A Center for Competitive Politics posting by Michael Schrimpf returns to the familiar question of McCain-Feingold’s contribution to weaker political parties.  He totes up the spending numbers and decides that, without the soft money denied to them by statute, the parties’ have lost ground to outside groups.  CCP is only moderately alarmed:  it holds no brief for limits on outside groups but it also sees little point in a statutory blow to parties. 

     What Schrimpf more fundamentally overlooks is the confusion of symptom with cause:  McCain-Feingold was possible because the parties were weak, since in a world of strong parties, legislation so unhealthy for them would not have passed in the first place.  The law is built around restrictions on parties, and the provisions designed to achieve a measure of balance between parties and outside groups, by limiting group independent spending, have been shown to be constitutionally and practically tenuous and are under systematic attack.  What endures, unchallenged, are the parts of McCain-Feingold that drained resources from parties.  These came to pass, and they will stand, in the absence of a constituency committed to a strong defense; and there is no reason to doubt that the future holds more of the same, since it is now the constitutional law of the land, since Colorado Republican II and McConnell, that parties are carriers of corruption.

     Reflection on the plight of parties is especially timely in the wake of the Supreme Court’s decision Tuesday in Washington State Grange v. Washington State Republican Party.  The Court determined that a statute was not, on its face, infirm when it denied parties the means to designate their candidate on the ballot, but offered up this designation to any and all candidates wishing for any reason to claim it for their own.  The Chief Justice, memorably and not to his credit, likened the stated preference for a party to a taste for Campbell’s soup.  His point was that the parties should have no complaint, and voters no cause for confusion, because this statement of preference had no real meaning.  A candidate could align herself with a party and have really said nothing.  No more biting comment on the value of party brand can be imagined.

     The decision cannot be seen as simply dismissive. The statute it reviewed and upheld was actively hostile to parties.  Candidates’ preferences were minimized in significance and cleared for inclusion on the ballot; party preferences or endorsements, which are of profound significance to parties, were disallowed.  If a statement of preference by an individual is so personal its importance should not be overstated, then the importance of a party’s preference, representing a core institutional commitment, cannot be understated.  The Washington State law approved for the ballot what is most personal and least important, excluding what is institutionally meaningful to parties and its membership and most important. 

     This brings the discussion to the issue of voter confusion.  Without doubt, the statute risks voter confusion about which candidates are truly affiliated or in good standing with parties.  Attention to the potential for “confusion” does not, however, quite capture the problem.  The Washington State statute, in keeping parties off the ballot except in soupy, personalized statements of candidate preferences, devalues party association and support as factors of interest to voters.  It assumes that voters are best informed about what candidates may wish to say, for whatever reason they may wish to say it, and that they are not put to any disadvantage if they do not hear from the parties.

     The Supreme Court found nothing wrong with this, on its face:  further evidence of the sorry state of the parties

Bob Bauer