Political parties ask court to order state-run PCO elections
Washington state Democrats and Republicans have gone to court to try to keep the state in the business of running election of party precinct committee officers. The case in Thurston County Superior Court is set for hearing at 9 a.m. on March 23.
The parties asked the court on Thursday to set aside new regulations by the Secretary of State’s Elections Division that ends the practice of PCO elections being included on the state Top 2 Primary ballot. The party organizations and their chairmen, Dwight Pelz and Kirby Wilbur, respectively, asked that the state be ordered to continue conducting the PCO elections.
Secretary of State Sam Reed said the lawsuit is surprising, since the parties themselves had a federal judge declare the state’s current PCO election system unconstitutional and the state currently has no constitutionally valid system of running the election.
That development occurred earlier this year as part of the parties’ ongoing effort to overturn the voter-approved Top 2 Primary, which is a nonpartisan winnowing election that allows voters to choose their favorite for each office, with the two biggest vote-getters advancing to the General Election, without regard for party preference.
In Washington, voters do not register by party. The 2012 Top 2 Primary is Aug. 7, with mail ballots going out about three weeks ahead of that date. There are about 6,500 precincts, so potentially 13,000 contests. Many of the slots, though, go unfilled or have only one candidate.
In a letter to the two chairmen earlier this month, Reed noted that both parties asked the U.S. District Court to strike down Washington’s PCO election system as unconstitutional.
Judge John Coughenour concurred:
“Washington’s method of electing precinct committee officers is unconstitutional because it severely burdens the political parties’ ability to identify and associate with members of their respective parties. Precinct committee officers are grassroots representatives of the political parties, yet all voters, regardless of party affiliation, receive the same candidate ballot and have an opportunity to elect those officers. The political parties have a right to object to Washington’s method of determining party affiliation for these officers, and Washington has not shown that its interests in using this system outweigh the First Amendment’s special associational protections (11 JAN 2011, PG 24 Coughenhour Decision).”
Reed wrote the parties:
“You asked the Court to strike down Washington’s PCO election system and the Court agreed.”
In their complaint Thursday, the parties said the state is misreading the court’s ruling.
“The parties most assuredly never sought, much less obtained, a ruling invalidating Precinct Committee Officer elections in their entirety,” the parties said.
They did not describe a preferred system of electing as part of an election that does not provide for a voter to declare a party preference, but repeatedly said the Coughenour decision did not foreclose or invalidate the notion of the state continuing to run the PCO elections for the parties.
Reed noted that lawmakers may create a new PCO election system.
Reed again called on the parties to stop litigating, a costly process for both them and for the taxpayers.
——————
Here are links to the parties’ pleadings in which this is raised:
Democratic Party’s Amended Complaint 1-21-10
Republican Party’s Amended Complaint 1-22-10
Democrats’ Motion for Partial Summary Judgment 8-26-10.pdf
Republicans’ Motion for Summary Judgment 8-26-10.pdf
All of the litigation documents are on our website at: http://www.sos.wa.gov/elections/toptwo.aspx
The rulemaking documents are on our website at: http://www.sos.wa.gov/elections/rulemaking.aspx
We state in WAC 434-230-100:
The method for electing precinct committee officers on party ballots established in chapter 271, Laws of 2004 (the pick-a-party primary), was repealed by chapter 2, Laws of 2005. The method for electing precinct committee officers on a top two primary ballot under chapter 2, Laws of 2005 (the top two primary), was declared unconstitutional by the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Washington in Washington State Republican Party, et al. v. State of Washington, et al., Case No. C05-0927-JCC (January 11, 2011). “The central holding is that the political parties, not the government, are free to define the scope of their membership.” Consequently, precinct committee officer elections are no longer conducted by state or county government. As private organizations, the political parties determine how to conduct their internal affairs, including selection of their officers.
One thought on “Political parties ask court to order state-run PCO elections”
I believe that the Secretary of State is operating under an incorrect understanding of the purpose of the lawsuit as well as what all three major political parties, including his own, are asking for.
In the event of a vacancy, the State Constitution says that the County Central Committee of the party of the person who left the seat shall present three names to the County Legislative Authority so they may appoint a replacement to fill the seat. The RCW currently says that the County Central Committee consists of Elected and Appointed Precinct Committee Officers. This is not a private function, it is a public function, and one that we have to be ready for at any time. The King County Central Committee just went through that process to replace Senator Scott White in the State Senate in the 46th LD, and we have gone through the process in previous years in the 34th and 41st. It happens frequently across the state and both parties deal with this the same way. This is a critical public function for Precinct Committee Officers, and thus the political parties are asking for the PCO position to be filled by a public election within their precinct. Contrast that with the Olympia City Council, which had to go into closed executive session to discuss the qualifications of candidates to fill a vacancy, or the King County Council which was made “non-partisan” by referendum a few years ago and had to go through weeks of haggling to fill the seat vacated by Dow Constantine. If these decisions were made by elected members of a party, the entire process would have been open and it would have been done quickly so our representatives could get on with the business of governing, which is their job.
Another example of why the PCO should be considered a public official is our process to elect the US President. The Electors whose votes are counted and sent to Washington DC to elect the President of the United States are elected at Congressional District Caucuses held each Presidential year. The delegates to those CD Caucuses are elected by Legislative District Caucus delegates who are in turn elected by Precinct Caucus attendees. The Precinct Caucuses are presided over by the Precinct Committee Officers, who up to now have always been elected by the public they serve and are recognized and trained publicly elected officials presiding over these neighborhood meetings to ensure that they are organized and run properly and efficiently as to not waste people’s precious time. This is a critical public function, and an important part of our democracy. To close the process off from public election at the lowest grassroots level would damage our democracy and hurt our state.
Another point I would like to make is that the political parties have tremendous power in regards to our electoral and political process, power which can be either concentrated or distributed. In our society, it is in our best interest to have that power distributed as much as possible, and having PCOs elected from the public INTO that party structure at the grassroots level ensures that power is distributed and not concentrated in the hands of a few.
Certainly there are plenty of internal Party politics stuff, and I would mostly agree that those items should be dealt with internally. But for me the bottom line is not the meetings and activism, it’s the core purpose of having locally elected public officials, so that when important decisions on who represents a district in the event of a death or resignation, it’s as public as possible. Or when it comes time to identify our Electoral Collage members so that Washington State’s voice is heard in Washington DC for the most important election in the world, the people who run the meetings at the very beginning of the process have some idea of how to run a meeting.
The people of Washington have always had an independent bend, and that hurts our understanding of the purpose of political parties from the very start. I grew up in Kent, so I’m not an outsider. I just know we’ve been wrong about political parties since our ideas of them were skewed by the Grange in the early 1900’s, and most people don’t give the parties a chance to do what they are supposed to be doing.
What the Secretary of State suggesting is that PCO elections be paid for by the political party. As if we having democratic institutions paid for is not the purpose of government. This would likely result in the PCOs being appointed by the political party leaders instead of the public, which would result in much more of a closed political party structure making all of these important and representative decisions in a closed room instead of public officials meeting in public to make public decisions. This is not healthy for our democracy, and it is the wrong direction for our state. And all of the major political parties, Democrats, Republicans and Libertarians, see it the same way. All three have signed onto this lawsuit.
Our democratic processes cost time and money, just as any process does in the public or private sphere. While many of the functions of PCOs, Legislative District Organizations, County Central Committees and State Party Organizations may seem strange and arcane, they exist in order to amplify the voices of activists who freely choose to get involved in order to ensure their voices are heard in our government. It is worth the cost to ensure that these democratic processes are maintained and kept in the public sphere. Too many of the important decisions that our government makes are behind closed doors, with the voice of the public not heard or outright ignored. Please don’t create or advocate for a situation where our political parties also close the door on the public, simply because county auditors are unwilling to do their duties as defined by the Constitution and the RCW.
What is the alternative, and where would that alternative lead us in terms of our bottom up grassroots people powered democratic institutions? Just saying “I don’t want to pay taxes for this” isn’t enough. What is the opportunity cost? I see it as Tammany Hall or a hyper powered party with no regard to the voice of the public, and I don’t want to go there. Having tax money go to pay for PCO elections to prevent the corruption of our political process is well worth those tax dollars. At least to me.
Comments are closed.