GOP Seeks DTS for GOTV

Today's Bee has a piece explaining why the California Republican Party will welcome decline to state

voters to vote in the June 3 primary election, even though they disallowed the same choice on last week's presidential primary ballot. It all goes back to the mid-90s:

Confusion over primary voting has a long pedigree. Before 1996, the state's primaries were closed – only registered members of the parties could take part.

An initiative approved in 1996 gave the state a "blanket" primary. All voters were given the same ballot from which they could choose any candidate, regardless of their affiliation.

The state Democratic and Republican parties fought the initiative, and ultimately prevailed in the U.S. Supreme Court, which ruled in 2000 that it violated the two parties' freedom of association.

Around the same time, the Legislature passed a bill that let independent voters participate in primaries if the parties allowed it.

State Republicans opted to allow independent voters in all primaries except the presidential. The party reasoned that Democrats would have an advantage in nonpresidential races if independents supported their candidates in primaries, said Tim Morgan, who was chairman of the party's rules committee at the time. Morgan is now the treasurer of the Republican National Committee.

But the 1,600-member central committee chose to close the presidential primary. The difference was that delegates selected to go to the national convention would have a hand in making party rules and policies and should truly represent its core values.

Of course another option is to close the dang primaries again and get people to put up or shut up when it comes to casting a partisan vote. Though it may only be a dream, I would love to think that closing the primaries might force interested people into parties to change them from within, which is, to my mind, the only way to really change anything at all. Decline to state isn't a party, so staying out of the fray isn't going to do a damn thing, is it? DTS isn't a party. Grow a pair, get in there, and you'll get your vote.

So good for you, GOP. No wait, I don't mean that. I take it back. But I get you. That's what I'm trying to say.