Guest Post: Answering Objections to a Caucus System for the Georgia GOP

Jeff Haffley, writing on GaCaucus.org, answers some objections I raised to using nominating conventions instead of primary elections. His answers follow.

A few days ago GA Pundit writer Todd Rehm challenged those proposing a look into the idea of switching to a caucus system to answer some common questions and objections often raised by Republicans when they hear of the idea. We have observed that many people who now favor the caucus system (including ourselves) initially reacted with similar skepticism. Like jumping into a cool pool on a hot day, it may seem jarring at first, but eventually people tend to begin appreciating its benefits.

Here are our answers to Todd’s questions.

1. What happens to nominations when we lose a quorum because the State Convention has gotten at least twice as lengthy due to the nomination and elections of all the statewide candidates, much less Congressional and lower level offices?

This question is undoubtedly asked in light of the recent conclusion of the Georgia GOP state convention. At that event, once the voting on all the state party officers was completed around 6:00PM, hundreds of people got up and left the hall so that a quorum was no longer present. As a result, the resolutions were never voted on. But they did stay long enough to elect an Assistant Secretary.

The reason why people left in that situation was because most people do not believe that the resolutions have any real significance. They are not binding. They are merely recommendations that some elected officials consult, if they so choose.

However, when delegates know that staying and participating involves doing something significant, they stay. In the Virginia convention last Saturday, delegates stayed from 9:00AM until about 10:00PM as they conducted four ballots for the nominee for Lt. Governor and other state offices, because they realized the importance of deciding these nominations. The reason why people leave for resolutions is because they are predominantly ceremonial.

What we have seen from observing each state that utilizes the caucus system is that delegates stick around when they understand that their presence matters, when there is important business to discuss and decide. As long as that is the case, there is no reason to believe a convention would lose a quorum for an nomination under normal circumstances. If delegates will stay to elect an Assistant Secretary, they will sure as shootin’ stay till they have nominated our candidate for Labor Commissioner and PSC.

2. Please make your best argument for throwing away a system that has allowed us to nominate the candidates who made Georgia a red-dominated state in favor of stacking the deck to allow nomination of people who wouldn’t make it out of a primary.

The primary system can no more claim credit for helping to make Georgia a red state than Sonny Perdue can claim credit for bringing navy-blue suits into style. If anything, a historical case could be made that the primary system delayed Georgia’s transition to becoming a red state by a decade or more. Throughout the 1990’s, Republicans in low-information Georgia primaries frequently nominated Big-Money “moderate” candidates like Guy Milner to state office only to lose in the general elections because they did not provide adequate contrast with the Democrat nominee, nor did they appeal to the conservative Democrat of the South. But our national elections from 1964 and into the 1980’s show that Georgia voters strongly favored conservative Republicans in the presidential elections.

In fact, Georgia Republicans have nominated eleven candidates for governor with primaries. The first eight lost (5 of 8 by 10+ points). The primary system didn’t give us winning candidates. Trial and error and the egregious actions of Governor Roy Barnes and Speaker Tom Murphy finally propelled the Republican Party to victory in Georgia.

If we are going to write about “stacking the deck,” however, we should acknowledge how the current primary system stacks the deck in favor of Big Money, Big Government liberals in Republican clothing. (By the way, a conservative radio talk-show host who’s a friend of mine in Texas calls them “DORCs” rather than “RINOs” because he thinks “RINO” is not appropriately shameful. DORCs: Democrats Opting for Republican Clothing.) People who are too busy to come out to a convention are more likely to be too busy to scrutinize each of the candidates, check their voting records, and evaluate their ideas and policy proposals carefully as they listen to them in the public debates. They are low-information voters who are more affected by how many signs they see on the road, how nice the graphic design is on their logos, how good they look on TV, how flashy their commercials were and how many of them were broadcast. All of those things require millions of dollars, and so the deck will be stacked in favor of those who raise the most money. Too often, the ones who can raise the most money are those who are willing to pander to the interests of the deep-pocketed special interest group or corporations. This is stacking the deck so that the best funded candidates, not the ones with the best ideas, are nominated.

The reason that candidates with better ideas often don’t make it out of a primary is because the deck is stacked against them—the money deck. Take candidate Jeff Chapman from a few years ago who did not make it to the gubernatorial nomination, although he was a candidate of excellent integrity, principles, and ideas. Why shouldn’t a fine man like that have been given an equal playing field for his platform beside Karen Handel and Nathan Deal? What if his ideas are actually better for the health of the country? We’ll never know because candidates like him usually get drowned out by their multi-million dollar counterparts.

So we reject the notion implied by the question and rather reverse it: How can we continue to throw away the candidates with potentially better ideas for the health of our state, disregarding the principles of the grassroots conservative Georgian, in favor of stacking the deck toward the large corporations and wealthy special interest groups?

Here in a nutshell are the arguments for converting to a caucus:

1) A caucus system will save Republicans in Georgia money on expensive primaries that can be used more effectively to win elections in the general against the Democrat rather than against a fellow Republican.

2) A caucus system puts the republic back into the Republican party by having small-”r” republican delegates representing the interests of their local communities much like a state representative does at the state capitol. They are able to devote greater scrutiny to decisions at a convention than the average voter has time to give to a primary, but they are accountable to the community voters who select them, and they also serve to balance the minority’s interests against the interests of a slim majority.

3) As we’ve already alluded, a caucus system levels the playing field for all candidates, so that the best ideas, not just the best-funded ideas, get a fair hearing.

4) The caucus system empowers the grassroots, giving the local participants in the party a greater incentive to get involved, volunteer, donate, campaign in their communities, and attend conventions. Their voice in a caucus system matters more.

3. How will you address the argument that this is a massive disenfranchisement of soccer moms, solider dads, and people who live in parts of the state far from where a convention is held in any given year, and discriminates against people whose work schedule requires them to actually, you know, work, rather than devote their lives to an unending series of political conventions?
Actually, as we allude to in our previous answer, the caucus system does not “disenfranchise” regular working people with families, but rather empowers them to be more effective at electing candidates after due scrutiny has been exercised.

Hundreds of thousands of Georgia voters have given up on voting in primaries and general elections because they know that no matter who wins, the special interests and crony capitalists are still in control. A convention system will bring down the cost of running for office by as much as 75 percent. This will make it possible for honorable public servants to win elected office, doing more for the soccer moms and solider dads than any election dominated by big money and media will.

Unscrupulous politicians don’t want scrutiny over what they do and say. They want low information voters to be dependent on sound-bites and superficial impressions so that the bad things they are doing can go undetected. But a state convention delegate is elected because that person is willing and able to devote the careful evaluation of the candidates that most people don’t have the time to give. That frees up the regular working family folks to go on with their normal lives while maintaining personal touch with a delegate who answers to them—not a distant politician on a TV tube.

Think about it. Under Georgia’s current Republican convention system, we have basically three tiers: First, we have mass precinct meetings where anybody can come at no cost. These attendees nominate delegates to represent them at the county convention. Second, we have county conventions where county delegates vote (for a $30 fee) to elect state convention delegates to represent them at the state convention. Third, we have state conventions where under a caucus system state convention delegates (for a $60 fee) would vote to elect the GOP nominees to state office. The state convention delegates are accountable to the county delegates, and the county delegates are accountable to the local grassroots voters. It’s representative government within the party, and it maintains the human connection between each tier so a voter always has a person that he can speak face-to-face to and who is answerable to him about a vote.

With this great responsibility to represent not just themselves but others also, delegates will have to make sure they are better informed about all of the candidates so they can defend their votes at the conventions to their communities back home. They will have to be able to explain their actions, and if they behave arbitrarily and without regard to the wishes of the people who elected them, they will have to take the heat.

The old saying goes, “Many hands make light work.” A primary system makes every individual responsible for doing all the research on each and every candidate on a ballot. We may know something about the people at the top of the ballot, but the strength of our impressions usually decrease as we scroll to the bottom. The typical parents don’t have time for that between PTA meetings and soccer games. A republican, representative caucus system creates a built-in incentive for communities to share in the burden of analyzing the candidates, the issues, the statistics, and the laws they are talking about. In the end, it means the votes cast at the nomination are more informed votes. Our elected officials are more accountable to the people when those people are more informed. That’s not disenfranchisement. That’s empowerment.

4. Why should we trust the legislative process, through which any bill changing the current election system must pass, to not (a) tilt the odds in favor of incumbent lawmakers; and (b) fail to foresee the inevitable unintended consequences?

First, it should be noted that initial steps toward a caucus system would probably not require legislative approval. To get moving in that direction, for example, a convention may simply endorse one of several candidates on a primary ballot, and then authorize the state party to support that candidate financially.

Second, however, the question seems to assume that the legislature would micro-manage for the parties the caucus system to be used. But all that is necessary is for the state legislature to grant all political parties the freedom to choose between a caucus system and a primary system, with only broad parameters in place (which are currently in place). The specifics of how the primary or caucus system would work would be left to each political party in the state. So this would not give the legislature the ability to construct something that favors incumbents. The legislation would be crafted very narrowly.

What this does, then, is entrust the grassroots and elected delegates of each party with their own destiny. They, not the legislature, can then discuss what procedures would be best to serve their own interests and objectives. Democrats can decide what’s best for Democrats. Republicans can decide what’s best for Republicans. Democrats don’t get to have a say on how the Republican system works, and visa versa. We believe that each party knows how to serve itself best.
For more on the idea being proposed for a caucus system for Georgia, please visit the web site www.georgiacaucus.org, or follow the developments on our Facebook page.