Well-intentioned reformers are trying to tamper with the Maine primary process, but the proposals are fraught with negative unintended consequences.
Nothing in the Constitution requires political parties. Therefore, parties should close primaries to only those voters who chose to affiliate. It is their right to put forward the candidate they deem best to carry their partisan banner.
If they nominate a less-than-qualified person, the voters will send them the message in the general election. If any reform is in order, perhaps the parties should pay the full costs of keeping polls open for the private exercise of an exclusive group.
Even one of the prime sponsors of open primaries, Republican Sen. Roger Katz of Augusta admits that the majority of voters are fed up with the two dominant political parties.
“Let’s face it, there is a large bloc of people out there who do not have a great deal of faith in either political party and just do not want an R or a D after their name,” Katz told the BDN’s Mario Maretto.
The Maine voter registrations document this. Approximately 380,000 are unenrolled, making up the largest bloc of registered voters.
Unenrolled voters are not disenfranchised, however. Candidates can bypass parties and petition to be on the November general ballot as an independent alternative to Republicans and Democrats.
Perhaps we can reform partisan gridlock by adopting the Nebraska model where the legislative candidates run without party label, and there is no party caucus system.
I served on a national board with Laura Ebke, a college professor elected to the unicameral Nebraska Legislature last year, and I asked her about the experience. She is a long-time Republican activist but said she believes not having party blocs makes better lawmaking.
Parties still get involved in the elections with help for candidates registered to their party like polling, third-party mailers and such. Ebke’s campaign was helped by a mailer targeted to Republican lists with the endorsement of popular GOP Gov. Pete Ricketts.
She said every vote had to be earned because voters did not have the unthinking option of voting for a candidate by seeing party affiliation on the ballot.
The candidates’ political differences in approach to government came out in their face-to-face debate. Astute voters could pick up the nuance of where they stood philosophically from their answers.
Politics and government are two separate things. Politics is the process of being elected to office. Government is the process of conducting civic business.
Gridlock is created when there are political caucuses within the government body. We see it in Washington, and we see it in Augusta. Party whips pressure members to toe the partisan policy line. Free thinkers are browbeaten by party peer pressure or face accusations of party disloyalty if they vote differently.
Ebke said that is not the case in Nebraska. The state legislature does not have party leaders.
“The coalitions shift from issue to issue,” she said, with more attention paid to the specifics of a proposal and the bill contents.
“The parties don’t come and twist our arms,” she said. “We’re all free actors.”
Although she is still a Republican activist, Ebke said her experience serving in office has convinced her that “non-partisanship is probably the way to do it” at the legislative level.
Municipal government in Maine functions with non-partisan elections. Coalitions are formed around specific local issues, which often pit councilors from the same party against each other. Nevertheless, it works because the town council grapples with the specifics of road improvements or law enforcement, not Democratic or Republican platforms.
The current crop of Maine reformers might better devote their energies to investigating non-partisan legislative elections rather than tampering with the primary system.
Vic Berardelli of Newburgh is the author of “The Politics Guy Campaign Tips — How to Win a Local Election.” He is a former political consultant, GOP state committeeman and Republican Liberty Caucus Northeast Regional Director.
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