Our Undemocratic Primaries

It's not likely to happen in the foreseeable future because, to many politicians, tradition is more important than logic. But we need a national primary system that levels the playing field for all American voters.

How long will we allow the people of Iowa and New Hampshire to have a more potent vote than the rest of us?

Because the Iowa caucus and the New Hampshire primary come first, presidential candidates obviously pay much more attention to the people of those two states and the issues that concern them — issues that may not necessarily be as important to the rest of the nation.

Nevertheless, their preferential treatment is protected by our two main political parties — so much so that Democrats and Republicans are now threatening to severely punish states that step out of line.

It's illogical and undemocratic, but the rules of both parties are designed to allow only New Hampshire, Iowa, South Carolina and Nevada to vote before Feb. 5.

And when the Florida legislature decided to defy those rules by moving its primary to late January, both parties threatened to prevent Florida delegates from participating in their nominating conventions.

The Democratic National Committee announced its intention to strip Florida of its 210 delegate votes and the Republican Party threatened to cut the Florida delegation by half, from 114 to 57 votes. The same thing could happen to Michigan for scheduling a January primary.

But how can they penalize these states for trying to empower their voters? Don't we live in a democracy? Aren't all American citizens entitled to have an equal say on who gets to sit in the Oval Office?

When Florida moved its primary to Jan. 29, South Carolina, not to be upstaged, moved its primary from Feb. 2 to Jan. 19. Iowa and New Hampshire served notice that if other states took similar action to empower their voters, they would move their caucus and primary to even earlier dates to preserve their unfair first-in-the-nation status.

All the recent jockeying by various states to bump up their primaries only proves that we need a much more organized, not to mention democratic, system of conducting presidential primaries.

The way things are now, and the way they have been for decades, voters in late primary states have very little say in nominating the two finalists for the general election.

Even though their states are more diverse and more representative of the whole U.S. population, they find when it comes time to cast their ballot some candidates have already dropped out of the race and the party nominees have practically been decided.

For minority voters, the current system is a disaster. Since the black and Latino population is disproportionately low in Iowa and New Hampshire, minority issues are ignored during the first crucial months of every presidential campaign. African-Americans get to have some significant input when the current primary process gets to South Carolina, but Latinos have to wait longer.

In fact, on some issues — such as immigration reform or affirmative action — candidates are encouraged to take anti-minority positions, just to have a shot at winning the Democratic or Republican nomination. Since they don't fear a minority backlash in those early primary states, they try to appeal only to white Americans.

And then politicians wonder why minority voters are discouraged, discontent and apathetic by the time we get to the general election.

The states' battle for earlier primary dates has gotten so out of hand, and the unfairness of the current system has become so obvious, that two U.S. senators have proposed legislation that would set new national primary dates.

Not surprisingly, these two senators represent Florida and Michigan. The bill, co-sponsored by Sen. Bill Nelson, D-Fla., and Carl Levin, D-Mich., would establish six regional primary dates — one in March, two in April, two in May and one in June. In each region, at least one state would hold its primary on those dates, and the order in which states would hold these primaries, or caucuses, would rotate every four years.

Of course, some will say that under this proposal, with every presidential election, some states would still get preferential treatment. And so perhaps the solution lies in creating a single national primary date.

Nevertheless, the Nelson-Levin bill deserves serious consideration.

Under their bill, the new primary system would go into effect for the 2012 presidential elections. There would be no more permanent preference for Iowa, New Hampshire, South Carolina and Nevada. Americans in 46 other states would have a stronger voice in selecting party nominees, and we would all be able to claim that we live in a democracy that respects our equal right to vote.

To find out more about Miguel Perez and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate Web page at www.creators.com.

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