Our Views: Leave state’s top-two primary system alone

• Published August 27, 2009

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The major political parties in this state certainly do not have the best interests of voters at heart. If they did, party leaders would drop their efforts to overturn Washington’s popular top-two primary election.

Secretary of State Sam Reed and Attorney General Rob McKenna continue to wage courtroom battles with the Democrats, Republicans and Libertarians on behalf of voters. For that the statewide elected officials deserve our thanks.

Political party leaders have earned our scorn. A poll by Stuart Elway showed three-fourths of all voters, including Democrats, Republicans and independents, like the top two primary, yet party leaders continue to press their lawsuits in hopes of torpedoing the system used to advance candidates from the August primary to the November general election.

Truth be told, party leaders have been out of step with the electorate every step of the way since 2003 when they mucked up a 68-year-old blanket primary tradition. Under that extremely popular electoral system voters could select the candidate of their choice, regardless of political party. Ultimately, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled the blanket primary unconstitutional.

In 2004 voters approved Initiative 872, the socalled “top-two” or “modified blanket primary” where candidates select their own party preference and the two candidates that receive the highest votes — regardless of party designation — advance to the November election.

On May 19, 2005, the Republican Party, joined by Democrats and Libertarians, sued to have I-872 declared unconstitutional. Democrats and Republicans said the election stripped them of their right to nominate candidates of their choice. By self-selecting their party designation, candidates diluted the party’s message, party officials said. The system also allowed candidates to “appropriate” the party’s name without permission and let party nominees be determined by voters whose beliefs were antithetical to those of the party. Democrats and Republicans said the new rules favored minor political parties at the expense of the two major parties.

Libertarians made similar First Amendment claims but also said the citizen-passed initiative arbitrarily deprived minor parties access to the general election ballot.

While lower courts sided with the political parties, the U.S. Supreme Court reversed and allowed the top-two primary to proceed. The primary election held last week followed the toptwo format.

The nation’s highest court said, “ ... the I-872 primary does not, by its terms, choose parties’ nominees.” The court said, “the First Amendment does not give political parties a right to have their nominees designated as such on the ballot.”

The high court said it trusted Washington voters would not misinterpret a candidate’s selfidentified party preference as some form of endorsement by the party.

The Supreme Court decision was a ringing victory for Washington voters and a resounding defeat for political party leaders.

Reed urged the Democrats, Republicans and Libertarians to drop their legal challenges. McKenna filed a motion in U.S. District Court to have the political parties’ case dismissed.

In a recent decision, District Court Judge John C. Coughenour offered a split decision. While he noted that the court has upheld the “top two” election, he refused to grant the state’s motion to dismiss the case.

Judge Coughenour said while the political parties will not be able to nullify Initiative 872 in its entirety they are entitled to the opportunity to have sections of the law invalidated.

With his ruling, Coughenour has opened the door for the political parties to challenge specifics of how the election is conducted — such as whether voters might be confused by the way party preferences are listed on the ballot and in voter guides.

So the parties’ legal challenges continue with no end in sight.

That’s unfortunate because it’s clear that the top two primary is extremely popular with voters.

An August 2008 Stuart Elway poll found 76 percent of Washington voters in support and only 19 percent opposed.

At the time, Reed said, “The clear and overwhelming popularity of the new system shows that it fits well with the state’s long political tradition of independence and the notion of ‘vote for the person, not the party.’”

Regrettably, that’s a message the political party leaders in this state fail to comprehend.