I hate conventions. I really do.
I have argued against them for six years now, ever since I attended my first convention in 2008 and watched incredulously as Jeff Frederick was elected RPV Chair and Jim Gilmore barely defeated Sideshow Bob Marshall for the U.S. Senate nomination.
I’ve been vocal on my issues with conventions, writing frequently on the issue here at Bearing Drift, and even engaging in a debate on BVBL with 11th District State Central Committeeman David C.F. Ray. In a few days I’ll be doing a debate in front of a number of Republican women’s clubs in Northern Virginia on the subject, arguing against conventions.
So you would think that when Senator Frank Wagner (R-VA Beach) introduced SB 507 and a companion House Bill, HB 194 was introduced in the House by Delegate Scott Taylor (R-VA Beach), to effectively ban conventions (along with every other non-primary form of nomination process), I would be supportive.
I’m not. These are bad bills.
While I hope that RPV’s State Central Committee never again chooses a convention as the method of nominating our statewide candidates, and I hope that local committee chairs opt for primaries as well, these two bills take the argument a bridge too far. Not only do they bar conventions, they also bar any form of caucus, firehouse primary or mass meeting.
While I have long argued that political parties are quasi-public entities, where anyone of like mind may join and participate, they are not fully public entities. They have First Amendment rights to free association, and should be entitled to choose their method of nominating candidates to run under their banner. While the General Assembly is well within their rights to regulate the nominating processes of the political parties to ensure that they comply with the law – for example, barring racial discrimination or barring the use of poll taxes – mandating or requiring the parties use a specific form, regardless of the merit of the reason, is taking their role too far. These bills represent an unnecessary governmental interference into the operations of the political parties.
The bills, as noted by my BD colleague Jim Hoeft, would bar the political parties from using, as a method of nomination, any process that would prohibit absentee ballots from being cast by members of the uniformed services or DOD contracted employees stationed overseas. While this ostensibly would bar conventions from being a method of nomination – absentee ballots are impossible in a convention, as multiple ballots are expected and those voting absentee would only be permitted a choice on the first ballot – it would also bar mass meetings, caucuses and potentially even firehouse primaries, too. Firehouse primaries, where the local party handles the voting process, not the local Electoral Boards and General Registrars, are generally simple affairs, open to the general public, where party faithful sign loyalty oaths to support the party nominee in November in exchange for a ballot. Those don’t typically allow for absentee ballots either, and setting up an absentee ballot process would generally be outside the capabilities of most Republican units across Virginia.
Thus, these bills, while acknowledging that conventions are inherently discriminatory – not just against members of the armed services, but against whole swaths of the electorate who may want to participate in their party’s nominating processes but can’t participate in a convention – as written are far broader than just banning conventions. This extension of governmental power into the nominating processes of the parties goes much farther than current law. Current law itself already has the General Assembly injected itself into party nominating processes about as far as is reasonable – incumbent members of the General Assembly are permitted to choose their method of nomination – and extending that power further is not really necessary.
At the same time, some of the attacks on Senator Wagner, Delegate Taylor, and others go too far. It’s important for my Tea Party and libertarian friends to recognize that these bills aren’t “establishment Republican” bills designed to harm their chances of securing nominees. If you look at Senator Wagner’s bill, he has a bipartisan roster of co-patrons, including Democratic Senators Barker, Favola and Puller and Democratic Delegates Morrissey and Surovell. This makes sense if you look at their districts, all of which have heavy uniformed military presence. And on the Republican side, you’ve got folks like Scott Lingamfelter – no moderate RINO – who is the long time and leading champion of active duty military and veterans in the General Assembly. When someone like Scott Lingamfelter is on this bill, I know he’s doing it to benefit his uniformed brothers in arms, not because he wants to ensure that moderates can get nominated in Virginia.
So I would caution everyone who is ready to lash out at Senator Wagner and Delegate Taylor for these bills to recognize that they really aren’t doing it to placate folks like me who hate conventions – they’re doing it because the military argument against conventions is one of the most commonly made and they’re trying to represent their constituencies. There’s no other reasons why so many Democrats would be on these bills – they love when we nominate candidates who can’t win general elections, so they have no incentive to make our nominating processes more representative of the wider Republican electorate.
At the end of the day, these bills go too far. While I don’t ever want to have to spend another Saturday afternoon waiting on results from yet another nominating convention, the General Assembly shouldn’t be barring these processes. It should be the choice of the parties, not the legislature.
Hat tip to Chris Stearns for suggesting I write this piece.
