How California and Washington Could Return to Blanket Primaries

Washington state used a blanket primary from 1934 to 2002, and California used a blanket primary in 1998 and 2000. Under a blanket primary, all candidates appear on a single primary ballot. Then, the top vote-getter from each party appears on the November ballot. Independent candidates can be handled in a variety of ways. In California in 1998 and 2000, independent candidates didn’t run in the primary and instead petitioned to get on the November ballot. But in California special elections 1967-2010, independent candidates did run in the primary and also were automatically put on the runoff ballot if there was a runoff. In Washington’s blanket primaries, independents didn’t run in the primary 1934-1976 but they did 1978-2002, and went on the November ballot if they got 1% of the primary vote.

Both states stopped using blanket primaries because in 2000, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled they are unconstitutional, if a party objects to them. That case was California Democratic Party v Jones. States can continue to use blanket primaries if parties don’t object to them. Alaska still uses a blanket primary, in which all of Alaska’s parties except the Republican Party participate. Also California continued to use blanket primaries for special elections for ten years after the U.S. Supreme Court decision, and no one objected.

Recent federal court activity from Utah and Montana indicate that Washington and California could return to a blanket primary if the law providing for a blanket primary also said that if a party doesn’t like the blanket primary, then it is free to opt out and nominate by convention. In Utah, the legislature had passed a law requiring parties to permit independents to vote in their primaries and also to let people petition onto the primary ballot whether they had any support at a party meeting. The new law says parties that don’t permit both of these things can still nominate candidates but they won’t be given a primary. The Republican Party challenged the new law in Utah Republican Party v Herbert, 2:14cv-876, but U.S. District Court Judge David Nuffer refused to enjoin the new law and said it is probably constitutional.

In Montana, where the law originally said parties were required to elect party officers at an open primary, the Republican Party challenged the open primary. But then the legislature in 2015 passed a law saying if parties don’t want to elect party officers in the primary, they are free to elect them in party meetings instead. It seemed so obvious that the 2015 cured the constitutional problem, the Republican Party dropped its appeal in the Ninth Circuit, in its 2014 case Ravalli County Republican Central Committee v McCulloch, although parts of the case not involving party officers are still pending in U.S. District Court.

Also, Republican Party lawsuits earlier in Virginia and South Carolina against being forced to use an open primary to nominate candidates for public office failed, because in both states any party is free to nominate by convention instead of primary.

The logic of the Utah, Montana, Virginia and South Carolina cases suggests that if California and Washington required parties to use a blanket primary or to nominate by convention, such a law would be constitutional.


Comments

How California and Washington Could Return to Blanket Primaries — 24 Comments

  1. Doesn’t Hawaii have blanket primaries? I seem to remember voting in 2000 there and I remember the ballot had different random colored boxes for each parties candidates. In fact, I also remember the Democrats complaining they were on the back of the ballot.

  2. Hawaii has a Pick-A-Party primary. All candidates are on the ballot, but you are restricted to voting for a single party, or independent candidates.

  3. Hawaii has an open primary. Primary voters must choose one party’s primary ballot. Each party’s primary ballot is a separate piece of paper.

  4. Why would the States retrogress? Remember it was the political parties who brought the lawsuit against the blanket primary in the first place.

    How would your scheme work in a State without party registration, such as Washington?

    Why not promote your idea in Oregon or Arizona>

    Alaska’s blanket primary has not been an unqualified success. In the Miller-Murkowski race, the primary did not determine the Republican who was elected. And last year, you had a Republican running as an independent, who switched to a running mater who had been the Democratic gubernatorial nominee, who agreed to be the running mate of the Republican running as an independent, if he agreed to change his registration to independent. So why have nominations if you are going to ignore the results.

    Alaska’s blanket primary is a result of the Alaska Supreme Court determining that Alaska’s constitution provided greater freedom of association that the 1st Amendment.

  5. Jim, thank you for that picture of the Hawaii primary ballot. You are right. In the past Hawaii printed each party’s primary ballot on a separate piece of paper, and voters were given all the ballots and in the privacy of the voting booth voted on one and discarded the others. That has obviously been changed, so that now they are all on a single piece of paper.

  6. If a State wished to incorporate popular partisan nominations it could be combined with Top 2 in the following manner:

    All candidates would file an application for the primary. An application could designate which party nominations (plural), if any, that a candidate was seeking. There would be no withdrawal of candidacy, except for a possible runoff. If a candidate dies during the election process, the process would start over as a special election, with new candidate filings.

    The political parties could designate which non-party candidates could contest the nomination. (e.g. a Republican might seek the Democratic nomination, but the Democratic Party could deny him that opportunity.

    The political parties could also designate voters which other party’s voters could vote in their nomination contests.

    This would preserve the freedom of association to nominate non-members, and for non-members to be permitted to participate in the nomination process.

    Ballots would be marked with a voter’s party, but a voter would be free to vote for any candidate.

    If the candidates for a party’s nomination received enough votes from voters eligible to participate in that party’s nomination process (say 2% or 5%), the candidate who received the most such votes would be nominated.

    Any other candidates, including both those who were seeking nominations, and those who were not, who received 5% or more of the total votes would also advance, but without becoming a nominee.

    Note that if there were three or more candidates, the candidate with the fewest votes would be eliminated.

    In the general election, a majority would be required. A runoff would be held if no candidate received a majority. A state might hold its general election in September (There would have to a runoff for Congress, until Congress gets around to changing current statute).

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