On April 19, the Montana legislature passed SB 408, which provides that the November 2014 ballot will ask voters if they wish to pass a top-two primary system. The vote was 29-20. Because this is just a measure to put a question on the ballot, it does not need to go to the Governor.
Meanwhile, the Secretary of State’s omnibus election law bill, HB 120, which was introduced months before SB 408, still hasn’t passed the legislature. It has passed each house, but the versions were different, and a conference committee will work on producing a single version of the bill.
How about a referendum to save Democracy via P.R. ???
The Republicans would rather have SB 408 that includes much of the same language. Conference committee’s can be the death of bills. Republicans want a one party state in Montana with a California style top two primary. So when things backfire as they have done in California, who gets the blame?
It would be more accurate to refer to it as a Washington-style Top 2 primary. Neither Washington nor Montana have partisan voter registration, and Washington elects party officers in much the same way that Montana is proposing to do.
The Secretary of State should hire former Secretary of State Sam Reed as a consultant.
Jim you are right people don’t register for parties but under SB 408 there will be a partisan box for people to check to vote for party officers and presidential candidates. One would have thought that even though Top Two allows all pres candidates in the general that primary voters would have the chance to vote for their choice for president. SB 408 still has partisan elections for president, if you check the party preference box. By checking this box, you can only vote for that’s parties preference, which can’t be a candidate that is endorsed by party officials.The Montana Secretary of State seems to be still looking at the bill. But not many people will argue that the Republicans want a one party state. The Republicans had trouble getting out the vote for governor in 2012, so they blamed the Montana Libertarian Party, since their candidate for governor, had close to 4% of the vote. SB 408 is in response to the Libertarians. Another bill SB 405, which would eliminate same day voting is in response to Democrats doing a better job at getting out the vote. Why worry about doing a better job when you can just change a few days to support your cause. In 2006 Jon Tester defeated incumbent Conrad Burns because of same day voting. Throw in the fact that the Libertarian had 10,000 votes and Burns supported unconstitutional acts like the Patriot Act, well the Republicans aren’t too happy these days. I don’t think those LP votes would automatically go to Republicans. Some would just not check those boxes, if they didn’t like their choices, rather then simply voting for the lesser of two evils.
#4 Washington also elects its precinct officers at the primary. Like Montana, Washington provides a role for political parties in the filling of legislative vacancies. Much of the length of SB 408 is to conform the language of the filling legislative and county commissioner vacancies. The first 12 pages of the bill don’t even change the election code.
If not for those stupid provisions, there would be no need for Montana to regulate the election of party officers, just as they don’t regulate the elections of the Rotary Club, Elks, or garden clubs.
Washington ballots have a separate section for election of precinct officers. The original statute would have had a section like in Montana, where you would select a party, then vote for a candidate of that party for party officer. In the final version, the fact that you voted for a candidate for party office is an indication of alignment with the party.
If any political party were to challenge how Montana elects party officers, the Secretary of State, if she had any sense, would not defend the law. Or in the case of Montana, the Attorney General would refuse to represent the Secretary of State.
Washington has a separate presidential preference primary, though it was cancelled in 2012, and the Democrats refuse to use the results of the primary for allocation of results. National Democratic Party rules require Democrat voters to publicly affiliate with the party. I’m surprised that the national party accepts Montana’s secret party system. In 2012, Montana Republicans did not use the primary.
It is really a waste of Montana taxpayer funds to hold a presidential primary. If they didn’t have a presidential primary, they could move the regular primary to October, like in Louisiana, just a month before the general election.
If they want to have a primary, they should move it to February. The California presidential primary in February 2008, had twice the participation as the June 2012 primary.
The Montana Republicans did hold a presidential primary in 2012. In 2008 the Republicans used a caucus system but still had the presidential primary election. The Republicans found out that it cost them a lot of money to hold these caucuses, so they went back to the state taxpayers footing the bill. All of these bills allow all candidates for president to be listed on the general ballot because of the Federal election, but why doesn’t that include the other Federal elections of Congress and US Senate? Sounds like a lawsuit waiting to happen.
There is no constitutional requirement that the elections for presidential elector and Congress be conducted in the same manner, indeed that there even be a popular election for choosing the presidential electors.
There was a claim made during the debate that federal law required party nomination of presidential candidates. That was totally bogus, Anderson v Celebrezze notwithstanding.
If Montana wanted to hold a Top 2 primary for president it would be totally within the authority of the legislature to do so.
Montana Republicans did not use the results of the primary in 2004, 2008, nor 2012. It does not make sense that Montana Democrats were permitted to use the results of the primary since the national rules require public affiliation by voters with the party. Going into a private voting booth and secretly marking one ballot and discarding the other is not public.
Nobody knows whether Jon Tester or Steve Bullock really voted a Democratic primary ballot in 2012.