Shocker: Party Insiders Defend Party Privilege
Giving political parties special election advantages is morally wrong and anti-democratic.
Here’s a headline that should surprise no one: “Kent Thiry’s proposal to overhaul Colorado’s election system has Democrats and Republicans skeptical.” What Thiry’s proposal does, in part, is remove the special legal advantages that now give party candidates a boost and treat unaffiliated candidates as second-class citizens. Unsurprisingly, many Republicans and Democrats are perfectly happy with their candidates remaining “more equal than others.”
Current law benefits party candidates in two main ways: It gives party candidates easier ballot access, and it uses tax dollars to finance party-specific primaries. Thiry’s proposal would do away with both of those unjust and undemocratic provisions. Under the proposal, all candidates would have equal ballot access, and government would finance a single non-party primary, in which the top four candidates would proceed to the general election, regardless of party. (See Sandra Fish’s excellent write-up.)
To be sure, Thiry’s proposal could use some refinement, as I described in my recent column for Complete Colorado. Specifically, we should use approval voting (vote for as many candidates as you want) throughout the process, not ranked choice voting, as Thiry prefers. If we did that, we could do away with primaries entirely if we wanted. Also, I think we should use some sort of predefined collection of local office holders to fill a vacant legislative seat, rather than let party insiders fill those seats (as they do now) or set up irritating and expensive special elections (as Thiry prefers).
A Two-Tiered System
A major complaint about Thiry’s proposal is that party candidates would have to collect petition signatures, just like non-party candidates have to do. But if it is an unfair burden for party candidates to collect signatures, then it is also an unfair burden for non-party candidates. People who complain about this implicitly concede that the existing system sets up an unfair two-tiered system. The proper solution is to change ballot access laws for all comers, not to retain the current unjust system of party privilege.
One possibility is simply to reduce the number of required signatures for candidates. If we use approval voting, ballots easily can accommodate more candidates. Another possibility is to move to a system of online petitioning. Why can’t voters just sign petitions online?
The Expense of Collecting Signatures
People make two main complaints about the petition requirements, as indicated by the new article by Sandra Fish and Jesse Paul.
Colorado Democratic Party Chairman Shad Murib said (as partly paraphrased by Fish and Paul):
Thiry’s proposal, in particular the ditching the caucus and assembly ballot-access process altogether for signature gathering, which can be highly expensive, would “create a pay-to-play system for elected office in Colorado where only the wealthy millionaires and billionaires and self-funders would have access to elected office in Colorado.’”
Again, here Murib is implicitly confessing that the current system advantages party candidates and disadvantages non-party candidates.
I don’t see how any self-professed “Democrat” can endorse the obviously discriminatory, anti-democratic, and privilege-granting status quo.
Murib at least recognizes some of the problems. He told Fish and Paul, “I think we need to rethink how high a threshold it is to get signatures across the state because it really blocks off grassroots candidates.”
The Problem for Disabled Candidates
Another complaint:
[S]tate Rep. David Ortiz, a Littleton Democrat who uses a wheelchair after being injured in an Army helicopter crash in Afghanistan, worries that Thiry’s proposal would make getting on the ballot less accessible for people like himself. Collecting signatures often means going door to door or standing for long periods of time outside grocery stores or at farmers markets and parks.
The caucus and assembly process, Ortiz said, “is the only accessible way for candidates with a disability to get on the ballot.”
Again, what Ortiz is implicitly saying here is that current law discriminates against non-party disabled candidates. The answer is not to maintain the obviously unjust status quo, but to achieve fair ballot access rules for all comers.
A Statutory Issue
The ballot access rules are not Thiry’s creation. Notably, the ballot access rules are statutory. So if Republican and Democratic leaders are looking for someone to blame for creating unjust policies for non-party candidates, they should look to the Republicans and the Democrats in the legislature who passed these rules and who benefited from them.
People who are not party grifters or hacks will recognize that we need to distinguish two issues. First, we need equal ballot access laws for all comers. The current rules are flagrantly discriminatory and so fail that test. Second, we need fair and reasonable ballot access laws. Thiry’s proposal addresses the first of these concerns. It does not prevent legislators, including Ortiz, from addressing the second. Any legislator who cares more about maintaining a functional democracy than about maintaining legal privileges for party insiders will promptly jump on board with relevant reform bills. May we expect Ortiz’s name to appear as a primary sponsor?
The Complexity of Ranked Choice Voting
One reason I favor approval voting over ranked choice voting is that the former is a lot easier for governments to implement and for voters to understand. Under approval voting, the ballot literally looks the same, only voters can select as many candidates as they like. If a voter treats a ballot like a traditional one and chooses only one candidate, no problem. (However, approval voting might induce more people to get on the ballot, so ballots might tend to be longer.)
Under ranked choice voting, voters (typically) have to be able to mark their first, second, and third choices. That may not seem like much of a big deal, but it might throw some people off. Fish and Paul write:
Implementing such a complicated system before the 2026 election is also worrisome to county clerks. Matt Crane, executive director of the Colorado County Clerks Association, said some studies indicate ranked-choice voting may confuse voters and discourage people of color and seniors from casting ballots.
Approval voting also has the major advantage (as I discussed previously) that a candidate with broad support will more consistently win out over a polarizing candidate.
At this point, I honestly don’t see why anyone advocates ranked choice voting over approval voting. Approval voting is clearly better.
Personal Attacks
Rather than address Thiry’s proposal on its merits, some party hacks have instead unleashed invective against Thiry, as if personal attacks could substitute for rational arguments.
Rep. Lauren Boebert said (in all cases quoting from Fish and Paul), “[R]anked-choice voting is a scheme launched by well-moneyed interests who are only concerned with their own power and not giving Coloradans a choice at the ballot box.”
Boebert’s remarks are absurd (but unfortunately par for her game). Obviously, while I prefer approval voting, ranked choice voting increases the choices that people have at the ballot box. (I will, however, find it hilarious if, under current rules, Boebert loses because the Libertarian “spoils” her race.)
How does spending a bunch of money on a ballot measure increase Thiry’s “power”? The only way it might do so is if Thiry runs for office and if ranked choice voting somehow benefits him relative to the status quo. That almost certainly will not happen. But, if it did happen, that would mean that the election of Thiry probably better-represented the preferences of most Colorado voters. (Again, approval voting would do an even more reliable job of this.) But no one who seriously follows Colorado politics thinks that Thiry has a chance in hell of winning statewide office.
Here’s what Dave Williams, the Republican chair, cynically told Fish and Paul:
Self-serving rich liberals shouldn’t be able to buy their way onto a ballot and manipulate democracy with deceptive marketing. Thiry wants to be governor and validate his ego by spending his massive wealth to change the rules of the game so he can have a better chance at winning.
Aside from the fact that Williams is an open and persistent election denier who wants to trample democracy beneath the feet of a strongman, what “manipulates democracy,” precisely, are the current rules entrenching party privilege.
Here’s how Curtis Hubbard, a spokesperson for Thiry, responded to the complaint that Thiry might run for governor:
Kent has led five successful ballot initiatives in Colorado since 2016, and some version of “will he run for governor?” has been asked at every turn. It was not the case then, and it’s not the case now. He supports these initiatives because we need to break the stranglehold party insiders have on our elections by giving all voters and candidates equal access.
The reason we’re even talking about Thiry in this context is that Republicans and Democrats in the legislature, who benefit from the current system of party privilege, have so far refused to pass the needed reforms. Thiry, whatever else you might think of him, at least is trying to push forward important reforms that party insiders have, to date, lacked the integrity to pursue themselves.
Image: Paul Sableman