We
already have a large percentage of contested races go to primary. If
we have more primaries, we are apt to have more last minute attack
pieces and more ethics problems. There will also be a need for more
political donations raised for the more expensive races. We don't need
to provide more power to
the lobbyists.
I had considered raising the threshold to avoid a primary, but after looking at the numbers, it doesn't make sense.
The
60% works, allowing a shot of a challenger to eliminate an incumbent
and yet requires a challenger to be a strong candidate.
Based
on the party released sheets since 2000 for state wide races or
congressional races, At 60%, threshold to avoid a primary, 1/2 of contested races went to primary. If
at 2/3 threshold to avoid a primary, 67% of contested races go to a primary and at 70% threshold to avoid a primary, 70% of the
races go to primary. The last 2 numbers do not have to match, but they
ended up doing so.
They tracked 44 races, 14 of which were not
contested for the nominee. We realize it is only 5 or 6 contested races
difference, but when you are looking at 30 contested races, a change of 5
is 17%.
70%
would not have helped Sen. Bennett in 2010. He was not in the top 2
coming out of convention. In fact the more moderate Tim Bridgewater was
selected by 57% of the delegates in the last round. Mike Lee managed to
get 43% and make it to a primary. Sen. Bennett endorsed Tim Bridgewater
during the primary, but with voters ticked at TARP and ObamaCare, they
went with Mike Lee.
Sen. Hatch just barely missed eliminating Dan Liljenquist by hitting just under the 60% threshold to avoid a primary, and Jason Chaffetz just missed eliminating Chris Cannon by hitting just under 60% threshold to avoid a primary.
Both
races went to primaries. The 60% line works fine. Raising it decreases
the chance of eliminating an incumbent, and we get weaker challengers.
It
was the caucus system that got Sen. Hatch, Sen. Bennett, Gov. Jon
Huntsman Jr., Gov. Leavitt & Lt. Gov. Walker, etc. elected in the
first place. The system is fine when
they win, but if any of them lose, it is bad?
The
democrats in SLCo. just added an additional vote at the end of their
conventions to see if they can avoid a primary. They have no interest in
the initiative passing and have been vocal not to support it.
The current system does not protect the incumbent, wealthy or famous. We think that is a good thing.
I like the 60/40, but initially thought I would be willing
to go to 2/3 and 1/3. It would make it harder to boot out an incumbent
at convention and but give someone new a little better chance of making
to a primary. Gov. Gary Herbert would have most likely faced Morgan Philpot
this year and Rep. Chris Stewart would have faced Dave Clark. Moving it
back to 70/30 makes it almost impossible to kick out an incumbent at
convention. That violates their 4th principle.
This year, my friend Rep. Newbold was defeated at convention in her re-election campaign. If the threshold to avoid a primary had been 70%, she would have made it to the primary. I asked her last month if she favored changing the threshold to avoid a primary to 70%. She said no.
The proposal from the "Count My Vote / Buy My Vote" crowd wasn't just to raise the threshold to avoid a primary. It was to also remove multi-round voting or IRV and send all candidates that hit the lower range to the primary if someone didn't hit the higher range on the only vote. With that proposal, why raise the range at all?
"Fair. A system that provides inherent advantages to those who are
incumbent, wealthy or famous is not acceptable." I agree and the "Count My Vote"
proposals up to now don't follow their own principles. Perhaps that is why they deleted it from their list of 4 principles.
We already have a large percentage of contested races go to primary. If
we have more primaries, we are apt to have more last minute attack
pieces and more ethics problems. There will also be a need for more political donations raised for the more expensive races. We don't need to provide more power to
the lobbyists.
Three of my other posts on this subject:
http://www.fredcox4utah.blogspot.com/2013/04/fair-elections-most-important-principle.html
http://www.fredcox4utah.blogspot.com/2013/04/thoughts-on-utah-neighborhood-elections.html
http://www.fredcox4utah.blogspot.com/2013/03/fair-elections-in-utah.html
