The Nevada Senate Committee on Legislative Operations and Elections will hear SB 499 on April 1 at 3:30 p.m. The bill title says it sets up a “modified blanket primary.” It would provide that for all partisan office except President, all candidates would run in the primary. Only the top two could run in the general election, except that if the top two candidates in the primary are both in the same party, then the 2nd place finisher does not advance to the general election, and whichever candidate who is not in that same party does advance (however, if all the candidates are members of the same party, then the top two would advance).

Although this sounds somewhat like a top-two primary, the bill consistently uses the term “party nominee”. Top-two systems are not constitutional unless the ballot warns voters that there are no party nominees, and SB 499 not only uses the term “nominee”, nowhere does it provide that the ballot should carry language explaining that there are no party nominees.

Blanket primaries are unconstitutional if any party subject to them complains. The U.S. Supreme Court invalidated involuntary blanket primaries in 2000 in California Democratic Party v Jones. The principle behind that decision is that parties can’t be forced to let members of other parties help choose their nominees.

The sponsor of SB 499 is the entire Senate Committee, so it seems likely that the Committee will pass the bill. However, observers do not believe it would pass the Assembly even if it passes the Senate.

The Montana Senate State Administration Committee will hear HB 454 on Wednesday, April 8. This bill would permit parties to stop holding public elections for party committeemember. Instead the bill would let parties choose these officers in caucuses, or any other method provided by party rules. The bill has already passed the House by a vote of 53-46. Republicans, who hold a majority in each house of the legislature, are split on this bill. Democrats support the bill.

The Republican Party is currently suing the state to put a stop to using open primaries to elect party officers. The case is pending in the Ninth Circuit. If the bill passes, the lawsuit will be moot. The lawsuit says the party doesn’t want outsiders helping choose its party officers. Obviously if the bill passes, then the party’s complaint will have been satisfied, since these public elections will be voluntary, not mandatory.

The New York Times has published Professor Brendan Nyhan’s analysis of whether divisive presidential primary contests injure the eventual presidential nominee who survives the process.  Nyhan finds that a competitive presidential primary campaign does not injure that party or its nominee.  Read it here.  Nyhan also rebuts the idea that contested primaries force Republican nominees “to the right” of where they would be otherwise.  And his analysis links to research that shows open primaries do not necessarily produce more moderate nominees.

Also, on March 14, the San Diego Union-Tribune published an op-ed by political scientists Ethan Rarick and Thad Kousser, “Top-two primary shows little political impact.”  Thanks to Gene Armistead for that link.