Are you a Republican legislator? Call me.
A wholesale change to our democracy will require a whole lot of support.
Kevin Frazier is the Editor of The Oregon Way. His day job is attending UC Berkeley School of Law. He’s actively engaged with Oregon Open Primaries.
Republicans, now is your moment to make Oregon’s elections more competitive. Your colleagues — at the local, state, and national levels — are asserting their dedication to good governance. Democrats have advanced bills, ballot initiatives, and more in the name of making our democracy more representative and fair. You can feed two birds with one scone by helping them out.
By making Oregon’s primaries more competitive and empowering Oregonians to have more choices in the general election, you can (1) increase the odds of your own electoral success and (2) assist the Democrats in realizing their aspirations.
Traditionally, the Republican Party has opposed ending partisan primaries. Admittedly, this makes sense from a Party perspective: surely no institution wants to remove itself from its state-supported seat of honor in our electoral process.
But, honestly, for Republican ideals—such as support for small businesses, small government, or individual choice—this special seat hasn’t been especially meaningful to getting candidates with non-Democratic Party views elected. It’s no secret that Democrats have long dominated the State Legislature and controlled the vast majority of statewide offices. The result has been a legislature lacking in ideological diversity and, to the extent there is diversity, the extremes tend to be best represented.
If you’re a Republican that places your policies before your party, now is the best time to make it easier for candidates with diverse views to have a meaningful shot at winning an election. Republican legislators who prioritize policy should introduce legislation during this long session that mirrors the reforms just passed in Alaska.
Our northern neighbor now has Final Four voting, which frees politicans from parties and gives voters far more diversity in choice.
In that system, there’s an open primary—which means that all candidates, regardless of party or lack thereof, compete in a single primary.
The top four candidates from that primary then move onto the general election. In the general, voters then get to use ranked choice voting (RCV) to decide on their final canidate. If you’re unfamiliar with RCV, the upshot is that it erases the “Spoiler Effect,” you can finally vote that “long shot” candidate without fearing throwing the election to a candidate you’d prefer not to see in office.
In ranked choice voting, you list your preferred order of candidate — 1st to 4th. If no candidate receives a majority of first place votes, then the candidate who received the fewest votes is eliminated. The votes cast for that 4th-place candidate now get dispersed to the remaining three. You can see how this all plays out in the graphic below and read about the mechanics in this League of Women Voters explainer.
If Democrats are sincere in their desire to make our democracy more representative, then now is the time to give them the opportunity to realize that aim through strucutral reforms. Republicans, bringing Final Four voting to Oregon may not help your Party, but it will help your policies by making it far easier for candidates with diverse views to compete in our elections.
So, if you or your friend is a Republican official at the local, county, or state level, consider this an open Zoom invitation. Let’s talk about how to make this happen. Of course, if you’re a Democrat or have some other affiliation, please reach out to me as well. A wholesale change to our democracy will require a whole lot of support.
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