I gave the following speech at the Chelan County Republican Summer Picnic on July 21st. I was asked by their Chairperson to explain why the elimination of the Top-Two primary system was a good thing.

“No. You Don’t Have the Right”

My friends, this seems to be the year of bad ideas. Whether it be $8 billion in gas taxes, the repeal of I-601, half-billion in new general taxes, reinstating the death tax, or the first guy who uttered the term “Gov. Gregiore” there must be something in the water. But I have to include in that list Init 872 or the “Top-Two” primary.

I know that for some of you, you may not agree that the Top Two belongs on the list of “bad ideas” and that my saying so may be unpopular. But don’t worry, I’m not running for office, or sponsoring an initiative, so I can say things that are unpopular.

In order to understand why the Top Two was a bad idea and that the Federal Court’s rejection of it was a good thing, we need to understand a little bit more about what a primary is, and where they came from. First, we need to understand what primaries are NOT. They are NOT part of the Constitutional process. The Constitution is completely silent on political parties and primary elections. The Constitution only outlines how General elections should take place. What this means is that primary elections are completely private activities and NO ONE has a constitutional right to vote in ANY primary election.

In the eyes of the law, the Republican and Democratic parties are no different that the Elks Club, the Rotary Club, the Moose Club, the NAACP, the NRA, or any other private group. Therefore, as unpopular as this may sound, I have no more right to vote in a primary election that I do to vote in an Elks Club election. I can’t vote in the Elks club elections because IM NOT AN ELK!! And in the same respect, I can’t vote in the Democratic primary, because, thank God, I’m not a Democrat. If I could, I would vote for Al Sharpton every time! Just to stick em in the eye! And you know what, that’s why Dems don’t want me voting in their primary, and why I don’t want them voting in mine.

Folks, let me ask you a question. How many of you are members of the NRA? How many of you attend churches where the congregation gets to hire or fire its pastor, priest, or spiritual leader? So you members of the NRA, how would you like it if a bunch of tree hugging hippies from Seattle came over on the day of your elections and outnumbered you, and helped elect Michael Moore as the chairman of the NRA? It would be ridiculous. The NRA is not a public group open to anyone. It’s a private group designed to promote a certain set of values. Only the people who hold those values are allowed and allowed to vote in their PRIVATE elections.

Or what about this scenario? Imagine if a bunch of Southern Baptists came to a Presbyterian church on the one day the Presbyterians were electing their new leader and the Presbyterians ended up with a Southern Baptist for their leader. What would happen if the KKK could vote in the NAACP elections?

Or here is my favorite, how many of you consider yourself WSU Cougar fans? How many Huskie fans? What if the UW football coaching staff could have a say in who was the starting quarterback for the WSU football team.

My point is this, support for the Top Two primary system is based on three incorrect assumptions.

1) People think they have a right to in primary elections but they don’t. They have a right to vote in general elections.

2) People have been caught up in populist mantra “I should be able to vote for whoever I want, whenever I want” sloganeering. But what is popular is not always right, and not always legal. If you went back to Alabama in the 1960 and asked whether schools should remain segregated, the answer would be a resounding “yes” and segregation would have been popular, and passed any vote. But it would have been wrong, and it was illegal. Just because we want something, doesn’t make it Constitutional. That is the cheap logic of liberals. Ask liberal and they say, “I want abortion, therefore, abortion is a constitutional right”. They say, “I want gay-marriage, therefore, it must be a constitutional right.” But it doesn’t work that way. Constitutional rights are not subject to the winds of popular opinion.

Political parties, like any private group, have a 1^st Amendment Constitutional right to pick their own candidates in anyway they want. It may seem strange, but if the Democratic party wanted to pick its candidates by drawing a name out of a hat, they can. There is no requirement that they hold a vote to select their nominee. In fact, until very recently, they didn’t vote. Did you know that John F. Kennedy only ran in 7 primaries out of 50 states. He got the primary, because the party leaders picked him. We may not like that system, but private groups can pick leaders any way they want. If we don’t like who they pick, we get a say about it…..in the general election. The public election.

3) Independents say their rights are being violated. That’s impossible. An Independent is someone who doesn’t join a party. Why should they get the privileges of a group they refuse to join. Can you imagine someone refusing to become a citizen of the US, and then demand all the rights and privileges of being an American. What if people said, I refuse to be an American citizen, won’t pay any taxes, won’t subject myself to military service, but then demanded to vote in our elections, collect our social security checks, and demand the protections of our court systems? What would we say to such a person?

So in closing, I would like to ask you to go easy on our elected officials on this issue. I know that the Blanket Primary and the Top Two primary were popular, but they are also illegal. Our elected officials are going to have to go back to the drawing board and create a new primary system again. They are going to get lots a pressure to create something like a Blanket or Top Two primary, even though they know that is illegal. They are going to need to resist the pressure they are going to get from their constituents, and we are going to need to support them in their resistance. We can’t ask them to do something we know is illegal.

I’ll close with this thought from SC Justice Hugo Black. He once said that to all his friends who were not lawyers, they made a decision about the law in one way. If they liked the law, it was constitutional, if they didn’t like the law it was unconstitutional. Unfortunately, we are suffering from that logic here in WA. That law which we like, we want to be constitutional, but its not. We have to accept that, and move on to one that is.

If you want to speak more about this, I’ll be around…I’ll be the guy with a beer in my hand.