In all the recent anger over leaked emails and Debbie Wasserman Schultz, including calls of “arresting” her for “election fraud”, I think it’s important to keep in mind that when you talk about your voting rights in relation to primaries, that you don’t actually have any.
I’m going to oversimplify, but here’s the bottom line as I see it: Primary elections aren’t really “elections.” They’re more like surveymonkey polls, and just as legally binding.
And that’s not a bad thing.
One thing I’ve noticed when talking with people online, especially younger Bernie Sanders supporters, if that they talk about primary election procedures and opposition to superdelegates in terms of democratic rights and constitutional principles. But really, the idea of citizens getting to vote in primary elections is a 20th Century invention, and even then it wasn’t until after 1968 that more than a handful of states allowed it. Primary voting is not in the constitution and was never intended by the founders. In fact, I think most of the founding fathers (particularly Hamilton and Madison) would have been absolutely horrified at the idea.
The United States wasn’t intended as a Direct Democracy, but a Representative Democracy. It was a unique blend of ideals which recognized the need for direct voting participation among its citizens, but with substantial checks and balances to assure mob mentality couldn’t actually have that much power. The average American would vote directly for their local representatives, but those representatives would vote for the higher-ups, and so on. Remember, citizens were not even allowed to vote for their own Senator until the 20th Century.
When it comes to political parties, therefore, there are no constitutional guidelines and virtually no laws governing the process of how a party chooses a nominee. They can choose to involve the public or not. They can choose to hold primary elections and then ignore the results. The only people who have the right to decide the nominee of a party are those who run the party.
Now, most parties have adopted their own bylaws and processes to ensure a fair process, and so the apparent resistance to Sanders on the DNC level does indeed seem to run afoul of the party’s own adopted rules. Therefore I do think the resignations of key DNC leaders are appropriate. But the idea that Debbie or anyone else did anything “illegal” seems way, way over-the-top, and represents a misunderstanding of the political process. As far as I can tell, it would not even have been “illegal” for the DNC higher-ups to actively try and stop Sanders if they felt he wasn’t really a Democrat or didn’t think he could win in November.
Full disclosure: I like Bernie Sanders and was proud to give him money and support his candidacy this election. His values align with my values. But considering that Sanders has said for decades that he is emphatically not a Democrat, and only became a Democrat in 2015, I think the DNC leadership had every right to be concerned about the power of a party outsider, just as the RNC leadership was rightfully concerned about Trump. Even in this new age of public primaries, I see nothing wrong with party leaders having a substantial say in their party’s nominee. It’s their party.
I am not saying that I prefer returning the nominating process to smoke-filled rooms and a four-day convention, but I am a supporter of the superdelegate system. If you’re running to be the nominee of a party, you should have to convince both the public and the party leaders that you’re the best advocate for the party’s principles. Obama would never have been chosen in the old pre-primary system, because he wasn’t established enough among party bigwigs. But because he could inspire the voters themselves, just as Bernie did, Obama began to win states. Unlike Bernie, however, Obama also fought for and won the majority of the elected party members, beating Hillary in the superdelegate count as well as the popular vote. Incidentally, if Republicans had superdelegates as well, they could have stopped Trump, who had no support from any elected Republican officials or RNC leaders. It’s a strange notion of “fair” that would allow an outsider to hijack a political party against the wishes of the party itself.
In the last fifty years, the shift toward direct elections of party nominees (in all races, not just Presidential) has had decidedly mixed results. Many people now feel more connected to their power in shaping the country in which they live, and get a greater say in picking the candidates who share their values. But a lengthy primary calendar also rewards ideological purity and “no-compromise” candidates, which leads to greater acrimony and gridlock once you’re forced to work with the absolutists who won the primaries on the other side. It’s hard to win a public primary on a platform of being willing to compromise with the opposing party. But it’s impossible to govern if you can’t. Those who have worked in government understand this. That’s why their voices need to be heard, and yes, sometimes given more weight than the average voter.
