On February 6, the New Mexico Supreme Court ruled unanimously that closed primaries do not violate the State Constitution. The constitution says, “All elections shall be free and open, and no power, civil or military, shall at any time interfere to prevent the free exercise of the right of suffrage.” The plaintiff, an independent voter, wanted to vote in a partisan primary, and he felt the law that required primary voters to be members of the party violated that constitutional provision. Here is the 18-page decision. The case is Crum v Duran, S-1-SC-36030.
The decision is not surprising. No federal or state court has ever ruled that closed primaries are unconstitutional. As the decision notes, New Mexico didn’t even have primaries until 1938; before that year, parties nominated by convention or party meeting.
Then I would argue that primary elections are not “elections” and are illegal contributions to political parties to aid them in selecting candidates. You can’t have it both ways, either its a state run election, or its a private party process that the state is illegally paying for.
Political parties never wanted primaries. Primaries were forced on them. It is not fair to parties to first force them to have primaries and then on top of that tell them that non-members must be permitted to participate in those primaries. Primaries are not “contributions” to parties.
There is nothing in the U.S. Constitution, or in the constitution of most states, forbidding government from spending money on private groups or individuals.
If a company/individual spent as much money on advertising political parties and candidates that the state does for the 2 largest parties they would be subject to FEC rules, primaries are merely early advertising for DEM and REP parties/candidates worth hundreds of millions of dollars.
Who forced primaries upon the parties?
State legislators.
Just having primaries does not intrinsically get publicity. Minor parties have had primaries sometime in the last 40 years in Alaska, Arizona, Arkansas, California, Colorado, Connecticut, D.C., Florida, Hawaii, Idaho, Illinois, Iowa, Maine, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Dakota, Utah, Vermont, Washington, West Virginia, Wisconsin, and Wyoming, so there is plenty of evidence. Primaries per se don’t generate publicity.
Brandon, I would argue that rather than force parties to allow people who do not identify with that party to participate in choosing who will be their candidate, it would be far preferable for parties to control the process by which their nominees are chosen. Requiring political parties to use the primary process, even closed primaries, is an unnecessary restriction that tramples on the prerogative of the party. It also, even with entirely open primaries, requires the rest of us who don’t wish to associate with that party to fund their primary function of nominating candidates. Let parties choose to nominate as they wish, and if they want a primary with the state’s election machinery they should pay the costs for it.
@Chris
I entirely agree with that, let them choose how they wish and let them pay for it
@Richard Winger, How were the state legislators chosen?
Why not take the party labels off the ballot completely?
Political groups could organize just like they did before the Australian ballot. The only difference would be that they would distribute slate cards, rather than ballots, and might help out in petitioning or paying filing fees.