On February 14, 2014 Lindsay Zizumbo, Executive Director for Count My Vote Utah issued a statement criticizing SB 54, saying, “Supporters of Count My Vote ask the Legislature to be respectful of citizens’ rights by not intentionally interfering with a citizen initiative—especially because it deals with the way they get elected. We are saddened that the Legislature is considering SB54, which could damage the proper and legal citizen action creating a direct primary election in Utah…”
While I do not agree with many elements of SB 54, it is for very different reasons. I find the accusation made by Count My Vote Utah to be somewhat hypocritical because the whole emphasis of the initiative is to supersede the current citizen’s rights within each party to choose their own candidates. Current laws allow each political party to choose its own method of selecting candidates for the primary election. The rhetoric surrounding the Count My Vote Initiative claims to make the selection process more fair and kind, but in reality it is attempting to use state law to take away the current right of organizations to make their own decisions. The net effect will be to give more political power to those connected with big business and those with deep pockets.
Let me explain my past experience and justification for making these claims. My personal involvement has been with the Republican Party, which is the Caucus system that is directly being challenged by this initiative. Frequently during the last 15 years I’ve had the opportunity to serve as a delegate at both the county and the state levels. I don’t particularly enjoy these conventions, but I’ve gone because I feel it a civic duty and have the desire to elect candidates that will support proper limited government. Over the years there have been attempts within the party to change the caucus system, mostly it appears that they have come from upper party leaders and elected officials and usually resisted by delegates elected locally. It is amazing to see so many delegates taking time out of busy schedules to scrutinize which candidates end up on the ballot. If this initiative goes into effect it will essentially gut the main purpose of why delegates attend the conventions. Perhaps that is an alternate intention of the initiative, to change the dynamics of the Republican and other parties.
At these conventions I’ve seen current officials that have come to the convention and have had their feet put to the fire. One past governor was chastised for not having put up any kind of resistance when the federal government took control of land in Southern Utah. More recently we saw Senator Bob Bennett removed from the ballot by the convention due to his voting record and Senator Orrin Hatch put on notice. It’s no wonder that some of these officials don’t want to face this accountability. It would be much more pleasant to pay for TV ads and interact at a distance. Our federal government may be in a different situation if a few more states would recall some of their “life tenured” senators and representatives whose elections are being financed by big businesses and interests outside of their state and whose finances can out-compete by 100 to 1(or more) a new principled challenger. A state-wide primary selection process will give a definite advantage to those candidates endorsed by deep pockets who can afford TV and radio spots, newspapers ads and direct mailers. In my view this is power over principle.
I’ve seen relatively unknown and un-wealthy individuals excel in the current environment because the system allows them to compete based on their qualities and principles, not necessarily based on their finances. For the Republican Party the current system allows local neighbors to elect delegates that they know quite well and those delegates in turn screen and interview candidates for the primary elections, so a great deal of homework has been done before the primary election even begins. I would assume that other political parties are similar in this process. By the primary election hopefully the best candidates from each party are on the ballot.
According to Lindsay Zizumbo, Executive Director for Count My Vote Utah, if the initiative passes, any candidate who obtains 2% of the registered voters’ signatures within their voting area would show up on the primary ballot for that party. Imagine a statewide primary election with 10 candidates for one Senate position. How much work would have to be done by every voter to make an educated decision on who most closely correlates with his viewpoint, then, add a representative position with 8 candidates, a county commissioner position with 6 candidates, etc. The task would be overwhelming even for the most civic minded.
One advertising line used by Count My Vote is that with this initiative LDS missionaries would now be able to vote. On the surface this sounds nice, but having served as an LDS missionary, I would have to admit that during that time (and probably rightly so) I was the least informed about local politics and would have taken the recommendation from family at home anyway.
While I support the right of the proponents to push this initiative, I challenge the rest of us to look deeper than their ads to understand the real effect this will have on the political environment in Utah. I do not believe it will be a benefit to our community.
