A bill that would automatically replace Washington’s 2016 presidential primary with a meaningless, fantastically expensive presidential straw poll if the Democratic Party refuses to begin using the primary to allocate its national convention delegates passed the Senate with ease yesterday evening following a bewildering floor debate.
By a vote of thirty-six to twelve, the Senate sent SB 5978 over to the House, where it faces an uncertain future. Except for Senator Doug Ericksen, who was excused, all Senate Republicans voted for the bill. Senate Democrats were split.
The roll call was as follows:
Voting Yea: Senators Angel, Bailey, Baumgartner, Becker, Benton, Billig, Braun, Brown, Dammeier, Dansel, Darneille, Fain, Hargrove, Hatfield, Hewitt, Hill, Hobbs, Honeyford, King, Kohl-Welles, Liias, Litzow, Miloscia, Mullet, O’Ban, Padden, Parlette, Pearson, Pedersen, Ranker, Rivers, Roach, Rolfes, Schoesler, Sheldon, Warnick
Voting Nay: Senators Chase, Cleveland, Conway, Fraser, Frockt, Habib, Hasegawa, Jayapal, Keiser, McAuliffe, McCoy, Nelson
Excused: Senator Ericksen
SB 5978 is legislation requested by Republican Secretary of State Kim Wyman and prime sponsored by Pam Roach (yes, that Pam Roach). Wyman and her staff claim the bill requires (their language) the state Democratic and Republican parties to use the state’s presidential primary to allocate at least some of their delegates.
But it does no such thing — because that would be unconstitutional.
As our readers know, the Democratic and Republican parties are not governments. They are private organizations. The First Amendment to the Constitution of this country gives them the right to decide how to conduct their own affairs, including the choosing of their nominees for President and Vice President of the United States. The State of Washington cannot interfere with the parties’ right to freely assemble.
For those unfamiliar with this bill and the politics surrounding it, a bit of history is in order. Washington’s presidential primary came into being in the late 1980s after the Legislature adopted an initiative to the Legislature that provided for a presidential primary every four years. However, the primary has not been consistently held.
In years when there was an incumbent running for reelection (most recently 2004 and 2012), it has been canceled to save money.
Historically, the state Republican Party has used the presidential primary, when it has been held, to allocate some of its delegates to the RNC.
The Washington State Democratic Party, on the other hand, has never used the presidential primary to allocate any delegates.
As readers may know, separately from my work at NPI, I am also involved in the Democratic Party. The Democratic Party is governed by a several hundred-member Central Committee (the WSDCC), which is basically the party’s equivalent of a legislature. Each county and each legislative district elects two people, one man and one woman, to represent them on the WSDCC. I am presently the state committeeman for the 45th District.
The WSDCC is the body that will decide whether to use a caucus or primary in 2016 to allocate delegates. National party rules allow us to choose either system, but whichever we choose, we must use that method to allocate all of our delegates.
We do not have the flexibility, as the Republicans do, to use a primary to allocate some delegates and use caucuses to allocate the rest.
No state Democratic Party uses a hybrid system except for Texas, and it is unlikely the Texas Democratic Party will be allowed to keep their “two step” hybrid system in 2016, as it would require the granting of a waiver from the rules.
The Washington State Democratic Party has previously asked the Democratic National Committee to allow it to also use a hybrid system. And the state party has been repeatedly told no. The state party’s delegation to the DNC has concluded that asking again would be fruitless and pointless.
The rules for the 2016 Democratic National Convention have already been written. They were approved last November; you can see them here.
Secretary Wyman was apparently unaware of this — she seemed surprised when I explained to her at her February 187th press conference that the rules were finalized.
It is evident to me that she did not consult with WSDCC Chair Jaxon Ravens about this legislation prior to announcing it, or she’d have known that.
Because the Republicans have the flexibility to allocate some delegates using a primary, have historically done so, and are prepared to do so again, SB 5978’s provisions are not aimed at them. Rather, they are aimed at the Washington State Democratic Party, which has not used the primary to allocate delegates.
Secretary Wyman and her staff have freely admitted to me that the bill represents an attempt by them to gain leverage over my colleagues and I on the WSDCC (including our chair, officers, and national committeemembers).
I have explained to Secretary Wyman’s staff that the proper way for her office to persuade the WSDCC to choose a presidential primary is to come and talk to us. We in the Democratic Party are open-minded, and we would be willing to hear what she has to say. We will be making a decision within the next few weeks.
NPI’s assessment of this bill is that it is irresponsible and counterproductive. It commits the state to spending around $11.5 million on an election that may turn out not be a primary election at all, but rather a very expensive straw poll.
We already have plenty of pollsters capable of researching who Washingtonians support for president at private expense, including firms based right here in our state, like Elway, Moore Information, and EMC Research.
We at the Northwest Progressive Institute agree that if taxpayers are going to spend millions of dollars financing a presidential primary, then it should mean something.
But SB 5978 does not guarantee that. It is a gambit… a ploy to cajole the Democratic Party into choosing a primary over a caucus by threatening to hold a Top Two style straw poll instead of a primary. And it won’t work.
If the language in SB 5978 that requires the state to hold an expensive straw poll were scrapped, the bill would be a fairly simple piece of legislation that just moves up the date of the primary to March… and we would not be opposed to that.
I want to emphasize, again, that we already have a presidential primary law on our books. The election doesn’t need to be authorized to be held, just funded. Governor Jay Inslee did not request funding for a presidential primary in his budget, but the House or Senate could add it in to their budget proposals.
This brings me to the floor debate on SB 5978. I watched on TVW as the bill was considered, discussed, and voted on. Only a few senators spoke: Pam Roach, Marko Liias, Joe Fain, Maralyn Chase, and David Frockt. The first three (who are the bill’s sponsors) spoke for it and the latter two senators spoke against it.
Bizarrely, the provision in the bill that would automatically set up an extremely expensive, meaningless straw poll if the parties did not agree to use the primary for delegate allocation did not get discussed or debated.
Pam Roach opened the debate and initially focused her comments on the provision of SB 5978 that moves up the date of the election from May to March.
She then made the following statement:
Second thing it does is it authorizes that if by declaration of both parties — both major parties — that the results of the presidential primary will be used to at least elect one delegate from the results of the primary, that they can in fact have those lists that are generated.
So right now, the Democratic Party — I believe that it’s true — has decided that no delegates will be allocated based on the results of the primary. This would say that they would at least need to have one of the ten. Republican Party traditionally will have half and half.
So it gives access to the lists, puts a little criteria involved… because there’s money involved, taxpayer money involved, in putting these primaries together. Makes some sense that if you’re going to be allocating… uh… that if you’re going to have one of these, uh, primaries, that you should in fact use it for selection of delegates.
This is a bill that’s been requested by our Secretary of State, and well-vetted in the Committee, and I hope that you will vote yes.
Roach then relinquished the floor without bothering to explain that Section 4 of SB 5978 replaces the presidential primary with a meaningless straw poll in the event both parties don’t use it for delegate allocation.
I kept hoping that some Democratic senator would stand up and correct what Pam said, but unfortunately none did. Senator Chase stood up to speak against the bill, but she spoke from the perspective of a party leader who believes that caucuses are better for grassroots politics than primaries.
Someone from the Democratic caucus should have responded to Roach’s speech, because much of what she said was either misleading or wrong.
Let’s go through it piece by piece.
Second thing it does is it authorizes that if by declaration of both parties — both major parties — that the results of the presidential primary will be used to at least elect one delegate from the results of the primary, that they can in fact have those lists that are generated.
This is a misleading statement. The parties already have access to the list of voters who have participated in any given election. These lists are generated by the counties and the state during and after every election, whether it’s a special election, Top Two election, general election, or presidential primary election.
The presidential primary is unique because it is the only election we have left that requires voters to pick a party and attest that they belong to (or associate with) that party. The lists generated as a result of that election are therefore richer: they consist of a set of voters who identified as Democrats and voted Democratic, and a set of voters who identified as Republicans and voted Republican.
Under existing state law, the parties are given a list of who participates regardless of whether they use the primary to allocate delegates or not.
In the remarks excerpted above, Roach made it sound as though the parties would only get the valuable lists of they agreed to use a primary for delegate allocation. But what SB 5978 actually does is cancel the primary altogether if the parties don’t agree to use it. From Section 4 of SB 5978:
(2) If by the first Tuesday in October of the year before the year in which a presidential nominee is selected, both of the major political parties provide documentation of state and national party rules to the secretary of state that the results of the presidential primary will be used in allocation of delegates, and if requested by a major political party, the secretary of state shall adopt rules under RCW 29A.04.620 to provide for any declaration required by that party. In the absence of such party documentation, the presidential primary ballot must use a single ballot list and no party declaration or oath is required of the voter or recorded by election officers.
Note that underlined text is text being added to the Revised Code of Washington. This is the language that sets up that straw poll.
Moving on:
So right now, the Democratic Party — I believe that it’s true — has decided that no delegates will be allocated based on the results of the primary. This would say that they would at least need to have one of the ten.
This is erroneous.
The Washington State Democratic Central Committee has not yet decided what method to use for delegate allocation in 2016. Under the rules adopted by the DNC, it may choose a caucus or primary to allocate delegates, but not both.
The state party’s Rules and Affirmative Action Committees are currently working on its Delegate Selection and Affirmative Action Plan (DSAAP). The plan will be made available for public comment later this month, and will go before the full WSDCC for its consideration in mid-April in Pasco.
I have absolutely no idea what Roach meant when she said, “This would say that they would at least need to have one of the ten.”
One of the ten what? Delegates? The Washington State delegation to the Democratic National Convention has historically been over a hundred people and will probably be over a hundred people again in 2016. (We don’t yet know exactly how many delegates Washington will get for 2016).
Maybe Roach meant one out of ten. But that would also be incorrect.
Kim Wyman’s own press release says, “[B]oth major parties must demonstrate by Oct. 1 [2015] their intention to use the primary results in allocation of delegates. No particular percentage is included in the Secretary‘s bill.”
Back to Roach:
Makes some sense that if you’re going to be allocating… uh… that if you’re going to have one of these, uh, primaries, that you should in fact use it for selection of delegates.
Here, she means allocation of delegates, not selection. The actual selection of delegates (in other words, who goes to Philadelphia, or in the Republicans’ case, Cleveland) will still be done by caucus no matter what.
Roach again:
This is a bill that’s been requested by our Secretary of State, and well-vetted in the Committee, and I hope that you will vote yes.
SB 5978 is certainly legislation requested by Secretary of State Kim Wyman.
I disagree with Roach’s characterization of it as well-vetted, however. The hearing on SB 5978 was scheduled on short notice — ironically, in conflict with a Democratic National Committee meeting in the District of Columbia — and the only person who testified was Wyman herself. No one else spoke to the bill besides Roach (who uses her perch as committee chair to monopolize the floor), and it got moved out of committee the same day it was heard with little discussion and no dissension.
I thought about going down to speak against SB 5978 and provide an opposition viewpoint myself, but I didn’t make the trip, because the last time I set aside half a day to go to Olympia to speak on a bill being heard in Pam Roach’s committee, Roach refused to allow me to testify. I left wondering why I hadn’t just watched The Pam Roach Show on TVW instead. I would have seen and heard the same thing.
SB 5978 now heads to the House of Representatives.
If the House takes up the bill, it should amend it so that the only thing it does is move up the date of the primary to March 8th. That would remove the irresponsible provisions and preserve our existing presidential primary.
Wyman should get on board with such an amendment and begin a dialogue with Jaxon Ravens and the Washington State Democratic Party. If she wants a primary that both parties use for delegate allocation, then she needs to go talk to the people who are going to be making that decision. Because it’s not the one hundred and forty-seven members of the Washington State Legislature who get to make the call.
It is always in the best interest of the ruling class to silence the masses. Thank you for supporting those who are against the working class. Voting should always be discouraged.