Well, I'm sitting in the cafe of the Badlands Interior Motel (free internet in the middle of nowhere!) waiting for the gumbo to dry out, and I just read this superb column by George Will (son of philosophy prof. Frederick L. Will). It describes a primary election process voted through last week by the clueless voters of California.It is designed (literally, intended) to elect politicians who are "moderate" (eg., idea-free, inconsistent) and incidentally makes it impossible for parties like the Greens and the Libertarians to have candidates on November ballots.
With any luck, it will be struck down as unconstitutional.
6 comments:
It appears to be a new form of gerrymandering.
That is a very interesting comment. I'll try to post on it later today.
I'm no expert but it seems blatantly unconstitutional. Can just anything propositional content get on a ballot nowadays for voter approval, including restricting the voting rights of others?
I haven't checked it out thoroughly yet, but I understand there was a 2008 SOTUS case involving a similar sort of issue involving primary elections, and the Court rejected the freedom of association argument, unfortunately. Washington State Grange v. Washington State Republican Party. Maybe with a few changes the (according to me) "good guys" will do better next time.
The law does not "make it impossible" for third party candidates to advance to the final round. Furthermore, your equation of moderate candidates with 'idea-free' idiots is insulting. Our politics need not be conducted on a single axis of left and right.
The law requires candidates to be one of the top two vote-getters in the free-for-all primary in order to make it on the november ballot. For parties like the Greens and the Libertarians, this is indeed impossible.
The fact that a comment is insulting does not make it false. For the reasons why I have a low opinion of political (though not moral) moderation, see the link in the post.
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