The argument was put to me recently that Utah politics - especially Republican politics - would be better off if we adopted a direct primary system.
Currently, we have a modified party convention system. We hold party mass meetings where delegates are elected. The delegates meet in county and state party conventions where candidates are voted upon. If a candidate gets 70 percent of the delegate vote in his district, he is automatically the party nominee.If no one gets 70 percent, the top two candidates meet in a primary. Voters then pick the winner, who is the party nominee and goes on to the general election.
There's no registration by party in Utah. Anyone can attend a party mass meeting. Anyone can vote in any party's primary.
The mass meeting-convention system has its strength and weaknesses.
A major strength is that party loyalists - those who bother to attend mass meetings and get themselves elected as convention delegates - can eliminate "false candidates," people who may file as a candidate but in reality have little experience in or adherence to party activities and principles.
A major drawback is that those party hard-liners can keep a party - via candidate selection - from shifting the institution to more moderate political ground.
Both the Republican and Democratic parties suffer these symptoms.
For the Republicans, it's well known that moderate or liberal Republicans have a hard time in GOP conventions. Those conventions are often dominated by old-guard conservatives, people who have worked in the party for years. Moderate or liberal candidates are automatically suspect in GOP conventions.
The Democrats are a bit different. Go to a Democratic convention and it's a who's-who of special-interest groups - labor, women's issues, public employees, teachers, ethnic minorities, etc.
Certainly these groups need political representation and should organize and seek a party that will represent them. But these same groups have an inordinate influence on the party platform and candidate selection. And often these groups are in the great minority among the populace.
Let me put it this way: I doubt you'll see a Gay and Lesbian Caucus at the Salt Lake County Republican Convention. There was such a caucus at the Salt Lake County Democratic Convention.
So, the Republicans have a monolithic bloc of conservative delegates that can't be broken by moderate newcomers - with the result that often the GOP ballot lists candidates much more conservative than the Republican rank and file.
And the Democrats have a "rainbow coalition" of groups that, politically, raise red flags for many mainstream Utahns.
These problems would go by the wayside if we adopted a direct primary system. Under that system, anyone could file as a Democrat or Republican, and a primary with all candidates would either narrow the field to two - who'd face each other in another primary - or pick the largest vote-getter as the party's nominee.
The "party" as an institution would have little to say. Leaders could meet and endorse a candidate they like, or condemn a candidate as not really one of their own. But the "party" as such wouldn't have a direct say in picking the nominee - as it does now with the 70 percent convention rule.
Thus, in a direct primary, candidates wouldn't have to subject themselves to the litmus test of party loyalty, seeking favor with party insiders who may force them - as a condition of support - into conservative or liberal stands they really don't want to take.
But a direct primary won't happen for two reasons, I think.
One, the Legislature would have to make the change and lawmakers are - of course - successful participants in the current mass meeting-convention system. Why would they want to adopt a system where they themselves could be beaten by an upstart in a direct primary, unable to use their delegate-friends to eliminate the whipper-snapper?
Two, a direct primary may well require registration by party by all Utahns. How fair would it be to let Democrats cross over and vote in a multifield GOP primary where several hundred votes for a weak Republican candidate could push him past a well-qualified Republican? Utahns have shown time and again they don't want to register by party. The average citizen doesn't want to be forced by government to declare if he's a Republican or a Democrat.
So, for better or worse, I think we're going to stay with the current system for some time - even though a number of political reformists who want to free the Republican and Democratic conventions from "obstructionist" groups - make good points for a direct primary.