Game Changers

During this political year, in which Americans will elect the House of Representatives, one third of the Senate and many state officials, several important changes have been urged in our election process:

1. Switch to non-partisan primaries
The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel urged on September 15 that Wisconsin join California in making primaries for state offices and congress essentially non-partisan.
Under the present system, adopted in 1905 , each voter in the September primary selects a party and then votes for one candidate for each office seeking that party's nomination. (1) The nominees for each office then appear on the November ballot with their party designations; voters have the option of casting a single "straight ticket" vote for all nominees of a chosen party.
The trouble with this system is that is places partisanship above support for a particular candidate. For example, suppose that two Democrats (we'll call them Smith and Jones) and one Republican (Richards) seek a legislative seat in a heavily Democratic district. In the primary Smith gets 5,000 votes, Jones gets 4,890 and Richards gets 2,000. Even though Jones has much more support than Richards, Jones is eliminated and voters in November get to chose between Smith and Richards.
There is no way for moderate candidates to appeal to voters of both parties (or independents) at the primary stage; in the November general election the straight vote option makes the election of an independent or minor party candidate virtually impossible. Since district lines are drawn so as to minimize inter-party competition (by legislative leaders of both major parties), the winners tend to be stalwarts of their parties. This remains true even as polls indicate that most Americans are independents and hold both parties in low repute.
Instead, we should have the top two candidates in the primary advance to the general election, regardless of party. Candidates should have the option of including a message of up to five words under their name, which could be a party label or other identifying message (e.g. "Cut taxes" or "Not the White Man's Slavegirl"). This change would also mean eliminating the straight vote option, so that voters would actually have to consider the candidates in each contest rather than blindly backing one party.
Since the Wisconsin Constitution does not specify the primary format, this change could be made by law.

2. Let state legislatures select US Senators
The original US Constitution states that "The Senate of the United States shall be composed of two senators from each state chosen by the legislature thereof..." (2) But the Seventeenth Amendment, ratified in
1913, changed the latter clause to "elected by the people thereof..." Now leaders of the Tea Party movement have called for the repeal of the 17th Amendment, which would restore the right to select senators to the state legislatures. US Rep. Louis Gohmert (R, Texas) has introduced a bill in the House to do just that. In Idaho Tea Party candidate Raoul Labrador won a Republican congressional primary mainly on this issue. (3)
The Tea Party, founded less than two years ago (April 15, 2009), has had enormous impact on many Republican nominations. Republican Senators Bennett (Utah) and Murkowski (Alaska) have been ousted by Tea Party favorites; GOP officials have fallen to Tea Party challengers for senate nominations in Kentucky, Delaware and other states.
But most American voters do not find repeal of the 17th "their cup of tea." Popular election of senators was one of the major victories of the Progressive Movement of the early twentieth century, and most of us want the right to pick our senators ourselves rather than leave it to state legislators. Moreover, legislators and other political insiders would have a big advantage in winning senate seats for themselves.
Another problem is that a party that won legislative contests four and two years ago would control the selection of the next senator, even if the party had lost support. For example, if the Wisconsin legislature had the right to pick the next senator, the winner would certainly be a Democrat, since the party controls both houses of the state legislature. Even if the state were now overwhelmingly Republican, a Democrat would still hold the seat for the next six years.

Since the repeal of the 17th Amendment would require a Constitutional Amendment, that is not going to happen. The change in the Wisconsin Fall Primary, although only requiring a simple change in one statute, will not happen either, if only because legislators chosen through the present system are not likely to want to try their luck with a more competitive alternative.
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(1) Before 1905 party nominees were selected at conventions.

(2)Article I, Section 3, paragraph 1.

(3) The Revisionaries by Bradford Plumer, in the New Republic, Sept. 23, 2010, page 18.