Page images
PDF
EPUB
[graphic][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][ocr errors][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][merged small][merged small]

Mr. SWIFT. Thank you very much.

How important do you feel it would be to retain the noncontiguous part? I just note, for example, that region 6 is contiguous to region 3, 4, 5, 8, 9, and 10, which would make it extremely difficult, I would think.

Mr. NELSON. I am not hung up on that, Mr. Chairman. It's the principle. Whether or not region 6 were to be exactly the way that we have designed it here is for your wisdom and your committee. Mr. SWIFT. Very good.

Mr. Thomas.

Mr. THOMAS. Thank you.

I understand your time constraints, but the question I have again is the added feature to the regional primaries. That is that the Federal Government would pay for the Presidential primary. In some States now the Presidential primary every 4 years is tied in to the ordinary normal primary, for example, in California the first Tuesday in June. We mail the packets all together with the local candidates and the congressional. If the Presidential primary is by lot, it may occur that at certain times in the Presidential cycles California would wind up holding its Presidential preferential primary on the first Tuesday in February. Then the regular primary wouldn't occur until the first Tuesday in June. I am sure other States would wind up in the same predicament as to shifting dates.

Again, you believe that the value of your structure supersedes any State's desire to combine and have only one election rather than, for example, like the State of California. If it were to hold a separate second election with all of the precincts open and all of the election workers out, the price is horrendous. But if it were combined with the regular primary, the additional cost of paying for the Presidential primary would be minimal.

Do we have any cost estimate if we broke away all of the States that have their Presidential primary tied now to their regular primary if they were at a different time?

Mr. NELSON. Well, that's exactly the reason that I suggested in this legislation that you would have to come forth with the carrot approach and offer to pay for the Presidential primary, since it would be mandated to be on another date. However, in the practical matter of the example that you suggest, it may well be if California drew by lot that its region, region 2, would be the February election date, it might be to the California State Legislature's desires that they might want to move their primary to that date. But in the case that they didn't

Mr. THOMAS. Do you want the answer now or later?

Mr. NELSON. It makes no difference to me what the answer is. The principle is that, if you are going to impose a system that will bring rationality to the Presidential nominating process, you are going to have those kinds of quirks that are going to develop among States. Therefore, what's the best way to try to accommodate the States under those circumstances?

I am suggesting that a payment from the National Government would be an incentive for them.

Mr. THOMAS. I understand that, but the quirk is a random selection which will change from Presidential election to Presidential

election, which wreaks havoc with the clerks. How wedded are you to the concept of selection by lot in terms of when the regions hold their election? If there was some certainty and California knew it was in a particular time block, then the legislature could make the decision that they would tie the local primaries to it. But if it's going to change every 4 years, there's no way they're going to―― Mr. NELSON. Sure.

Mr. THOMAS [Ccontinuing]. Chase the calendar in terms of when you have the nominating process and the paper process. It would be a different date each time. So, the contiguousness was not critical, I guess, to the concept. How about the selection by lot?

Mr. NELSON. Select it by lot the first time and keep it that way thereafter. I mean, there are an infinite number of varieties. Select it by friendly persuasion and those with whom you cannot accommodate into a particular election date by friendly persuasion, then do it by lot.

Mr. THOMAS. But take your bill and kind of squint at the particulars but look at the overall structure and figure out where we can go.

Mr. NELSON. That's right.

Mr. THOMAS. OK.

Mr. NELSON. I mean, this-you know, when I filed this last year, I mean, this is a radical proposal. I had been talking within the Democratic Party. You know, people sort of look. You talked about squint. They would sort of squint their eyes and look at me. This is radical politics here. But it's time for radical politics to-in your words and the chairman's words, get some rationality and bring, out of chaos, some kind of ordered structure to this process of nominating a Presidential nominee.

I thank you. I am going to run to that hearing. You are mighty kind, Mr. Chairman, to accommodate me here. I appreciate it.

Mr. SWIFT. Congressman Nelson, thank you very much, for your contribution.

The next witness is the Honorable Sander Levin of Michigan, who I believe just yesterday introduced a piece of legislation. Is that correct?

Mr. LEVIN. It is. The magic number is 4453, talking about lottery. Mr. SWIFT. You may proceed as you choose.

TESTIMONY OF THE HONORABLE SANDER M. LEVIN, A REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF MICHIGAN Mr. LEVIN. Thank you.

I know my full statement is in the record, so let me, if I might, summarize. I would like especially to try to address myself to some of the points that the two of you have so cogently raised.

I believe there are at least three militating principles or points as we look at this issue. First of all is the power of the Presidency. I became involved in the issue of primaries first when I was a party chairman, State chair in the late 1960's in Michigan. We set up a commission to look at this issue. Then I became further involved after I lost a gubernatorial race and went to the Kennedy School and spent a semester teaching, so to speak, a course on the Presidential nomination system. What motivates me much more

than ever is a few years here. The importance and power of the Presidency, it seems to me, is self-palpable. When we talk about the nomination of the two candidates for President, we are talking about a vital, vital issue.

The second point relates to what Mr. Thomas raised. I think primaries and broad-based caucuses are here to stay. There is no turning back. Public participation on a broad basis has become knitted into the American fabric. We can talk about why there is no turning back the clock. The issue really is how we fit those into party convention processes.

There still will be a need for a national party convention for platform. But also I think we should remember that sometimes primaries will not produce a clear winner. I am convinced, for example, in 1968, if Robert Kennedy had lived, there would have been a very contested national convention on the Democratic side. The Republicans have had contested national conventions with a primary system.

The third point, and I feel this deeply, no place is representative. I have heard Representatives from Iowa and New Hampshire testify at the Democratic national meetings. I have read the articles in Michigan now. The process is beginning right now, at least in one party, in the State of Michigan. As I said in my testimony, maybe gas stations and food outlets and motels look the same from State to State. But States are different. I am not going to sit here and say that Michigan can represent Mississippi.

What is happening is this. The South is rearing up, and I think that's good. They don't want to be spoken for by the people of New Hampshire or Iowa or Michigan, and they should not be. We are not electing a local drain commissioner, as important as that might be. We are nominating Presidential candidates.

Now, the problem with a national primary, it seems to me, is clear. It's all at once. There's no time for issues and debate on issues to evolve, and probably too much premium on money.

The trouble with regional primaries—and there are some interesting and, I think, well thought through proposals; but I find it hard to imagine a regional system that assures representativeness. Even if you take two together, I think it's easy to imagine combinations where you would not have a representative set of primaries. I believe the legislation bakes this in the system for a number of years, the groupings for a number of years. I don't think we want to go through a lottery every 4 years.

So, after a lot of work, we have devised a proposal, an interregional Presidential primary and caucus act. The States are grouped into six regions. States are to be selected from within each region for a series of primaries or caucuses. So, you have representative

ness.

Let me quickly, if I might, address some of the questions that have been raised, and they are salient ones.

How much of a Federal mandate is there? Well, in this proposal the mandate is that a primary or caucus be used that shall determine the delegates to the national convention. That does not mean, in my judgment, that the Federal legislation determines whether the delegates are committed or noncommitted or whether there has to be, for example, party registration. There can be considerable

leeway left to the States, but there should be a standard of representativeness. So, beauty contests, I think, if the Federal Election Commission were the one to implement it, would be prohibited.

As long, though, as the system guaranteed representativeness, you could use congressional districts, State legislative districts. In a word, a lot of discretion would be left to the States, except there would be a few basic standards.

The question has been raised about havoc and changing the dates all the time, and that is a consideration. But under this proposal you would essentially set the pattern for 20 years. The States would know when the dates of their primaries or caucuses would be held.

As to cost, the bill doesn't directly address it. I can see good arguments for Federal financial underpinning of the costs of these primaries or caucuses. In most cases, they would not be combined; but the dates would be clear. Where States wanted to combine other races with the Presidential nomination contest, they could do so. It would mean that there would perhaps be some movement from Presidential year to Presidential year. But I don't consider that to be a major impediment.

The groupings, we tried to make sense of them. I urge-you will give it anyway-your full scrutiny. I believe they make sense. Obviously, there are arguments for other groupings. But I believe that these regions show one thing. That is it's possible to group as an intelligent reasonable basis from which to make selections for this kind of structure, this interregional Presidential primary and

caucus act.

There is one last point about the legality of this. Some have urged that the law is murky, that the Federal Government cannot intervene in this area. I have tried to look at the various documents. In my judgment, this kind of proposal and the others for a nationally mandated system, these proposals are constitutional.

The world has very much changed in the last 20 or 30 years. The world of government and politics in America have changed. It is clear to me, as I said at the beginning, that the primary caucus system is here to stay. What is happening today is that the deck of cards, the house of cards is falling. Everybody now wants to get into the act. There is more electricity than our outmoded circuits can bear. We simply have to change the pattern and make sense of it.

I deeply appreciate your efforts.

I just, if I might, want to add, Mr. Chairman and Mr. Thomas, one last point.

I sense almost a sense of kind of helplessness about this issue. I sense some people think that you may be spinning your wheels. They laud you for it. But they say, look, we've had disarray for these many years. And one way or another, disarray will continue.

I suggest the opposite. Disarray can become so complete that it forces a change in the system. I think we are no more than one Presidential election away from the chaos of forcing action. It is my hope that we are no election away from acting.

« PreviousContinue »