Just say “no” to open primaries

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.