents and those who don’t register to vote have no franchise in closed primaries. Yet that’s their choice. There are few government transactions as simple as registering to vote, stating a party preference or switching parties to vote in a primary. Nominees represent the party; party members should do the nominating.

Voters may want full access to any party’s ballot, but we believe that this tramples on the rights of the parties to choose their own candidates. The Supreme Court should strike down California’s blanket primary elections.