Now that the U.S. Supreme Court has officially folded our state’s blanket primary system, the Legislature must act. Failing to do so risks a November election free-for-all worse than last year’s California recall.
State lawmakers have just two weeks left to approve a replacement. If they don’t, chances are there won’t be a primary election in September, with multiple candidates — perhaps dozens — appearing on the ballot for a single office. That chaos could yield a governor, member of Congress or state legislator who is elected without a majority of the vote.
Despite the protests of political party bosses, we still favor the modified blanket primary proposed by Secretary of State Sam Reed. That system, in which the top two vote-getters in the primary advance, regardless of party affiliation, best preserves the open choice that voters here have cherished for nearly 70 years. It would continue to allow independent-minded voters to choose a Democrat in one race and a Republican in another.
The parties say they’ll sue if that process is adopted. Let ‘em. Reed is convinced that the idea, modeled after the system used in Louisiana, passes legal muster.
The idea appears to be gaining support among lawmakers who realize that their first duty is to reflect the wishes of their constituents — the voters — rather than their party. Voters here are used to choosing freely between parties on their primary ballot. Forcing them to choose one ballot over another or, worse, having that choice recorded on the public record, could put a big chill on participation.
One of the potential side-effects of Reed’s top-two system, having two candidates from the same party advance to the general election, would be rare. Where it happens, though, it could be a plus. Imagine a congressional district whose population is dominated by one party (say, Seattle’s 7th District), and whose representative is never seriously challenged in a general election (Jim McDermott) because the rival party knows it’s a lost cause. Given the possibility of being on the November ballot, a viable challenger from the incumbent’s same party might be encouraged to make a run, giving voters a stronger field from which to choose. Similar examples are easy to imagine in Republican-heavy legislative districts in Eastern Washington.
State lawmakers must come up with a fix in the coming days, and they have a chance to do so while preserving the independence for which Washington voters are known. It’s an opportunity they should seize.
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