Openshaw: A Call to the Caucus

Utah's political caucuses took place this week: last Tuesday for Democrats and last Thursday for Republicans. If you have never been to a caucus, it's great to come to increase your part in self government. If you have attended before, come to lend your strength. These two nights are what it's all about -- the vote before the vote. Opponents of the neighborhood voice say there is little participation in caucuses. Prove them wrong.
A major talking point of Count My Vote was the decreased political participation of women. This has been a state and national concern--a long-standing irritant, with charges that the Founders were sexists in not granting women the right to vote. It is, in fact, politically correct to make that accusation, but the facts don't agree.
The 19th Amendment to the Constitution gave women the vote (suffrage) in 1919. Unfortunately, it also took from the states their constitutional right to set voting policies, which increased voracious federal control. The states were moving forward in this area, as they should. Western states had given women the vote decades before: Wyoming in 1869, and Utah officially in1896.
If we judge the past by the present, we mistakenly overlook cultural differences and can brand women's earlier non-voting status as discrimination. Not so. In early America's world of intact families, most women, centered on the home, were politically uninvolved by choice. The male, as head of household, voted for the family. Women's entry into commercial life was decades away, and the flood of single parent families, supported by big government "daddy" and its welfare checks, did not explode until Lyndon B. Johnson's 1968 Great Society. Both led, inevitably, to suffrage for women.
While early American women played a limited role outside the home, the impression that they were unequal (and thus kept from voting by discrimination) is challenged by Frenchman Alexis de Toqueville's fascinating description of America and its women in the early 1800s. He related that American men esteemed their female counterparts and "constantly display an entire confidence in the understanding of a wife...her mind is just as fitted as that of a man to discover the plain truth and her heart as firm to embrace it."
De Toqueville's important writings give a consistently invaluable picture of colonial America. He shows the equal worth given to both genders and compares this with the European movement to "make men and women into beings not only equal, but alike," to give both the same functions, rights and duties, which he said would leave both "degraded." He disclaims our modern charge of discrimination against women when he says: "The Americans do not think that men and women have either the duty or the right to perform the same offices, but they...consider them...of equal value...(and) believe the understanding of the one to be as sound as that of the other."
His explanation of American families in the 1800s clarifies their voting policies: "every association must have a head in order to accomplish its object and that the natural head (of the family)... is man." He continued: "I never observed that the women of America consider conjugal (marriage) authority as a ...usurpation of their rights nor ...thought themselves degraded by submitting to it. It appeared...they attach a sort of pride to the voluntary surrender of their own will...it is not the practice...to clamor for the rights of women."
The right to vote was not an issue among most early American women. It was in this spirit that the constitutional right to vote was confined to males; not to exclude women, but place them in a voting team.
De Toqueville concluded: "If I were asked...to what the singular prosperity and growing strength of... (Americans) ought mainly to be attributed, I should reply, to the superiority of their women."
In today's world, we prize the insights, participation, and votes of women and men of all ages. We need all of us to participate is self-government...even after the Caucuses. Join us this week at the caucuses and after to continue the creation of influence from the grassroots. Utah and every state needs your voice.

No One Likes the Election Compromise

With Count My Vote determined to replace the caucuses, and the caucuses determined to preserve their grass-roots voice, a "principled" compromise, S.B. 54, claims to be the answer. Some prominent politicians are ready to "lay down on the railroad tracks" for the change. Believers in grass-roots government ask why Utah is spending time and money to replace a successful system.

The one constant in this issue is that no one likes the compromise, including legislators rethinking earlier support. Why do it, then? We are fixing the wrong problem, like a doctor who removes a facial mole to solve an itching toe. The real solution, more people involved, does not automatically demand a system change.

The compromise requires political parties to "qualify" or else they get Count My Vote -- political primaries -- by default. Qualification, under the current S.B. 54, requires three things: the choice of either absentee ballots or alternate delegates; greater ease for participation in primaries by unaffiliated voters; and an alternate path for candidates -- a petition approach to the ballot. Other earlier requirements have been dropped. Once qualified, the parties choose how to meet the criteria imposed by the state.

Conservatives fear the compromise for many reasons. Some of those pushing it were Count My Vote advocates not long ago, so conservatives fear the two may be "in bed together" to influence state politics. The system can be skewed by party outsiders to manipulate party elections through a process called controlled opposition--non-party members could load a caucus, multiply candidates, vote for the weakest to split the vote and take over.

One conservative says the compromise "is like putting the caucus system on life support" -- not a good way to live. Others see problems in setting a precedent for state government to control political parties, although proponents declare that state funding of the primaries permits some state control.
Opponents take offense at Count My Vote's unethical methods, used to gather signatures so CMV can appear on the 2014 ballot as a citizens' initiative. Mounting solid evidence shows repeated deception at petition collection sites. This taints the entire process.
With the constitutional issues concerning state control of political parties, and with the implications of dishonesty in the citizens' initiative, court cases are inevitable; indeed, to not bring them would be irresponsible. If this issue moves forward, it will cost Utah taxpayers serious money in court before it is done.
There is an uncomfortable feeling about this entire issue of "hurry, hurry." Good politics are not borne of speed and ignorant voters. The business of a constitutional republic is deliberately slow, to prevent errors and promote education of the people, who are the source of law. Government by the people is based on their understanding of the topic at hand. That education hasn't happened.
There has been far too little open discussion on this topic. When rushed, a policy change should be viewed with suspicion. Good policies survive scrutiny and dialogue, while coercion seeks to suppress public dialogue.

This issue is going too fast and it would be better to slow it down. The patient is being rushed into surgery without a finished diagnosis or a qualified treatment. It's important that we do the right thing, not the fast thing. Let's back off this issue for another year and find answers to the real problems, rather than throwing out the caucuses because "somebody said" that will fix the patient. Ice the compromise, spank CMV and send them to time out for their dishonesty. Go to work on the real problem, keep the public informed and involved, and if changes really are necessary, get it right for the 2016 elections.
In the meantime, Utah, show up at the caucuses next week and solve the real problem. The caucuses are not flawless, but Winston Churchill's remarks on democracy also apply here: "The worst form of government except for all those others... ." Keep the caucuses. Show up next week and make a difference.