Why Are Legislatures Telling Parties When and How to Hold Their Primaries?

by Micah Tillman

Recent reports of tension over changing primary dates between the DNC and the Florida legislature lead us to ask: Why are lawmakers deciding when political parties can get together to vote on their candidates?

Why, in fact, are legislatures spending money given to them by all taxpayers on enabling political parties to collect and tally the votes of their own members? Speaking as one of those members, I appreciate my legislature’s generous support. But how, when, and where my fellow party-members and I select our candidate is outside the purview of government.

There is, in American law and jurisprudence, a right to freedom of association. A quick search of the internet resources available to all will show that the First Amendment, coupled with California Democratic Party v. Jones, Democratic Party v. Wisconsin ex rel. LaFollette, and Cousins v. Wigoda have established this freedom. Political parties have the right to essentially do what they wish and exclude whom they wish when it comes to selecting their own candidates.

The parties have gotten themselves into this mess, however, by depending on legislatures to organize and fund their party voting process. When you invite the government in, you should expect them to meddle. And when they meddle in a way that you don’t like, you shouldn’t be surprised.

General elections are another matter, since who joins the government is a matter of concern to all citizens — regardless of party affiliation. There is, of course, the issue of expecting a sitting government to openly and accurately count the votes that may remove them from power. But that is a problem for another day. The point is that general elections are public issues, while primaries are party issues. It makes sense for the government to be involved in the former, but not in the latter.

If vibrant competition — which we value in the market of goods and services — is ever to break into America’s political duopoly, government must stop leveraging taxes to meddle in party primaries. (And parties should stop complaining about government meddling in other areas of life until they stop involving them in their internal voting processes.)

Sources:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/08/24/AR2007082402124.html?hpid=topnews
http://www.freedomforum.org/templates/document.asp?documentID=12783
http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/data/constitution/amendment01/12.html

Micah Tillman is an instructor at The Catholic University of America. Links to his articles and a list of upcoming titles can be found at http://micahtillman.blogspot.com/