Maggart, Tennessee GOP should push closed primaries

One of this past year's little-discussed pieces of legislation in the Tennessee General Assembly was a bill brought by Representative Debra Maggart (R-Hendersonville) which would have required Tennessee voters to declare a party affiliation that would become a part of their voting record. Any voter could choose not to do so, of course, but without a declared party affiliation a voter was not free to vote in a party political primary. Put in the most simplistic terms, the Maggart bill would require that Republicans vote in the Republican primary that nominates Republicans for offices. Democratic voters would vote in Democratic primaries for the nomination of Democrats for the General Election.

Those who are not members of either party or are members of the other party could not vote in a nominating contest for a party which they did not declare themselves to belong. This is more commonly known as the "closed primary."

One of the arguments the opponents of House Bill 0629 have made is that if tax money is being used in any way in conducting primaries, they should have the "right" to vote in them. This argument seems most often posited by Democrats who are afraid that they will no longer be able to try and weaken the GOP by cross-voting for weak candidates to insure Democratic victories in swing districts. Those who insist on using such a straw-man argument should recall that both of our political parties in Tennessee use primaries because of custom, tradition, and their good graces-the law does not require either party to nominate by primary. Parties are free, under Tennessee law, also to hold nominating conventions right down to the precinct level (although these would be called "conventions," they would function the way a precinct caucus would if the process really moved as low as the precinct). I can't speak to how the Democrats organize their county parties, but Republicans are technically organized by precinct in each county in case such a nominating process were ever actually used.

How much latitude does the law give our political parties in nominating candidates? So much that the Democratic Party was able to throw out the result of a primary they didn't like when Rosalind Kurita won in Clarksville after having cast her vote for Speaker of the Senate for Ron Ramsey.

Voters in Tennessee's First Congressional District will recall that in 2008, former Congressman David Davis refused to concede the Republican primary to Phil Roe for several days, arguing that his loss (by less than 500 votes) had occurred not because Republicans rejected him, but because Democrats voted in the Republican primary in some force for his opponent. Davis attempted to base his claim on an obscure Reconstruction-era law regarding party loyalty that is not a part of current Tennessee Code or jurisprudence. At the time, I (a Davis supporter) called on Davis to concede as he had been fairly and legally defeated.

David Davis did have a point, however-he was almost certainly defeated because of Democratic crossover voters, since Tennessee law allows crossover voting with such ease and no trace of party identification. I have known people who have told me "oh, I am a Republican but I vote in the Democratic primary so I can try and nominate the weaker candidate." It is no Republican's business who the Democrats choose to nominate as their candidate for office until that person is nominated, and then it is the GOP's business to beat them. The same is true for Democrats-the nomination of Republican candidates should be the business of Republicans alone.

Closing the primary allows our political parties the ultimate tool in insuring the validity of their primary, and that party members will, inasmuch as is possible, get the candidates of their choice. Parties should be able to make the rules about how their candidates are nominated and then enforce those rules.