By Grange Master - Krist Novoselic
I’m going to express some personal opinions regarding Grange matters that do not necessarily speak for the Grays River Grange.
As you might be aware, the Washington State Grange was the sponsor of I-872, the Top-Two primary. I-872 passed in 2004 with over 59 percent of the vote.
I attribute this strong showing over widespread dissatisfaction with the Pick-A-Party primary ballot. Voters hated the party sections in the primary and went for the first real proposal that came along. Indeed, voters want wide open choices and I fully concur with this.
The issue of political association became a problem with I-872 and it went to court. It was struck down in all the lower courts but the US Supreme Court upheld it as facially constitutional. This means the system holds up to most precedents and legal arguments. They didn’t want to strike down a voter initiative without seeing it in use and potentially harm our First Amendment right of association.
I-872 is now being heard on an as applied basis. This means the plaintiffs are submitting actual evidence. It’s been over four years since the first complaint and I-872 is starting the legal process all over again!
Justice Scalia led the dissenting opinion and said that the State interest in I-872 was to reduce the effectiveness of a political party.
I agree.
There are two distinct aspects of a political party: An association of citizens with shared needs and values who seek to amplify their voices in the democratic forum, and, a political soft money conduit that flexes around individual campaign contribution limits. The former is what I recognize as the paramount value of association. The latter is a problem.
As Grangers, we’re committed to not only keeping partisanship out of our meetings -officers have pledged not to take advantage of our position to bias the political or religious opinions of any member. This is why there are Grangers who are active in the Democratic and Republican parties and, who also attend the churches of their own choice.
The Grange has traditionally been easygoing regarding association. But now, I say it has its sights set on weakening political association.
With the Top-Two ballot, a candidate needs a party to prefer. And if the candidate can merely state their party preference on the ballot without an actual association, the grassroots function of the party weakens. Why bother to nominate a candidate when anyone, without restriction, can claim the name of the group? With party members sidelined, the candidate is then only stating a preference for a legislative caucus or trying, perhaps disingenuously, to get the attention of voters.
Regardless of campaign contribution backchannels or grassroots groups, if you see no value at all in political parties, the traditional - and legally proven - method to try and get parties out of elections is with a non-partisan ballot.
So this begs the question: Why all the fuss with this prefers party business when I-872 could have simply proposed non-partisan elections? The answer is that the initiative’s authors and defenders do see value in political association – just not in the grassroots sense.
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