Federalize the Primaries?
Ed Morrisey (of Captain’s Quarters, blogging at Heading Right), notes the current leapfrogging of states to get ahead of each other in the primary calender, and seems to argue for federal Congressional involvement at this point.
What?
His argument is that Congress has a role in setting elections for federal offices, which is true, and so maybe it’s time they stepped into the primary fray, for the benefit of America.
How do we solve this? Should Congress set up a rotating panel of primaries, where four or five Super Tuesdays settle the question and the order rotates each Presidential cycle? A federalist point of view would mandate allowing the states to set their own primary dates, but for federal office, shouldn’t Congress be allowed to control the parameters of the time frame?
To me, this is a bit of what Ron Paul was talking about when he said “in this country, we either prohibit something or subsidize it”. It’s true that Congress has a role in elections. Strictly speaking, however, primaries are in no way federal elections. Winning a primary means jack squat in terms of federal office. It changes the structure and makeup of government in not a single way. The ELECTION is the “election to federal office”. The PRIMARY is a PARTY-AFFAIR wherein they decide who they want to send to RUN for that federal office. It is not the responsibility nor the purview of Congress to tell political parties how to run themselves. It is not a matter of state vs federal control. It’s a matter of election versus party nomination.
That’s not to say I don’t agree with Morrissey’s basic point, that the primary system is, right now, a mess and a headache and threatens to get worse. However, if the parties want to muck up how they nominate candidates, that’s their prerogative (and, if they do it badly enough, they will start losing elections because of it, which indeed I’d argue BOTH parties have). They set their own rules. The federal legislature hasn’t set up the system that isn’t working (they have nothing to do with it at all), the parties have, and it’s up to them to fix it. If Morrissey takes issue with how the primaries are conducted, his best bet is to start lobbying the PARTY. Because ultimately, it’s them that have the only say, them that sets the rules, and them that will be hurt or helped by the primary system they set. Take it to them. It’s not Congress’ job (and, as far as I’m aware, they wouldn’t be able to do anything about it even if they wanted to).
I’d still prefer a national primary (ie, all votes for the nominee cast on the same day). I am not a fan of Congress somehow mandating it, though, even if it were constitutional. I’d prefer the parties to drive it, which they pretty much can do if they wish (they have no legal obligation to recognise primaries not conducted according to party rules, so far as I am aware).
If Congress were going to meddle in what are now state (and party) electoral issues, there’s a laundry list of things they could do, but towards many of those changes we can see some sort of self-interest argument at the state or party level, which would make those bodies the best ones to institute change. If Congress has so much time to spare, perhaps they might work instead on sorting out the AMT and, you know, agreeing a damn budget.
Comment by Adam — 5/7/2007 @ 11:11 am