w00t! SCOTUS sides with Washington voters for primary rules!!!

[Banana]

Story

Washington state had a blanket primary for several decades, where you didn't have to be affiliated with a party or choose party to vote. You simply registered with the state and was handed a big ballot listing all candidates from all parties for all positions and you could vote for anyone, regardless of their party affiliations for any positions. Total freedom and choice.

Then Democratic Party threw a hissy fit and sued the state; it went to SCOTUS, and SCOTUS ruled that blanket primary violated the parties' rights to association protected in first amendment. So Grange Association whom drew up the idea of blanket primary decades back regrouped and ran a statewide initiative to have 'Louisiana Primary' in where you still can vote for anyone without regards to party affiliation but top two vote getters would only advance to general election, again without regard to party affiliations. This was already controversial, so the authors hedged their bets and added a section stating that if the top two primary was ruled unconstitutional, we would revert to "Select-a-Party" primary.

The initiative passed overwhelmingly and had solid backing of state legislators and officials. It went to governor's desk for approval. Locke, then governor, exercised his line veto to cross out everything *but* the section for Select-A-Party primary and signed it into law. (how convenient that it was his last term; he should have been hanged for going so blatantly against the people) Of course, this was immediately challenged but this became a long and drawling legal battle.

SCOTUS has ruled that two top vote-getter primary may be used in Washington, and this will be used in August primary (I'm not sure what this is for since we already had our primary but whatever). However, they cautioned that the design of ballot will be the real litmus test and thus left the door open for re-challenge.

I'm so glad that we won a victory after all the shehangians, no thanks to party hacks (it didn't help any that Republican party and Libertarian party joined in the subsequent lawsuits- certainly took away any little faith I had in political party to act in best interest of people, especially Libertarians, whom I think would know better). I strongly disagree with the previous ruling claiming right of association, since this is inconsistent as everyone gets to vote for a candidate in general election, and this stomps on individual voter's right to choose for best man. Two top-vote getter isn't as ideal as blanket primary, but they share several benefits:

1) This encourages candidates to appeal to everyone instead of flaming up the party hack and thus offer extremes with nothing in between in general election.

2) Even if you are in a minority, the vote can be put toward to a candidate who has a chance to win and thus put on a dampener on polarization inherent in the present system. Thus a vote is never wasted.

3) You do not have to choose between a slate of potential candidates by choosing a party; you can truly vote your conscience between several parties for different positions and thus get the best choice possible.

Anyway, I thought this was a great news and merited sharing with other RPRs. Perhaps they may be interested in opening up their primary and make it easier for everyone to vote their conscience instead of staying home or even worse, holding their nose to vote for lesser of evil not to mention being free of all those silly registration requirements. Why hold a card to a party to vote? The allegation should be with Constitution and the People first!

 

[Banana]

Unsurprisingly, all party officials are not exactly thrilled

 

[Banana]

One more w00t for the good measure.