Two Parties By Design, Not By Chance

By: Donald R. Carroll - [social]
There is a feeling in America that there is very little difference between politicians regardless of what their party affiliation is. That feeling proves true if the party affiliations being discussed are to the Democratic or Republican Parties. However, there is a truly rich mixture of political ideology in this country, from those supporting extremely limited government, like the libertarian party, to those who support the idea of government as the provider of common necessities, like the American Socialist Party.

With the wealth of available options, there are at least 12 candidates for president that are on at least some of the states ballots, why is it that around 97% of the vote in the 2004 presidential election will go to either a Democratic or Republican candidate?

Ballot access is one reason. No alternative Party will be on all 50 of the state ballots in the 2004 election. The Libertarian candidate, Mr. Badnarik, will be the closest to that mark at 49 states. The Socialist Worker's Party will only manage 14 states. Nader will make it onto as many as 40 ballots, and possibly as few as 35 depending on the outcome of pending court challenges launched by the Democratic Party.

Some level of ballot access control is necessary to prevent unruly ballots with candidates who will only be voting for themselves. However, the current climate seems to be less about protecting the system than about protecting the Democratic and Republican Parties.

What the current environment amounts to is the restriction of the freedom of association, found to be intrinsic to the 1st Amendment by the Supreme Court and is also an obvious transgression of the right to create and develop new political parties. The most telling Supreme Court decision regarding ballot access comes from Williams vs. Rhodes, 393 U. S. 23 (1968). In Williams the court found that ''...restrictive election laws taken as a whole are invidiously discriminatory and violate the Equal Protection Clause because they give the two old, established parties a decided advantage over new parties.'' The Supreme Court obviously found it a violation of state citizen's rights for the state to restrict ballot access in favor of protecting the interests of the Republican and Democratic Parties.

Still, these laws persist. To cite two examples, Washington State's I-827 and California's Proposition 62 are both designed to secure the dominance of the Democrats and Republicans. In Washington State's I-827 a system was set up (in 2004) which created one primary ballot for each of the major parties and voters are compelled to select only those candidates who appear on their selected ballot. The League of Women Voters of Washington brought up various arguments against this law, saying, ''Choices in the general election are sharply reduced. Over a third of the statewide and congressional candidates who appeared on the general election ballot in 2000 would have been eliminated if I-872 had been the law...Third parties, minor parties and independents will be eliminated from the general election ballot. Insulating the top two political parties from competition is a bad idea. Third party, minor party and independent candidates are an important part of government's checks and balances.''

The League of Women Voters is partially correct. Insulating the top two political parties is not just a bad idea, it violates Williams v. Rhodes.

California's Proposition 62 is very comparable to both the Washington State plan and a law which has been in place in Louisiana for the last 25 years which is also designed to exclude bothersome third parties from joining the political discourse during the general election periods. Proposition 62 does allow third parties on the ballot in the primary, but only the top two primary candidates will be allowed on the general election ballot. No one would question that for the foreseeable future, the top two candidates will always be a Republican and a Democrat, which means that California may never again see another third party on an general election ballot.

As the Democratic and Republican become harder to tell apart (recent high profile party jumpers are further evidence of the blurring of the party lines, 14 Democratic lawmakers have switched to the Republican Party in the last 20 years, 1 Republican lawmaker has switched to the Democratic Party in the same time frame, and that doesn't count Zell Miller who hasn't yet switched officially), third parties become more important than ever. Third parties are necessary in the debate. Even if current party politics allows the Democrats and Republicans to ignore their third party rivals for the most part, the public still has a valid reason to listen to the alternatives because they can still choose, in many cases, to vote for them. When the time comes that the Democrats and Republicans have effectively destroyed all other competition and prevented them even the hope of a future come back by stacking the law against alternatives, our republic is dead.

http://intellectualamerican.blogspot.com

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