Primary fight has paralyzed Legislature

By David Ammons

Associated Press

OLYMPIA — It’s not unusual for Washington lawmakers to get bollixed at budget-writing time or in a tizzy when they have to consider raising the gas tax.

But when it comes to getting totally wrapped around the axle, nothing seems quite as vexing as this year’s elusive quest for an overhaul of the state’s popular but doomed "blanket" primary.

It’s on every legislator’s must-do list, but so far, nada.

Attorney General Christine Gregoire says she absolutely has to have a bill by week’s end for ammunition in a court case brought against the state by the political parties.

She may be kept waiting.

Although lawmakers have known since last summer that a primary fix was required, neither house has voted for a bill, or even gotten one out of committee. One plan after another has had a few moments in the sun, only to be derailed.

For the moment, the favored solution is one that was dismissed originally — a Louisiana-style primary that sends the top two vote-getters to the general election regardless of party.

Even that late-blooming plan is no sure thing, particularly given the vocal opposition of House Co-Speaker Clyde Ballard, R-East Wenatchee, and the fact that Gov. Gary Locke and Senate Majority Leader Sid Snyder, D-Long Beach, prefer a rival plan.

Even though the federal courts are breathing down the state’s neck, it’s possible that the Legislature won’t be able to produce a plan, and that an appointed-for-life judge, rather than elected lawmakers, will create the new primary.

That would be the ultimate defeat for legislators who already feel stuck with a problem not of their own making, with no suitable solutions. Their choice: anger their parties or anger the voters.

"This is one of those rare cases in Olympia where they truly don’t see the possibility of a win-win," says state Republican Party chairman Chris Vance, himself a former lawmaker. "Every alternative is bad from their standpoint."

His Democratic counterpart, Paul Berendt, says lawmakers are utterly wedded to a system they’ve successfully used.

THE VICE GRIP

For as long as most folks can remember — ever since the Legislature adopted a Grange initiative back in the Great Depression — voters have enjoyed America’s most wide-open system of primary voting.

Under a system later copied by Alaska and California, all candidates are herded onto a single ballot. Without having to register by party, voters could pick their favorite for each office, often splitting their tickets — a Democrat here, a Republican there, a Libertarian or Green candidate for another office.

Washington voters tell pollsters and politicians they view it as a right — a matter of privacy and of choice. And after 65 years, it’s a part of the landscape.

"People assume it’s the norm, but we are the abnormality," says Todd Donovan, a Western Washington University political science professor who is a national expert on primaries.

Washington’s setup survived several court challenges, but the California copycat initiative of 1996 was its undoing. Parties there went to court, triumphing with a 7-2 Supreme Court opinion last June.

The high court held that political parties’ right of free association under the First Amendment allows them to exclude outsiders from their nominating process.

In Washington, the parties allowed one last use of the old system last year, but gave notice that they intend to assert their newly guaranteed right to a more closed system.

"This whole thing is not our fault," says the GOP’s Vance. "It’s not our fault the blanket primary is unconstitutional."

Vance and Berendt say the issue is simple: No one but their own members should be picking the party standard-bearer. They believe voters will eventually accept change.

THE FIX

Lawmakers’ first gambit was to try to persuade the parties to back off.

The parties told them to buzz off.

So Locke and lawmakers tried to find something as close as possible to the current system that both the parties and the court would accept. That has proven spectacularly futile.

Lawmakers’ two main objectives are to maintain voters’ privacy — meaning no party registration or public list of which party’s ballot someone chooses — and to allow crossover voting so voters can pick their favorite for each office.

But the parties demand there be no crossover voting, and they want mandatory voter lists so they can identify supporters for fund-raising and campaign purposes.

Many plans were floated, and discarded, including instant runoff voting; declaring all offices nonpartisan; voluntary party registration; and more power for parties to designate their preferred nominees; and separate ballots for each party, with an option for unaffiliated voters that includes all candidates.

And so lawmakers have arrived at essentially two choices, each with problems.

CAJUN STYLE

Currently used by only Louisiana, this system has the beauty of simplicity. It’s not really a nominating primary, but a qualifying election where the top two move on to the general election primary.

It’s also not without its drawbacks. Foremost is the possibility that the finalists would be from the same party. If it had been in place in 1996, for instance, voters would have chosen between two Democrats for governor.

If it had been in place last year, Slade Gorton would still be U.S. senator and both houses probably would have gone Republican because Libertarian rivals would not have been in the finals.

Still, Secretary of State Sam Reed calls it the "least bad" alternative. It’s simple and cheap to administer and voters wouldn’t notice much difference, he says. Crossover voting would be fine and voters would have no need to disclose a party preference.

VOLUNTARY DECLARATION

This plan, a variation on Snyder’s original bill, would create a single ballot. Voters could identify themselves by party and then vote only for that party’s candidates, with no record kept of which ballot the voter took. Or voters could identify themselves as unaffiliated and then vote as in a blanket primary, although the parties could decline to accept these votes.

This is the same system used for the presidential primaries.

Critics say voters would be furious if they thought their ballots didn’t count. County auditors say this system would be difficult and costly to administer — possibly twice as expensive.

WHERE FROM HERE?

It’s still fairly murky, but Reed and key lawmakers in both houses are putting their money on the Louisiana-style primary passing within two weeks. "The votes are there in both houses," says Reed. "The problem is the leadership."

That was a reference to Ballard’s flat statement that he would block a House vote on the bill. Ballard says it does harm to the parties and that lawmakers won’t want to cross them. He also believes voters wouldn’t like the system.

Rep. Dave Schmidt, R-Bothell, co-chair of the House Select Committee on Elections, says a strong majority of his caucus favors the plan and that Ballard may be persuaded to bow to the will of his colleagues.

Or not.

BACKUP SINGERS

Waiting in the wings is a new Grange initiative, which retains key features of the blanket primary but allows the parties to designate their preferred candidates.

The Libertarians have an outside-the-box idea: Abolish the primary altogether and let the parties figure out their nominees.

And then there’s always the default option: Let U.S. District Judge Frank Burgess figure it all out.