U.S. District Judge J. Michael Seabright saved the local Democratic Party from itself by throwing out its ill-advised lawsuit seeking to close Hawaii’s open primary elections.
The party sued to exclude from its primary those who won’t publicly identify themselves as Democrats.
Most local voters don’t officially belong to any political party, and infringing on their privacy by forcing them to make a public declaration would drive Hawaii’s embarrassingly poor voter turnout even lower.
The Hawaii Democratic Party has only 65,000 registered members, but more than 237,000 voters participated in the 2012 Democratic primary.
Democrats already have a tight grip on political power in Hawaii, holding every statewide office and supermajorities in both houses of the Legislature.
Shutting the primaries — along with recent moves in the party to impose tighter controls on who can run as a Democrat and how closely elected officials must hew to the party platform — would give party bosses a stranglehold on public policy.
Inasmuch as most Hawaii elections are settled in the Democratic primary, those who didn’t choose to publicly identify as Democrats would be effectively disenfranchised from any voice in selecting state leaders.
The lawsuit was opposed by Gov. Neil Abercrombie and most Democratic legislators, who argued that the "big tent" policy Democrats have embraced since 1954 is more important than esoteric arguments about the right of free association.
Seabright ruled that party insiders who filed the lawsuit, led by Tony Gill, failed to prove that open primaries are unconstitutional or unreasonably infringe on the party’s right to select candidates who reflect its views.
Closing the primaries would infringe on the rights of other parties that welcome all comers, the judge said.
Unless Gill finds strong grounds for appeal or a clever way to reframe the lawsuit, this case is dead; Democrats should thank the judge for the favor and move on.
The reality is that Hawaii needs more political competition, participation and diversity, not less, and that’s where our attention should be focused.
If Hawaii’s primary elections need reform, we should look at California’s system, which replaces party primaries with single open primaries for each office in which all candidates — Democrats, Republicans, third-party members and independents — compete on equal terms.
The top two vote-getters advance to the general election, whether they both come from the same party or both come from no party.
In California, leveling the playing field has meant more candidates for voters to choose from and more healthy challenges of lackluster incumbents by members of their own parties.
No party gets a guaranteed spot in the general election, and elections are settled as they should be, by voters in all of their glorious diversity, not by narrowly interested party insiders.
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Reach David Shapiro at volcanicash@gmail.com or blog.volcanicash.net.
