Michigan’s Levin Introduces Bill to Halt ‘Front Loading’ Trend

[brooklynite]

Source: CQ Politics

Many political analysts and party officials have bemoaned the recent trend of states advancing the dates of their presidential primaries and caucuses earlier than ever on the nomination calendar. California and New York are among the states that are planning 2008 nomination contests for Feb. 5 — which could be a de facto national primary election nine months before the Nov. 4 general election.

Now, a member of the House of Representatives is calling on Congress to curb this “front loading” of presidential primary voting by implementing a more orderly process of selecting presidential nominees.

Rep. Sander M. Levin, D-Mich., introduced legislation March 14 that would endeavor to do this by dividing the states into six “interregions” that would include at least one state from each of six geographic areas of the nation. The six interregions would hold their primary and caucus voting in regular intervals between early March and early June of the presidential election year.

The first interregion to vote would be determined by lot and would cast ballots on the second Tuesday in March of the presidential election year. The next interregion would vote three weeks after the first region; each subsequent interregion would vote two or three weeks later, until the sixth and final grouping of states votes on the second Tuesday in June. The interregion that voted first in one cycle would vote last in the next cycle.

Read more: http://www.cqpolitics.com/2007/03/michigans_levin_introduces_bil.html

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However sensible this notion is (and I'm concerned about limiting delegate selection to "mega-primaries" that focus by necessity almost entirely on TV advertising), I'm not clear why the Parties' selection of candidates is a matter for the Federal Government. All that's necessary is that the Parties' show some backbone and not recognize the delegates of any state process they don't approve of.

[Vincardog]

1. The states set the primaries. The Federal government shall not interfere in

the state's electoral process. That is why the coup of 2000 was so obscene.

[LeftCoast]

5. True, but you could tie it to some sort of Federal funding

I'm not sure this is the solution, but we need to do something or in a few presidential cycles we'll be voting for President while voting for the nominee for the next presidential election at the same time!

[Old and In the Way]

2. Seems like we need to develop a compromise on this.

Maybe regional primaries? A national primary would skew towards the candidates with the best funding. But individual state primaries are becoming a race for "who's first". Gotta be a compromise in there someplace.

[bluestateguy]

3. The national parties need to get control of the process again

though that can be done by the DNC and the RNC, not the Congress.

[Doc_Technical]

4. We need to try instant runoff voting.