UPDATED: Great! This is the best possible outcome for the HB177 dustup
As of yesterday, HB 177, the anti-fusion candidacy bill, was dead. Speaker Terry Spence worked to keep it off the agenda. Delaware Watch learned over 2 hours ago that the bill has been placed back on the agenda and is expected to pass.
Not long afterwards, Delaware Watch learned that a group of 20 citizens opposed to the anti-fusion bill has pledged to cause primary races “for the significant Delaware offices” open in 2008. Those offices will include leadership positions in the Delaware Legislature. According to my source, who wishes to remain anonymous, “If the Democrats and Republicans want to play hardball with our voters rights, we will primary them to death.”
There is no way to deny that this is fantastic news. It is the very outcome that I’ve dared to dream of from the begining. Busting out of the self imposed isolation of third party irrelevancy, a bunch of activists are threatening to shake things up.
Awesome! This is long overdue.
UPDATE: If it is true that the Fusionites are going to become Fission-ites we’ll have some real democracy going on around here and the twists and turns could be dizzying for instance…
Consider what would happen if Dana Garrett decided to primary his sitting State Rep.
He would ace the PDD endorsement questionnaire based process that John Tobin set up and get endorsed by the very organization that he and others an evil blot on our Democracy.
As I said over at DelawareWatch, it would be like a brightly colored Van Gogh of irony and the result would be a more vibrant Democracy.
Heck, why not just eliminate candidates from the process altogether and let the winning party’s elites name whoever they want. Elections are all about parties anyway right?
Swear your allegiance to a party down at the Department of Elections and you can have your civil rights. Oh and by the way, these affiliation oaths are irrevocable for 6 of the 10 months leading up to every election.
Is not this what the US and Delaware Constitutions say anyway? Now where is it again that they mention political parties-factions again? I must have missed that. Or are the Democratic party bosses working on a quick rewrite in their fetid back rooms?
Jason not everything in democracy comes down to party politics especially when the two major parties conspire to eliminate the rights of anyone who does not join their ranks. Your hoping that the system will get better by writing more people out of it is truly perverse and anything but democratic.
What a disappointment.
Tyler,
I understand you take on this, and I agree about the general corruption of the parties as institutions.
I also think the party bosses will come to regret this outcome. I don’t have time for a full post but for now I’ll only say that under a primary system the party bosses have the least amount of power that they’ve ever had.
If you doubt that the passage of this anti-fusion bill is great news for the long term prospects of Democracy here is Delaware – read Dana’s most recent post.
He claims 21 primaries will happen this year. If they follow through, there is now way not be be gleeful today.
21 primaries? Right. They are just getting into some last ditch crazy talk to try and make the Republicans blink.
Tyler, when are you announcing the DE Bull Moose Party? I’ll pre-order my t-shirt and bumper sticker right now.
Bull Moose Party – now that was a party we could all get behind.
No Rebecca, not Bullwinkle the Moose…