With ‘Top Two’ primary thrust upon them, Democrats struggle over how to nominate

As Legislative Districts around the state move to nominate candidates for local offices before their party conventions, many are running into a fresh problem. With the recent decision by the United States Supreme Court to uphold Initiative 872, better known as the "Top Two" Primary, the party nomination process has been turned on its ear, leading some local LDs to openly buck state party rules.

No longer is it up to party voters to decide who their candidate is in races like those for State Representative since the "Top Two" primary ballots do not allow for partisan sections and labels. Still, that ruling does not mean the Parties will just sit idly by and allow their candidates to be chosen for them.

Instead, they have been forced to come up with new nomination processes. Now, at least in the Democratic Party, is up to a small cadre of party activists at the LD level made of up Precinct Committee Officers (PCOs) who have been both elected and appointed to those pots.

But not all party officials have come on board. In the last week and a half, two Legislative Districts' Executive Boards have voted to eschew the party rules and are choosing not to officially nominate any candidates at the State Representative level.

Disagreements in the 36th

The 36th District Executive board met last Thursday and decided that the use of a handful of PCOs, some of whom were appointed, was too undemocratic a way to choose a party nominee when there were so many thousands of people interested in the political process this cycle.

After this decision was made, District Chair Peter House both mailed Washington State Democratic Party Chair Dwight Pelz a letter and sent him an e-mail notifying him of their decision not to nominate either of their candidates for State Representative, John Burbank or Reuven Carlyle.

Pelz then told the 36th LD almost immediately that if they do not change their mind and use the PCOs to choose a nominee, then John Burbank would be the one. Pelz affirmed that, in the absence of a choice by the LDs, the state party is in charge of the decision.

Burbank has made a lot of party inroads as head of the OESI, whose board is full of a who's who of Seattle area Democrats like Darcy Burner spokesman Sandeep Kaushik, Rep. Hans Dunshee (though Dunshee has backed his opponent) and 2004's 8th CD candidate Dave Ross.

Despite the cigar smell of backroom deals, Burbank is hardly the hands down establishment choice. He does have the endorsement of 36th LD chair Peter House as well as a number of State Representatives and 36th LD PCOs, and King County Executive Ron Sims.

But his opponent is no Democratic slouch, either. Carlyle is backed by his own delegation of Seattle State Legislators, his fellow Obama endorser Rep. Adam Smith, most of the Seattle City Council, and even national Democratic Party figures like television producer Norman Lear and the Bush administration nemeses Ambassador Joe Wilson and his wife, the outed CIA operative Valerie Plame Wilson.

Carlyle, who will see the short end of the stick of Pelz's nomination is retained, had this to say about the process on his blog.

"[Pelz] immediately named his close friend of 25 years, and my opponent in this race, John Burbank as the official nominee of the party, assuming the 36th doesn't reverse course and hold a nominating themselves," Carlyle wrote. "It's all insider baseball, sausage-making process of politics that won't impact the race much....but it does have the real possibility of sending ugly signals to the 63,000 Democrats of our district...including the 18,000 who came to our presidential caucuses."

He clearly would have preferred to be the nominee, but understands that there is far more to think about in this new process, and that the "official" nominee may mean little in a district where the top two vote getters are sure to be Democrats, anyway.

The rules, circa 2005

In addition to the notion of unfairness, there is also the matter of confusion. The state's rules say this:

Ballots will be cast at these nominating conventions by elected PCOs and appointed PCOs (who must be registered voters in the precinct that they represent) who reside in the respective county or legislative district. Each PCO voting at the convention shall be apportioned the number of votes equal to the number of precinct level delegates his or her precinct was allotted during the 2004 National Delegate Selection process. In the case of newly formulated precincts the calculation will be based on the allocation formula used in the most recent delegate selection plan. PCOs can vote for no more than one candidate for each office for which nominations are sought.

In the case where the convention has failed to designate a nominee, the nominee will be designated by the State Central Committee acting through its Chair, or, if the office is one voted upon solely by the electors of one County, by that County Central Committee.

But then again, they also say this:

"All nominating conventions held under this rule shall submit their results to the state party no later than July 12, 2005"

The rules have not been updated since shortly after I-872 passed, and there are instances in which they are nearly impossible to follow.

36th LD Vice Chair Janis Traven said that when the procedures of nomination were discussed at the last meeting, even long standing party members and elected PCOs found the matter difficult to understand.

"We had had a lot of questions when the Supreme Court made its decisions," Traven admitted. "When we saw the [nomination] rules there were additional questions that arose."

Confusion is one thing, but as for why they actually made the decision to buck party rules, Traven said a lot of it had to do with the large amounts of participation the District has seen lately.

"We had just had a very successful, huge turnout for precinct caucuses, and had just put together a very successful LD caucus," Traven said. "We're very excited for bringing in new activists that are excited about the process. A lot of questions concerned how bringing new rules in the middle of the process would affect all of that."

Furthermore, there was the issue of we didn't sign up for this.

"It was noted that the candidates currently running for the most part decided to run before these rules were in place. So a question of fairness was an issue to candidates, and PCOs who were not elected with the understanding that they would be nominating candidates. "

After all, she said, this is very different from using the PCOs and Executive Board to select a replacement for a legislator who is promoted or steps down mid-term.

Asked why Traven felt Burbank was chosen, she could not predict the workings of Pelz's mind, and had no reason to believe any favors were being done.

"It's possible, and this is compete absolute speculation, that maybe he tossed a coin. I don't know. Maybe they are brothers in law. I really don't know. I would not speculate that this is anything other than a random choice."

Varying viewpoints

But the most important thing for the 36th District in making their decision was the spirit of democracy.

"We take our endorsement process very seriously," Traven said. "We don't just coronate. It was really with that degree of seriousness that we made the decision [to buck state party rules]. This was a fascinating discussion. We're not a bunch of renegades."

The 10th Legislative District, which represents Island County and some of the surrounding inland areas, has two candidates running for the same legislative seat, Ann McDonald and Patricia Terry. They also have more appointed PCOs than they do elected PCOs. At their latest executive board meeting, a lively discussion that focused on a lack of clear rules and a worry that ulterior motives might lead the way, they also decided not to nominate a candidate according to the state rules, though they have not yet informed the state Party of their decision.

"Our decision was to postpone until after the state convention," said 10th LD Chair Alec McDougal. "There are some who would like to have the race over with, but others felt a nomination made with PCOs casting weighted votes would quite possibly be seen as the least democratic of nominating processes."

Still, not every Democratic LD with multiple candidates moved in the same direction. In the 46th District that represents North Seattle, Rep. Jim McIntire is leaving his post to run for State Treasurer and two Democrats, Gerald Pollet and Scott White, are running for his seat. They decided to pick their nominee by way of PCO at a meeting on May 15.

"The state party has rules and we are going to be in compliance with those rules," 46th LD Chair Javier Valdez said. "Our executive board met the other day, but we voted to continue with the nominating process."

The 33rd feels the same way, where Democrats Tina Orwall and Elizabeth Albertson are vying for the retiring Rep. Shay Schual-Berke's seat.

"We are going to hold it in our May meeting on the third Monday of May," former 33rd LD Chair and current candidate Orwall told me. "We are going to proceed."

A democracy, if you can keep it

Nevertheless, it is an issue that does not look like it will just drift away. Kelly Wright, a state committeeman for the 38th District that covers the sections of Snohomish County around Everett and Marysville, agrees that the nomination process is something to be taken seriously in the name of democratic theory.

He calls the use of such a small voting body as the LD's PCOs "out of line". Wright used to work for the state Party, but in 2005 he left for Pakistan where he worked for an organization that helped to make their political parties more democratic. This process, he said, made him "kind of feel like a hypocrite."

In his own district, they decided to go ahead and nominate in line with the state Party rules given that their incumbents are the de facto nominees, but the membership passed a resolution rejecting the idea of the process.

"They decided to go ahead with the nominating convention even though there was a fair amount of resistance," Wright said.

Wright also believes that the state party's executive board lacks the authority to name a Legislative District nominee.

"If it comes to nominating a candidate that is solely within their jurisdiction, they have the right to come up with any rules they want to," opined Wright. "They have different rules for statewide candidates."

He also feels that there is a potential for change at this June's state convention.

"It's very clear both in state law and the party's charter that the state convention is the supreme body of the state Democrats," Wright said. "So the state convention can wipe the slate clean. We are definitely going to try to change this process at the state convention."

But ultimately, in Wright's eyes, the problem lies with the "Top Two" primary.

"I think now that we have it, it's going to be very hard to ever undo it," he said. "Right now the rules that we're using are really a lower threshold than the minor parties have. They require 100 signatures, and in most cases there are a fewer than 100 PCOs. In our charter it says we do everything we can to encourage participation and this goes against that principle. It's unfair and unwise.

"Everything that the party does has to be for this lawsuit, not for the grassroots, not for the candidates. At some point, we have to have different priorities."