One way to get past hyper-partisan elections

By Phil Power | Published: April 8, 2010

Want to reduce the hyper-partisanship gripping our politics?

Interested in getting rid of as many of the shrill, toxic ads as possible? Want less blatant pandering to party extremists?

Sure. Who doesn’t?

So how is this for a remedy: Abolish partisan primary elections.

This year, Michigan will hold primaries on Tuesday, Aug. 3. They will narrow down the field to one candidate from each major party for the Nov. 2 general election.

That’s the way we’ve been choosing nominees for governor, senator, Congress and the state legislature since 1912, when the legislature passed an election law calling for primary elections. We’ve also had an off-again, on-again presidential primary, the first of which was held in April, 1916, when Henry Ford, who wasn’t even a candidate, finished first on the Republican side with 83,057 votes. (The GOP sensibly nominated someone else instead.)

This was at the height of the Bull Moore/Progressive era, and primaries then were regarded as a part of political reform, a remedy designed to end the practice of the political bosses gathering in smoke-filled backrooms to pick their chums to run for office.

But now, nearly a century later, this reform has outgrown its usefulness. In fact, the results of primary elections are nearly all bad:

Most districts, both congressional and legislative, are gerrymandered to assure one party wins the general election in November. U.S. Rep. John Dingell (D-Dearborn,) the longest-serving member of the House in history, estimates there are no more 40 truly competitive congressional districts out of 435 total. Most experts think about the same ratio holds for the Michigan legislature.

Turnout is abysmally low in primary elections. A quick review of statistics from the Michigan Secretary of State shows that in years in which we elect a president, only about one in every five voters shows up to vote in the primary. In non-presidential years like this one, that turnout is even lower.

What this means is that a very small minority of voters nominate candidates who will run (and mostly automatically win) in the general election. The result is often to disenfranchise voters in the minority. Say you’re a Republican who lives in U.S. Rep. John Conyers’ overwhelmingly Democratic district. Your vote won’t count in either the primary or general election. Same thing if you’re a Democrat in Congressman Dave Camp’s district.

What makes matters worse is that the voters who do turn out in primary elections are almost always the extreme, ideological partisans on either side. What this means is that in Republican-leaning districts, the nominee is likely to be a hard right-winger, and in Democratic districts, it is probably going to be an extreme liberal.

So thanks to partisan primary elections, our system assures that the folks who waltz through many general election races in November are at the extremes of the political spectrum. No wonder they can’t get along when they’re in office. Many voters who show up to choose them in these primaries are not interested in political cooperation once they’re in office.

They are more likely to be interested in ideological litmus tests or, worse, moved by harsh rhetoric or silly campaign ads. This makes sensible compromise for the common good that much more difficult.

So what’s to be done?

Scrap this outdated system and replace it with a fully open primary that selects the top two candidates, regardless of party, to run head to head in November. Call this a “qualifying election.” That would help weed out the extremists and reward candidates who appeal to the broadest group of voters.

In Conyers’ district, for example, the two top candidates are almost certain to be Democrats. But to be nominated, candidates in the qualifying election would have to appeal to (those few) Republicans in the district, to independents, and to ranges of opinion among Democratic voters. The net effect would be to drive candidates to the center of the political spectrum.

Additionally, it would give both independent and minority party voters a chance to make their votes count in the qualifying election.

Making this change would require no federal legislation or changes to our state Constitution. A simple legislative majority could make the change, as voters did in Washington state in 2006.

All this sounds too good to be true. Would such a system completely cure our dysfunctional politics? Probably not, if only because lobbies and rich people have seized control of so much of the system, leaving special interest-driven candidates the likely winners, regardless of whatever election system we have.

Still, it might be an improvement. Call me anti-democratic, but I preferred the old fashioned “smoke-filled room.” There, bosses who actually knew the candidates and their weaknesses and their strengths did the picking. Most of them knew that their continued influence depended on picking candidates who were electable, effective and reasonably honest.

Instead, we now have a dysfunctional system. Why should we be surprised that we get dysfunctional government as a result?

***

Editor’s Note: Former newspaper publisher and University of Michigan Regent Phil Power is a longtime observer of Michigan politics and economics and a former chairman of the Michigan chapter of the Nature Conservancy. He is also the founder and president of The Center for Michigan, a bipartisan centrist think-and-do tank which is sponsoring Michigan’s Defining Moment, a public engagement outreach campaign for citizens. The opinions expressed here are Power’s own and do not represent the official views of The Center. He welcomes your comments at ppower@thecenterformichigan.net

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One way to get past hyper-partisan elections

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