Senate panel backs primary reform
BOISE – Idaho would move to a “modified-closed” primary election system, under legislation sent to the full Senate on a party-line vote Tuesday.
The measure, proposed by the nonpartisan citizen group The Common Interest, is an effort to head off a lawsuit from conservative Republicans who say their primary should be pure – and Democrats shouldn’t be allowed to vote in it.
Idaho has no party registration, and its primaries are open, allowing voters to choose anonymously which party’s primary ballot they’ll vote. Close to a third of Idahoans say they’re independents.
Keith Allred, a Harvard professor and head of The Common Interest, said research shows that the modified-closed system leads to winners who are most representative of their districts. The new system would require voters to register either as a member of one of the parties or as unaffiliated. Party registrants couldn’t vote in the other party’s primary, but unaffiliated voters could choose confidentially which party’s ballot they’d vote in a primary election.
Allred said under his proposal, SB 1506, a party that insisted on holding fully closed primaries that don’t allow participation by independents could do so at its own expense. “I think it would be a remarkable request to demand the independents help pay for a process that shuts them out,” he noted.
But former GOP state Sen. Rod Beck, lead plaintiff in a lawsuit that unsuccessfully sought to overturn Idaho’s open primary system last fall, called for amending the bill to close Idaho’s primaries, saying that’s what the Idaho Republican Party’s platform supports.
Beck’s lawsuit was thrown out by a federal magistrate judge because the court ruled that he and a group of 70 dissident Republicans didn’t have standing to sue – the party itself hadn’t sued.
Senate State Affairs Committee members sparred with Beck, who has lost several close GOP primary elections. Sen. Mike Jorgenson, R-Hayden Lake, asked Beck what his motivation is, and Beck said it’s to “strengthen the Idaho Republican party.”
At that, Senate Minority Leader Clint Stennett, D-Ketchum, said, “Are you prepared to write a check? I don’t think it’s the goal of the Democrats to strengthen the Republican Party, or the independents to strengthen the Republican Party.” Said Sen. Kate Kelly, D-Boise, “It seems like maybe the Republican Party should get its house in order before we tackle this.”
Jorgenson asked Beck, “With a state that has all four federal officers elected as Republicans, with a state that has all constitutional officers elected as Republicans, and with a state that has something in the neighborhood of 70 percent of all legislators elected as Republicans, what is wrong with our system?”
Beck responded, “The answer to that question is easy. Republicans have been disenfranchised for years.” Because Democrats can vote in Republican primaries, Beck said, “you get a disconnect of the people actually elected … from that party.”
Former Idaho Lt. Gov. David Leroy, an attorney and a Republican, spoke in favor of the bill, which he called “a decent and proper approach at a time when litigation is imminently possible.”
Allred said if the party sues in federal court – as directed by resolution of the party’s central committee if lawmakers don’t change Idaho’s primary law – Idaho’s current open primary system likely wouldn’t withstand the challenge. Thirty-eight states now have closed primaries.
Democrats, however, noted that the change would cost taxpayers more than $400,000 for a new registration system and required voter education, plus additional costs to counties at election time.
The bill cleared the committee on a 6-2 party-line vote and now moves to the full Senate. It needs passage both there and in the House and the governor’s signature to become law.