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December 2, 2009
Cagle Match
On Monday, esteemed conservative blogger David Oatney opined (as he did back in February) that primary elections in Tennessee should be closed to outsiders of the respective parties. It is hard to imagine this happening without mandatory voter registration by party as a by-product.
One of this past year's little-discussed pieces of legislation in the Tennessee General Assembly was a bill brought by Representative Debra Maggart (R-Hendersonville) which would have required Tennessee voters to declare a party affiliation that would become a part of their voting record. Any voter could choose not to do so, of course, but without a declared party affiliation a voter was not free to vote in a party political primary.
One of the arguments the opponents of House Bill 0629 have made is that if tax money is being used in any way in conducting primaries, they should have the "right" to vote in them. This argument seems most often posited by Democrats who are afraid that they will no longer be able to try and weaken the GOP by cross-voting for weak candidates to insure Democratic victories in swing districts.
I won't speak for the Democrats, but this is one independent who claims the right to vote in any publicly funded election, be it a primary or a general election.
And what about Republicans in a heavily Democratic Party-populated district, who have no realistic chance of seeing one of their own win the office? Sure, some of them will go through the motions anyway, as is their right; but it is the right of others to have a say in selecting who will be their actual legislator. I doubt that these crossover votes are usually about weakening the other side. Yes, that happens. But I think it's also very likely that citizens simply want to cast a vote that matters. (Well, special-interest campaign funding is a whole other matter, but you get my point.)
I was going to pen a more lengthy, fiery response, but Knoxville's Metro Pulse columnist Frank Cagle has done a fine job representing a good half of my viewpoint, at least:
We don’t have party registration in Tennessee, but most political consultants will tell you that one-third of the voters always vote Republican, one-third of voters always vote Democratic, and one-third of voters are independents who can go either way.If one-third of the voters are neither Republicans nor Democrats, then why does the state of Tennessee pay for party primaries to pick party nominees?
Running for office is a right. If the state political parties are taking taxpayer money to hold their primaries under color of law, then they have to recognize due process.How can you take money from taxpayers and then deny a candidate due process?
The state political parties should establish due process and candidate criteria, or they should pay for their own primaries.
Be sure to read the linked articles in full, as well as the comments at Post Politics, and then come back with your opinion.
Elections | By joe lance | 10:47 PM
