Idea for a New Primary System

Larry Sabato argues in his book, "A More Perfect Constitution", that many of the current problems with the American political system are structural and can only be remedied by updating the U.S. Constitution to handle issues the founding fathers were unable to anticipate.

For example, once you get elected to Congress, getting reelected is almost automatic. The reelection rate for House members for the past 40 years has been 85% or higher, and it is often 95% or higher. The Senate is more competitive but not by much.

One reason, among many, is that Congressional districts are gerrymandered, drawn in odd shapes to ensure favorable demographics for the member of Congress. The practice has been brazen recently, such as when former Rep. Tom Delay redrew his district in the shape of a middle finger.

A common-sense solution is to divide states into districts using a grid system with the process managed by a non-partisan group such as a panel of judges. Yet the fact that this would make House races more competitive is precisely why Congress will never pass a law to do this, along with anything related to term limits, reduction of franking privileges and so on. As difficult as it would be to pass a Constitutional amendment implementing this process, it's probably the only way it will ever be done.

It's a great book with many interesting ideas. I highly recommend it. One of his ideas came to mind with the media storm around the Iowa caucus.

With Iowa, New Hampshire, and other states leapfrogging each others' caucus or primary date so they would be one of the first states (and few that are relevant), we are now in a situation where the primary system starts in the beginning of January, yet will likely be over by the beginning of February ("Super Tuesday"). Some talking heads are even suggesting the Democratic nomination will be over by the third state, South Carolina, if Barack Obama can win in N.H. and S.C.

It's the longest election process in the world, gives a disproportionate power to the same, few states every four years to elect a candidate, and thus disfranchises most of the country. In Presidential re-election years, the sitting President is distracted and essentially out of commission for an entire year, 1/4 his or her elected term.

I'm recounting Larry Sabato's idea to fix this by memory so the details will be off, but the spirit is the same. Divide the country into four quadrants: Northeast, South, Midwest, and West. On February 1st, select by random drawing which month each quadrant will be able to hold its primaries: e.g. April, May, June, and July. (Edit: I found his write-up of this idea after posting this. The details are different and more in-depth, but the basic idea is the same.)

There is a large benefit to having two small states hold the first caucus and primary though. Small states give unknown and underfunded candidates a chance to gain traction with with retail politics, face-to-face interaction, and town hall debates, something that would be impossible in a state like California.

That is why, in addition, two out of the 10 smallest states by population will be randomly selected to have the first two primaries in the nation, a week before the first regional month. This retains the benefits of involving a small state early on and gives a state besides Iowa and New Hampshire a chance to be relevant.

I enjoy watching politics and being informed, but the primary season continues to get longer with no limit in site, and practically forces every state to push their date earlier is they want a chance to be relevant. The result is that Iowa + N.H. gets months of attention and input, and the other states, forced to have their primaries on the same day plus early in the calendar, get almost no attention and input.

This year, there are 24 states who are holding their primary on Feb. 5th. That's ridiculous. It's the longest short campaign in American history. Six months for Iowa + N.H., one month for the rest of the country, and nine months of a general election with no good TV to pass the time because of the writer's strike. I'm am going to kidnap Jon Stewart and force him to write comedy at gunpoint.

It would be ideal to fix this without a Constitutional amendment, but this has been a problem for several elections so far and I think if the national parties were able to implement and enforce a plan like this on their own, they would have done so by now.