Nonpartisan primaries would better serve NM

Right now, candidates answer to a party, not to the people

We hear our friends on the left accuse Sen. Kyrsten Sinema, D-Arizona, and Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.Virginia, of being traitors to the cause because they do not agree with many elected Democrats’ views of how much to spend and how to spend it. We hear our friends on the right being so worried about the far-left views of “The Squad” in Washington that they are willing to forgive the unethical and illegal activities of the former president. Both parties move further and further away from the center, unable to say a civil word to each other, much less govern effectively.

Politics is broken because there is a wrong-headed idea that candidates must represent the party instead of the people. There is anger that Sinema and Manchin are not really Democrats. What if they were elected in public elections that were not partisan? No one would say “they don’t represent voters in Arizona or West Virginia,” because they clearly do. It just so happens that most voters in those two states are not aligned with the base of the Democratic Party.

That is where our system is broken. Parties continue to control elections. This is like a private company also acting as its regulator. A utility company should not be setting the rates and rules under which it operates. The Democratic and Republican parties should not be setting the rules about who can run, when they can run and how they can run for office.

Let’s be clear: Elections are public, not private, activities. When a political party can force candidates to funnel through their private vetting process, the outcome often hurts the public good.

Parties should be creating a platform of values and, if candidates agree with those values, those candidates can take on that label. But, when parties control the public elections, the election results no longer reflect the public will, rather the party ideology.

And the majority of voters in America are no longer registering with a party.

What is the solution? Several states have adopted non-partisan primaries with the top vote-getters going to the general election. An important new reform adopted by Alaska in 2020 then uses ranked-choice voting in the general election.

Non-partisan primaries mean that all candidates run in the same primary and have to reach out to all voters to move on to the general election. The top four vote-getters move on to the general election. Imagine if a candidate runs as representing the people of New Mexico instead of a party. Would their positions change and their voting behavior in office change? Of course, because their reelection would depend on doing a better job of reflecting all voters, not just the base of the party that elected them in a lowturnout partisan primary election.

We can create an election system like Alaska’s that rewards conversation and consensus-building so we can actually get something done in Santa Fe and Washington.

We all have a lot in common and we need a political system that reflects that fact.