EDITORIAL: A strong Yes for Proposition 1

Open primaries and ranked choice voting, the two prongs of Proposition 1 on the Nov. 5 ballot, are not new concepts.

Nor are they liberal imports from “progressive” states like California.

If you listen to the loudest, angriest and most extreme voices in our community and our state, nobody in their right mind would vote Yes for Proposition 1. Thankfully, there are quieter, more rational and far more fact-imparting voices you can listen to.

One of them is the esteemed former Idaho Supreme Court Justice Jim Jones.

Jones, a decorated Vietnam War veteran and former Idaho Attorney General, provided in a recent column a precise and poignant history lesson dating back more than a century. In that column, Jones noted that the Idaho Legislature of 1909-11 accomplished at least two remarkable things for voters:

• A ranked-choice provision in party primary elections where voters would select a first- and a second-choice candidate when more than two people are running for the same office. If no candidate received a majority of first-choice votes, each candidate's second choice votes were added to their first-choice votes. The candidate with the most first- and second-choice votes won the party nomination for that office.

• A constitutional amendment proposal that would establish a way for voters to bypass the legislature and create their own laws — the very tool that paved the way for Medicaid expansion and now could increase voter participation through Proposition 1.

Much more recent history — you need only go back to the years before 2011 — shows that Idaho long embraced open primaries, where any registered voter could vote for whomever they wanted regardless of political affiliation. 

And guess what? While Republicans still dominated elected offices for much of that time, the divisiveness and outright offensive behavior of today were largely missing from the electoral process.

Contrary to what you might have been told, Proposition 1 is not a partisan issue. The majority of Kootenai County residents who signed petitions placing the proposal on the ballot are registered Republicans. Some of our state’s finest Republican leaders, including former Gov. Butch Otter, are strong supporters of the initiative.

Both prongs of Proposition 1, opening primaries to all voters regardless of political affiliation and then assuring through ranked choice voting that candidates with the broadest level of citizen support are victorious, are neither new nor liberal.

But they are an investment for truer majority rule and a strong antidote against the kind of political partisanship that’s poisoning our great state.

For the best elected leadership at all local, county and state levels, vote Yes for Proposition 1.