Murray: Our political nomination system is broken

Two things happened last week to make me realize that the political party nominating system we have is failing us.

First, the CNN presidential debate, after which The New York Times called for President Joe Biden to step down as the Democratic nominee. Headlines said that people were shocked by how poorly Biden did, but, honestly, I don’t think anyone was truly shocked. Biden performed as any 81-year-old man who has been sheltered for four years from the outside world would: badly.

Second, the Utah Republican primary, which chose as nominees only one candidate that the caucus/convention system chose in April. The people who won at the convention were as follows: for governor, Phil Lyman; for U.S. Senate, Trent Staggs; for attorney general, Frank Mylar; for Congressional District 3, Mike Kennedy; for Congressional District 2, Colby Jenkins; and for Congressional District 1, Paul Miller. When you receive your ballot in November, the only person on this list that you will see is Kennedy.

These two events put the glaring problem of our republic in sharp relief: The way we nominate people to run for office is broken. Political parties are teams, and as such they are vulnerable to team dynamics. At the national level, no one on the Democratic side wanted to run against Biden, and on the Republican side, Donald Trump did not even have to show up to any of the nominating debates, because teams follow leaders. This resulted in our having two presidential candidates that three-fourths of the country did not want. At the state level, convention delegates chose people who were only appealing to a very narrow margin of the party, because that was the team in the room.

Last week made it clear to me that our current party system is no way to nominate a candidate. At the national level, we allow New Hampshire and Iowa to be the most important states in the union, as though their voters speak for all of us. At all levels, we allow incumbents to run unchallenged, even if they are too old or a convicted felon.

At the state level, people have argued that it is unfair for 4,000 voters to choose the nominee, especially since those caucuses take place on a Tuesday night that is not easily accessible to everyone. Again, just like the questions raised around Iowa and New Hampshire, why do these voters matter more? Others have argued that caucus delegates are extreme partisans and as such make bad choices for a more general electorate.

I am a fan of political parties; I teach a political parties class. I have attended caucuses and conventions, and I love them. I have voted in primaries my whole life, living in several places where the primary is the only real election that matters. I know how important it is for the United States Congress to be organized into two broad coalitions that speak across regional differences, thus protecting us from another Civil War and, quite frankly, making it possible to govern given the thousands of bills that pass through those chambers.

But, the thing is, we need significant nominating system reform and as a republic, we should demand one that helps us avoid the pitfalls of partisan politics. Utah has the answer: a signature-gathering process. A number of the candidates’ names you will see on Utah’s ballot (Spencer Cox, John Curtis and Derek Brown) had to collect signatures to guarantee they could compete in a primary. This means they had to convince at least 28,000 Utah voters to think it was a good idea for their names to be on the ballot. All of them had to canvas, speak to voters across the state and get 28,000 unique people to sign for them.

Imagine if Trump and Biden had to canvas across this country, persuading some proportionate number of people in each state that they deserved the right to be nominated. They would spend time talking with voters, not sheltered away at Camp David prepping for a debate they would never do well in, as Biden did. They would have to be in every state gathering signatures, not just the states that “matter.” There would be no “battleground” states; every person who felt worthy would have to hustle to gather voters’ signatures to be considered. Imagine not voting for “the lesser of two evils.”

It is possible. We could amend the U.S. Constitution to say anyone who wants to be president should have to persuade thousands upon thousands of voters that they are worthy, not through a primary that is run by political parties and shields party leaders, but through a canvassing process that requires candidates to work. That list of names could then be forwarded to an Electoral College, which would then choose our president.

Leah Murray is a Brady Distinguished Presidential Professor of Political Science and the academic director of the Olene S. Walker Institute Politics & Public Service at Weber State University.

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