Still work to be done on primary election bills

Whoa, Nevada Legislature! Slow your roll!

It seems that a coalition is building to switch from Nevada’s chaotic-but-traditional caucus system for picking delegates to the national conventions to a primary election system instead. And while that’s an improvement over what we have now, there are some significant problems with a couple of bills that would authorize the change.

The best solution, as far as I see it, would be to have a presidential preference primary in February, in which voters of both parties go to the polls and cast ballots for their preferred candidate. This election would happen once every four years, and wouldn’t include any other offices. (A regular primary election would be held in June, as it is currently, followed by a general election in November.)

Political parties would be free to choose their delegates at party-run events, and to decide how to tell those delegates to vote. (They could decide on a winner-take-all system, in which every delegate would be bound by the results of the primary election, or a proportional system, in which delegates would be awarded based on the percentage of the vote earned by the respective candidates.) But the presidential primary would be run by the secretary of state and county election offices.

That election would cost the state and local governments some money, and perhaps the parties could be asked to defray at least a portion of the cost. But since the statewide presidential preference primary would take place only once every four years, the costs wouldn’t be insurmountable.

But up in Carson City, that’s not exactly the way they see it.

In Assembly Bill 302, political parties would be allowed — but not required — to ask for a statewide primary, to be held in the month of February. This election would not include elections for other offices, which is a good thing. But the bill contains some language that seems to target rebellious Republican Party members who broke away from the rest of Nevada’s delegation in 2012 to cast votes on the floor of the Tampa, Fla., convention for Texas Rep. Ron Paul instead of Nevada caucus winner Mitt Romney.

Under AB302, delegates to the national convention would be forced at least through the entire first ballot to cast a vote for the winner of the caucus or primary election. If a delegate broke that rule and voted for somebody else, he or she and the state party would have to pay the winner a fine equal to the amount candidates pay to the state party to be listed on the ballot, or a civil penalty of up to $1,000.

Ouch, baby.

But better to amend AB302 to remove that objectionable provision than to pass the alternative bill, Senate Bill 421, which would move the entire primary election to February. In addition to a presidential preference election, we’d be voting on offices from state Legislature all the way down to fire protection district, and everything in between. That means tons of campaigning and fundraising at Christmas, holidays interrupted by polls and robo-calls, mailboxes stuffed with Christmas coupons alongside candidate fliers, and a seemingly never-ending scene of campaign signs.

Happy birthday, Baby Jesus, and vote for Bob to get real change on the County Commission!

Some may ask why the government should be involved at all, since picking delegates and awarding them to candidates is a political party’s job. But mistakes and snafus have marred Nevada’s caucuses in recent years, mistakes that could be avoided with professionals running a primary election and counting votes. Parties should be left to choose their delegates and prescribe their votes in any way they wish, and bear the full costs of doing so.

But a presidential primary election, conducted for only the presidential contest sometime in February in presidential years, would keep holiday interruptions to a minimum, retain Nevada’s place on the early voting calendar (and all the benefits that entails) and get business done as efficiently as possible.

The Legislature should amend one of its bills to do just that, and no more.

Steve Sebelius is a Las Vegas Review-Journal political columnist who blogs at SlashPolitics.com. Follow him on Twitter (@SteveSebelius) or reach him at 702-387-5276 or ssebelius@reviewjournal.com.