
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: TUESDAY, November 28, 1995                   TAG: 9511280071
SECTION: EDITORIAL                    PAGE: A6   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: 
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

MAKE PRIMARIES ROUTINE

WHETHER the Virginia Republican Party must hold a primary election next year to nominate a U.S. Senate candidate has focused on the political and legal implications. Will Sen. John Warner get his way? Does a legal challenge by the party's right wing have constitutional merit?

Lost in the shuffle, meanwhile, is what ought to be the foremost consideration: What's best as a matter of public policy? If the interests of Virginia, rather than of incumbent office-holders, were kept uppermost, the General Assembly would:

Make primary elections the manner by which party nominees are routinely selected - not only for federal but also for state office, including the legislature.

Eliminate, in any event, the power of incumbents to determine the method by which party nominations are made.

The standard view of the politics involved - that Sen. Warner's chances of renomination are far better in a Republican primary than in a Republican convention - is hard to dispute. Among the general public, Warner is a proven vote-getter. Yet he has outraged many party regulars and the Christian right in Virginia for refusing to support a couple of the state GOP's odder nominations, including that of Oliver North in the 1994 Senate race.

Not easily disputed, either, is state Attorney General James Gilmore's formal opinion that the state law by which Warner can force a primary is constitutional, or at least not clearly unconstitutional. To contend otherwise is to ignore a string of precedents upholding the powers of states to regulate elections. The courts have looked especially fondly on regulation that serves to broaden public participation, which includes requiring parties to hold primary elections.

In truth, however, while the effect of the Virginia law could be in this instance to require a Republican primary, the statute's main purpose is to boost incumbents. Moreover, the power given Warner, and other federal or statewide office-holders, is more limited than the power given General Assembly incumbents.

For the former, the law kicks in only if they were nominated by primary last time; also, they can force only another primary if the party wants a convention, and not a convention if the party wants a primary. By contrast, members of the General Assembly - that is, the self-serving incumbents who write election laws - can call for either a primary or a convention, regardless of how they were nominated the last time. The only exception is when two or more incumbents are in the same district, as the result of redistricting, for example.

This is precisely the kind of insiderism that rightly feeds public discontent with the political system. The law is a Democratic Party creation, in the sense that the Democrats have been running the state for lo these many years. But the GOP is complaining about the incumbent-protection measure with a view not toward opening up the system, but toward averting a primary election in favor of a lower-participation convention.

Incumbency shouldn't be the criterion for who chooses how a nominee is selected. And when the choice is made, it should be in favor of primaries.

by CNB