Progressive World Review

          Today, the Supreme Court upheld Washington State’s “two-top” primary, a system where the two candidates with the most votes advance to the general election even if they’re from the same party.  This system was approved of by voters in 2004 but, due to legal challenges, has yet to be implemented.  It was the voter approval that Justice Clarence Thomas, writing for the majority, cited as a primary reason for the decision,

Writing for the majority, Justice Clarence Thomas noted that the state’s primary system had been overwhelmingly approved by voters. Overturning it would be an “extraordinary and precipitous nullification of the will of the people,” he wrote.

        Objections to the two-top system focus on detail oriented issues such as designing a ballot that voters can understand,

Scalia and Thomas are rarely on opposite sides in a decision, but they had sharply different views in the Washington state primary case. Justice Anthony Kennedy joined Scalia in the dissent.

Both Thomas and Scalia said the final test of whether the top-two primary system passes constitutional muster would be when the state designs a ballot. Thomas was hopeful a proper ballot could be designed; Scalia appeared skeptical.

        The state’s party leaders have also voiced concern over the potential confusion that might result from this system.  They’re worried that the assumption will be that the two winning candidates are automatically going to be from different parties,

State party leaders said they were disappointed by a ruling that would make elections in Washington “more complicated” and leave voters wondering who was the Republican candidate and who was the Democratic one.

“The state must make clear on the ballot which candidate is nominated by the Democratic and Republican parties,” said Dwight Pelz, state Democratic Party chairman. “Until we see how the ballot is designed, we will not be able to conclusively gauge our response to today’s court ruling.”

        But all this talk of ballots and confusion obscures the real issue here.  The two-top primary has its roots in the open primary system where voters from any party can cast ballots for whomever they please, regardless of party affiliation.  On the surface this might seem completely inline with an open, democratic society but in fact it’s a rather bizarre manner to conduct elections.

        Party affiliation is supposed to mean something.  You join a party whose platform most closely matches your own views and opinions, you don’t have to agree with everything but your core values should be the same.  And once a member of a party, then and only then should the business of that party, like nominating candidates for office, be of your concern.  It makes no sense, on any level, for one to involve themselves in another party’s nominating process, especially when you consider that the different parties are rivals to each other.  They are rivals, right?  I mean if they’re not, then what is the point in having them to begin with.  Of course once all the nominations have been made, you should be free to vote however you like but the nomination process is strictly party business.

        The reason why this isn’t patently obvious to everyone is because both of the major parties have managed to secure a virtual monopoly on our political system.  So deeply entrenched are they that they have almost become one in the same.  Don’t get me wrong, there are clear cut differences between Democrats and Republicans but it’s the similarities that have proven to be more important.  And those similarities really boil down to just one, they both get there money from the same place.  This is why we so desperately need publicly financed campaigns.  No level of campaign finance reform will ever get the money out of politics that has so completely corrupted our system.

–Paul Wilden

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