| Lanny Davis, a former special counsel to the president who was a vocal supporter of Hillary Clinton during the primaries, has an interesting editorial on Huffington Post entitled "Fellow Democrats: Kill the Elitist and Undemocratic Caucuses." While Davis is advocating for Democrats to get rid of caucuses nationwide, he does single out Texas in a section that is excerpted below: Even nuttier is the "Texas Two Step" system. In 2008, the over 2.8 million voters participated in the March 4 democratic primary. Then comes two step: at 7 pm, the party caucuses begin. People get to vote a second time (I am not making this up). But not all votes are equal. If you lived in Houston and Dallas, and carried your precinct in 2006 for the Democratic candidate for governor by a large margin, your vote could be twice or three times as powerful than if you lived in South Texas, in heavily rural Republican counties. How can that be small "d" Democratic? How can that be constitutional under one person-one vote principles? Doesn't that embarrass a party that calls itself the "Democratic" Party?
Speaking of embarrassment. The result of these arcane rules for Democratic Party caucuses is incredibly small voter turnouts. The average turnout for all caucuses held in 2008 was under 10 percent. Even in the highest profile caucus state of all, the first one attracting all the media hype for months -- King Iowa -- the turnout among eligible voters was under 20 percent (meaning 80 percent of eligible voters stayed home). Other low turnout states included New Mexico (11 percent), Nevada (9 percent), Minnesota and Maine (5 percent), North Dakota (4 percent), Colorado and Nebraska (3 percent), and Idaho, Wyoming, Kansas (2 percent). You did not read that last number incorrectly: That is 2 percent!
Davis has a few other suggestions that could gain traction, especially these two: * Limiting primaries to pre-registered Democrats, rather than allowing Rush Limbaugh and others to encourage independents and Republicans to do same day re-registration, motivated only by mischief to muck up the Democratic results; * Eliminating Super Delegates. After what happened in 2008, it is silly to make believe they can exercise their independent judgment, as they were intended to be able to do when they were created in 1982. They can't and they didn't. If the political big wigs who are the Super Delegates want to go to the convention, then give them free tickets.
I've written about two anti-caucus editorials in the last few days. Personally, I signed the petition to abolish the Two-Step at the state convention, thought it deserved a full floor vote and am interested in seeing it reformed, though not necessarily completely abolished. However, I know that a lot of our readers (and writers) are passionate supporters of the primary/caucus hybrid system.This is to continue to the productive discussion we had about the Dallas Morning News editorial. If you come across any pro-caucus editorials, be sure to post them. As the West Committee continues to hear testimony across the state, this is an important dialogue for us to have. |
