Washington State Senator Craig Pridemore (D-Vancouver) has introduced SB 5119. It would abolish the presidential primary for 2012. In 2008, the Washington presidential primary was on February 19. The bill was introduced at the request of the Secretary of State. The Governor also supports the bill, because abolishing the presidential primary would save taxpayer dollars. Thanks to Josh Putnam of Frontloading HQ for this news. Frontloading HQ is the premier news source for news about state legislative bills that affect presidential primaries.
Hi Dick, thanks for the continued good work that allows me to keep up on these matters to extent. What is the dynamic of this bill, if passe, given the top two nonsense that is now in place in Washington?
Saludos
John C. Strawn
Dick?
The Washington presidential primary has always been completely outside the top-two system. Washington presidential primaries have always been separate from primaries for office other than president.
Correct. The WA primary system is (was) a weird jungle-primary that was really unfair to begin with.
P.R. and nonpartisan App.V = NO primaries.
Uniform definition of Elector in ALL of the U.S.A.
How many States in the U.S.A. and even Nation-States on Mother Earth elect a nonpartisan chief executive officer and manage to survive ???
Some other interesting Washington bills:
SR 8601 would overturn the results for Senate in LD 38, where an incumbent Democratic senator narrowly finished 3rd in the Top 2 primary. There are allegations that money from leftist Democrats was used to encourage votes for the Republican candidate who finished 2nd in the primary. The incumbent Democrat was more conservative than the Democratic challenger who ultimately won.
HB 1092 would require drawing of two house districts within each legislative district. The Washington constitution requires that house districts be contained within each legislative district, but does not actually require that they be coextensive. In the past, Washington has had separate house districts in some more rural areas where distinct geographic interests might be recognized, but that practice was uncommon.
One reason that Washington elections may produce few party switches is the coincident electorates for 3 offices, one senate and two house members, and the relatively few number of legislative districts, which produces large electorates for house members.
HB 1142 would eliminate the primary for offices in which two or fewer candidates file. This might be intended to make it harder for write-in candidates to qualify for races in which there is only a single on-ballot candidate. It does seem inconsistent with Washington’s acceptance of write-in votes for even undeclared candidates.
#3 There is a relation between the blanket, pick-a-party and open top 2 primaries, and the presidential primary. Washington doesn’t have party registration and all 3 systems of primaries maintain no record of party affiliation, since all are conducted by secret ballot.
The national political parties require public party affiliation of voters for presidential primaries and caucuses. In the past, Washington has tried to get around this requirement (or alternatively, facilitate its implementation), by having voters sign a statement of affiliation on their returned ballot envelope.
The Democrats have not recently recognized the result of the primaries, since it doesn’t really require anyone to provide any commitment to the party beyond signing ballot, and have also complained that the Republicans are wasting money by using the primary results. With the likelihood of no Democratic presidential contest in 2012, this would likely happen again in 2012. So it is simpler to just do away with the presidential primary, at least for 2012.
That is not good news. It has been recognized by most reasonable people that it is more democratic and progressive to utilize a primary system than to use a caucus or convention system to select candidates for office. This is just one more way to take away the rights of the voters of the State of Washington. First, the “top-two” system; now this! I hope that California is not the next state to have to face this nonsense. Perhaps, Senator Craig Pridemore’s bill will fail to pass. That would be very good news.
# 7 The national political parties require public party affiliation of voters for presidential primaries and caucuses.
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Pending the having of P.R. and App.V. — the more top 2 primary States the better — to even quicker send the national political parties [i.e. the party hack robot monarchs / oligarchs] to the political history junkyard — to be with divine right of kings and slavery.
#8 I noticed that the SOS included the deadline for party endorsements in the AD 4 special election. Does the P&F party have committees for each assembly district, or do the county committees do that?
To Jim Riley:
Daniel Frederick, the current Chaiperson of the Sacramento County Central Committee, has been endorsed for Assembly District 4 by both the Sacramento County Central Committe and the State Central Committe of the Peace and Freedom Party of California. I do not know about the other County Central Committees that would be involved. C.T. Weber, the State Chairperson, would know the answer to that one.
How many gerrymander areas are 60 percent or more ONE PARTY controlled ??? — such that the OLD caucus – primary – convention stuff is ABSOLUTELY worthless in having any REAL competition in general elections ???
Think the many inner city Donkey ghetto districts, rural Elephant districts, the pre-1964 Donkey southern State regimes, etc.
Very sorry but 1-5 percent 3rd party / independent protest votes have about ZERO effect on the gerrymander winners.
How many of the general election winners in WA since the top 2 primary have been elected with less than 55 percent of the votes — i.e. having MAJOR pressure on them if they run again ???
P.R. and App.V.
#12 (33) 26.8% of legislative candidates in 2010. 60% is probably a more realistic threshold based on actual results. Since Washington elects 3 legislatures from each district, one can observe about a 10% variation in support among candidates who have the same party preference.
For a 60% threshold, it would be (63) or 51.2%.
#13 With P.R. = NO safe seats.
Each party hack gang must justify its political existence at each election.
See the P.R. elections in *civilized* nations —
New Zealand, Germany, Israel, etc. — BUT noting that each of such systems has some MAJOR defects.