Commentary––

Mommy, Are We A Democracy Yet?

By William A. Collins

Voters got,

A big reform;

But we’re still,

Below the norm.

Modern Connecticut has never been ravenous for democracy. As long as the polls open for something-or-other on the first Tuesday of November, nobody much complains. How those candidates got on the ballot, and whether it’s a fair fight are not issues that have captured Nutmeg imagination.

This lack of electoral attention has led to some not-so-surprising results. Foremost was Connecticut’s standing, until a few weeks ago, as the least democratic state in the union. That was because of our statutory roadblocks designed to stifle challengers to both incumbents and to the latest picks of party bosses. One might as well have been challenging the Supreme Soviet. In fact a Common Cause study showed that only one sitting congressman, senator, or governor of ours had ever faced a primary since the system was created in 1956.

As you might expect, this iron-fisted protection of incumbents resulted in Connecticut having very little political turnover. Even the worst turkeys were protected from challengers in their own party. Arcane rules and rigged conventions saw to that. For such an otherwise sophisticated state, this autocratic election system had long been a shameful embarrassment.

Now all that has changed. A blessed federal judge, Peter Dorsey, ruled that our electoral system was so rigged as to actually be unconstitutional. If the legislature didn’t fix it during this session, by golly he would do it himself. Under that threat, the General Assembly did indeed fix it, mostly. Now the party bosses can run a scripted convention to their hearts content, but a challenger can cheerfully ignore it. He may come along later if he wants, collect a bunch of petition signatures, and run a primary against whomever the bosses chose.

In a politically hidebound place like Connecticut, this seems like heaven. Reformers have been agitating for this change for 30 years. But even in the face of an angry judge, unanimous editorial opinion, and growing public support, lawmakers couldn’t resist some tinkering. They worked feverishly to protect their own special privileged position.

Their first gambit was to make petition-gathering needlessly onerous. Unwisely, their proposal for geographic distribution of signatures was so extreme that eventually it fell of its own weight.

Their second gambit was more successful. They proposed retaining a remarkably mischievous piece of the current law, which schedules our rare primaries in September. The occasional winning campaign in these races has typically been so exhausted that it had no time to regroup for November. Reformers, understandably, wanted the primary in June, allowing time for a real race. The resulting compromise was August, which is still so late as to give incumbents a big unfair edge.

But even with that self-serving amendment, reform has taken a huge stride. At least by Connecticut standards. By national standards, though, we’re still near the back of the pack. These new petition requirements are among the sternest in the country, while half the states don’t require any significant petitioning at all.

Further, about half the states also avoid those odious nominating conventions. Thus they have no challengers. Incumbents and newcomers alike file petitions and duke it out on somewhat equal footing. And a few states, like Arizona, miraculous to say, even give candidates the cash to run their campaigns. But don’t hold your breath for that to happen around here.

(Columnist William A. Collins is a former state representative and a former mayor of Norwalk.)