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Wanna join a club?
We’re going to get a bunch of like-minded people together, even if we probably won’t agree on everything. We will have regular meetings. When a matter of importance arises, we might pick one of our members to speak for us.
The Bangor Daily News reported on one such club last week, called the Maine Women Hunters. The headline trumpeted one simple rule: “No men allowed.”
Sounds exclusionary. But that’s OK.
One of the less-talked about guarantees in the First Amendment is freedom of association. Essentially, as an extension of the text of the Constitution — freedom of speech and assembly — you have a right to be part of groups. Inherent in that right of belonging is the right of exclusion; you don’t need to hang out with people you do not choose to associate with.
That constitutional principle should carry through our political system.
But this week, the Maine Legislature enacted a bill to create “semi-open primaries” in Maine. The bill had supporters like the BDN editorial board and former Sen. Olympia Snowe.
In practice, this slightly broadens the opportunity to vote in primary elections. Before the new law, you could only vote in a primary if you were a member of the respective political party. But with same-day voter registration, you could choose to enroll in a party at the polls and vote.
With the new law, you don’t need to take the step to formally enroll in a party; you just get a ballot.
The motives underlying the bill are laudable. Trying to engage more voters is a worthwhile endeavor.
Yet political parties — Republicans, Democrats, Socialists, Greens, Libertarians and others — should have the right to determine who carries their banner. And with that is the right to exclude others from their organizations.
A common retort is that, if parties want the freedom to select their nominees, they should do so without taxpayer-funded elections. Agreed. But the solution to that issue is requiring the parties foot the bill.
The other argument in favor of “semi-open primaries” is that it will get more people engaged in the political process. Wonderful. But there are other ways to solve it.
When the Maine Supreme Court issued an advisory opinion that ranked choice voting was unconstitutional in state-level elections, nothing happened. It took effect for federal elections, but has not seemed to deliver all the benefits supporters promised.
Rather than open primary elections up wider, we should let parties choose their own nominees pursuant to their own rules. Then, have a wide-open election in the fall. And if one candidate does not earn a majority? Have another election, head-to-head, with a clear, distinct choice before voters.
It does not cost any more; we give up a primary election for a potential run-off. It lets the parties decide who from their “club” should represent them. And it ensures the ultimate winner gets a majority vote on a well-publicized election day.
If you want to try to break the parties into a more pluralistic posture, we should look at electoral fusion. Let different parties nominate the same candidate. We could even design a ballot to provide voters a choice on the label they associate with. Would a Jared Golden voter support him as a Democrat, or as a Democratic Socialist? It gives a hint at where — from a policy standpoint — the electoral heft lies.
But the Constitution protects freedom of association, which includes the freedom of exclusion. That should hold true for political parties and women’s hunting groups alike. Opening up primaries has the right objectives, but presents the wrong solution. Here’s hoping Gov. Janet Mills sends it back.
