Over the past several months, I’ve seen an
increasing number of calls for Kentucky to abandon its well-established system
of selecting political party nominees in favor of a method that, in my opinion,
would wreak havoc with the process.
While several other states have open primaries,
in which anyone can vote in either party’s primary regardless of their voter
registration preference, Kentucky uses a traditional closed primary. Only
members of certain political party have a say in selecting that party’s
nominees.
Most recently, John-Mark Hack penned a column in
the Lexington Herald-Leader in which he had harsh words for both the Democrats
and Republicans. In that column, he called for the establishment of open
primaries in Kentucky.
Hack is a former Democrat who in recent years has
been speaking out against casino gambling, which has been one of the primary
policy recommendations of party leaders such as Gov. Steve Beshear. Although
Hack’s been criticizing expanded gambling for years, he hasn’t really said if
that’s the reason he left the Democratic Party.
(Full disclosure: I worked with Hack about 15
years ago when he was affiliated with the Governor’s Office for Agriculture
Policy under the Paul Patton administration. That office was responsible for
distributing the tobacco settlement funds. I worked for the former Revenue
Cabinet at the time, and our agency played a primary role in that process, so I
developed a working relationship with Hack, although our paths haven’t crossed
since.)
I’ve never been a fan of the open primary
process, mainly because I don’t like the idea of Democrats having a say in who
the Republican nominees will be, or vice versa. Political parties should be
free to choose their nominees without outside interference. There are just too
many opportunities for mischief and mayhem.
In fact, that has happened a couple of times
before, to both parties. In 2000, Vice President Al Gore was the presumed
Democratic nominee. He wasn’t facing any serious challenges to his candidacy,
and the GOP race was basically between George W. Bush and John McCain. It was
well-known that the Democrats preferred to run against McCain. So, in certain
open primary states, Democrats voted for McCain in the Republican primary in hopes
of giving him the nomination.
Fast-forward to 2008, when it appeared that
McCain had the Republican nomination wrapped up and Barack Obama was leading
Hillary Clinton late in the race, Rush Limbaugh came up with his “Operation
Chaos” to prolong the Democrats’ race. He was urging Republicans to vote for
Hillary in the hopes that it would prolong the primary race.
Taking the open primary concept one step farther,
remember that next year, Kentucky Republicans will caucus to choose their
presidential nominee. Should Democrats be allowed to participate in the
Republican caucus?
One reason offered for open primaries is that
some feel closed primaries disenfranchise independents and those registered in
other parties. This isn’t the case at all. An independent is on the ballot in
Kentucky’s gubernatorial race this year. And there will probably be several
third-party candidates running for president next year. Independents and
third-party voters will have plenty of opportunities to cast a ballot – just
not in a partisan primary. Parties should be allowed to select their own
nominees without the influence of outsiders.
People may decry the two-party system that has
developed in American politics – and I’m a bit critical of it myself, seeing
that the leadership of the party to which I belong is so far removed from its
grassroots that I tend to refer to myself by ideology rather than by party
registration – but independents and third-party voters still have a great say
in who wins elections, and those candidates sometimes emerge victorious. In
fact, U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders is an independent, although he’s running in the
Democrat presidential primary. Opening up partisan primaries to all voters
won’t diminish the impact of the two-party system, but it will do serious
damage to the integrity of the nomination process. It’s a bad idea elsewhere,
it would be a bad idea in Kentucky, and hopefully state leaders will just say
“no” to the concept.
