taken Feb. 5, 2008
Somerville polling place. (Photo via Creative Commons/Flickr by Andrew Malone) field_54b3f951675b3

THE ARGUMENT IN support of Question 3 on the Massachusetts ballot is that “all-party primaries”—in which all candidates appear on a single preliminary ballot in September, with the top two vote-getters advancing to the general election in November—will increase electoral competition in Massachusetts and thereby make elected officials more responsive to public opinion.

As Tanisha Sullivan recently stated in CommonWealth Beacon, “[w]ith inherently more competition, elected officials are better incentivized to listen and deliver.”

This assumption is not wrong so much as it is misdirected.

Under the system Question 3 would bring to Massachusetts elections, political parties would no longer play any meaningful role in choosing the candidates who run as members of their parties in either the proposed “all-party” preliminary election or the general election. This would amount to the elimination of Bay State parties’ capacity to act as meaningful intermediary institutions and likely lead to an increase in the already alarming number of wealthy self-funded candidates running for public office, as well as the ability of well-financed special interests to leverage their resources to exert undue influence over both elections and public policymaking. Indeed, the list of Question 3 backers is a who’s who of putative plutocrats and special interest groups.

While the stated intention behind Question 3 is to “empower” voters, more likely we would see a reduction in the quality of democratic deliberation and, in the long run, turnout declines. Allowing parties to provide voters a meaningful choice between candidates in November connects elections to policy decisions, regardless of how competitive those elections are.

Question 3 advocates seem to believe that increasing the competitiveness of elections requires voters in the Commonwealth to discount party labels, to “vote the candidate, not the party.”

While popular with average voters—at least in theory—the truth is that the most meaningful single piece of information about candidates for most voters is their party label. Question 3 would eliminate the ability of Bay State parties to police the use of their party labels by candidates in elections and sever the only meaningful accountability link between candidates/officeholders and party platforms.

Question 3 would replace the present system with a bit of a free-for-all. Proponents believe competitiveness would somehow guarantee more meaningful choices at the polls for all voters, but it likely would do so only in a narrow way, and only for a narrow slice of the electorate. Proponents of Question 3 are, after all, activists with political and programmatic agendas who want to change the rules of elections to favor their interests.

Average voters, on the other hand, who we know are disproportionately dependent on the information reflected in party labels, will gain little in real value. Question 3 proponents may be correct that more folks will turn out for a competitive race, but their proposal would sacrifice quality for quantity.

If enacted, Question 3 would effectively eliminate partisan elections, and voters increasingly will see candidates whose party labels reveal no real commitment to a party’s principles or policy preferences. Elections in which party labels lack real meaning eventually will turn on candidate quality and produce what political scientists call “candidate-centric elections.” It’s notable that, even with meaningful party labels at present, far too much campaign and media focus is on candidates and not ideological and programmatic deliberation and debate.

Proponents argue that political parties would still endorse candidates in all-party primaries. But the very nature of these races would undermine the value of any candidate’s partisan affiliation.

Massachusetts political party organizations are already among the weakest in America—both of them. Candidate endorsement and party identification are not substitutes for the utility that partisanship provides to voters. For party labels to provide meaningful cues, there must be a tangible and enforceable accountability relationship between a party and its candidates and officeholders, especially for legislators whose individual outputs must complement collective outputs. This is the only way that partisan affiliation can have any meaning to voters.

In the long run, the preliminary election in September would produce an unmediated and less meaningful choice for voters, while the November general election would produce personalized food fights between two candidates who would have to rely on policy-lite, candidate-centric campaigns that essentially give voters little they could use to hold the winner accountable for their performance in office. In other words, two non-partisan elections means two expensive races to the rhetorical bottom.

As a practical matter, Question 3 would complicate the timing and increase the costs of running for office. If its proponents’ objectives include empowering marginalized voices and minor parties, then increasing the costs while reducing the time to organize and campaign seems particularly unwise.

Supporters rarely mention the extra burden this system would impose on candidates. Instead, they emphasize the fact that this system is already used to elect many local officials in non-partisan local elections. But local elections are inherently different from district-wide contests. The successes and failures of local elected officials are easier for average voters to see and experience first-hand, which is simply not possible in a state legislative, congressional, or statewide race.

It is worth noting that previous “democratic reforms” to party nomination processes in Massachusetts have done considerable damage to the accountability link between candidates and voters that partisanship promotes. Massachusetts has experienced a rapid decline of party registration since automatic voter registration became the norm. Further weakening the role and influence of political parties will not increase accountability.

Consider that, if the national Republican Party had had firm control over its presidential nomination process in 2016, Donald Trump’s disastrous presidency could have been averted. Here in Massachusetts, Question 3 would usher in a Wild West of candidate-centric elections that would reward imagery and symbolism but leave voters few benchmarks with which to hold winning candidates accountable for their efforts once in office.

At the end of the day, if Question 3 passes and is implemented as written, the job of Massachusetts voters will become more difficult and the problem the initiative was intended to mitigate (that is, public policymaking that is insufficiently responsive to the interests of average voters) likely would continue, albeit for different reasons.

In the case of the Legislature, for example, which Question 3 proponents believe is insufficiently responsive because incumbents “toe the party line” dictated by legislative leaders in exchange for insulation from electoral competition, non-partisan preliminary elections would exchange unresponsiveness due to leadership control of rank-in-file legislators for the gridlock that cripples legislatures full of free agents whose re-elections turn on individual marketing, rather than any commitment to a coherent policy agenda. To the extent Question 3 weakens legislative leadership by enhancing candidate autonomy, we are likely to see increased polarization and culture war posturing, phenomena that, as compared to other parts of the country, Massachusetts has managed to avoid.

At bottom, if enacted Question 3 likely will undermine the facilitation of accountability provided by partisan elections, a reality long documented by political scientists. The resulting candidate-centric elections, which will turn on the ability of individual candidates to “connect with voters” and not on competing policy preferences or ideological differences, will favor the best campaigners, not the best policymakers and not candidates committed to a coherent agenda or ideological perspective that voters can use to rationally judge winning candidates’ performance once in office.

Question 3 will, at once, increase the degree of difficulty voters face when trying to distinguish candidates on substantive grounds, while freeing candidates themselves from the tactical inconvenience of clear accountability for meaningful and measurable results if elected.

Jerold Duquette is a professor of political science at Central Connecticut State University, contributor at MassPoliticsProfs.org, and co-editor of The Politics of Massachusetts Exceptionalism: Reputation Meets Reality. Lawrence Friedman teaches constitutional law at New England Law | Boston and is the co-author of The Massachusetts State Constitution, published by Oxford University Press.