Idealist takes another swing at closed primaries

Texas, the state of silver-spoon Bushes, Lyin’ Ted and bloviating Beto, isn’t all bad. The barbecue can be first rate. The Houston Astros are excellent. Larry McMurtry left the world Lonesome Dove, The Last Picture Show and other terrific literature.

There’s even something to like about the elections. Texans do not affiliate with a political party when they register to vote. For primaries, they choose either the Republican or Democratic ballot.

Better still, they are able to change which primary they vote in from one year to the next.

Texas offers freedom to the electorate. Voters never have to go through the hoops and hassle of changing their registration to participate in the hottest primary competition or to back a candidate who inspires them.

Seventeen other states have an open-primary system like the one in Texas. These states aren’t necessarily populated with liberals, either. They include Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia, Indiana, Mississippi, Missouri, North Carolina, Ohio, South Carolina and Tennessee.

Not so long ago, many of those same places concocted schemes to deny Black people the right to vote. Today, they make it much easier for everyone to vote in primaries than New Mexico does.

Most New Mexicans declare an allegiance to a political party when they register. But about 25%, or more than 300,000 voters, decline to affiliate with any party. In particular, many younger people who want to vote don’t identify enough with the Republicans or Democrats to register with either.

Unaffiliated voters can participate in a New Mexico primary only by switching their registration to one of the major parties.

Sila Avcil, executive director of New Mexico Open Elections, says this process can

swamp election departments with busywork.

“It took one voter nearly three months to re-register as an independent following the primary election in June. We think this is a waste of our county clerks’ time and funding,” Avcil said.

She is supporting a reform measure by state Sen. Bill O’Neill, D-Albuquerque. His pitch doesn’t go nearly so far as what Alabama, Arkansas, Texas and other hotbeds of liberalism have on the books, but it’s shaking up the Capitol.

O’Neill’s Senate Bill 73 would allow voters who have not registered with a major political party to participate in the primary of their choice. His bill late last week advanced through the Senate Judiciary Committee, a historic first for an idea with a long history of failure.

“It’s a bill I sponsored 10 years ago, when I was in the House,” O’Neill said.

One reason the measure always died is because many partisans were afraid of losing power. O’Neill, who represented a swing district in the House of Representatives, won his general elections because he appealed to independents and Democrats.

“There is no reason to fear independents voting in primaries. Bring it on,” he said. “I’m confident as a Democrat that our message can bring them into our tent.”

Still an idealist at age 66, O’Neill has a more important reason for sponsoring the bill.

“Our turnout in the last primary election was 25%. That bothers me. That’s terrible,” O’Neill said.

Politicians who speak in generalities about increasing voter turnout seldom offer a solid proposal to do it. Fielding smart, committed candidates is the most obvious way. Making it easier to vote is another.

I prefer the system in Texas to what O’Neill is offering. Register voters without a party affiliation, then let them participate in the party primary they prefer.

O’Neill never considered that system. “I just went with the bill I know,” he said.

Even with his more sedate measure, the odds are against him. A reform bill similar to O’Neill’s recently was blocked by the House Judiciary Committee. If O’Neill’s bill clears the Senate, it would have to go through the same House panel that’s already stifled an attempt to change the system.

Sen. Daniel Ivey-Soto, D-Albuquerque, voted for O’Neill’s bill last week. Ivey-Soto points out New Mexico didn’t hold any primary elections until September 1940.

Until then, political bosses handpicked the candidates. Voters grew tired of hacks being slated by self-serving machine politicians.

Calls for change quickened during the Great Depression. The old guard wasn’t about to willingly relinquish any power. So much fear accompanied New Mexico’s first primary election the FBI sent in agents to stop what the state’s newspapers euphemistically called “pernicious politics.”

O’Neill is taking aim at another entrenched system. As an undersized football player at Cornell, he became accustomed to running uphill.

The opposition hit him hard then, so he knows what’s coming.