Legislature sends PCO elections bill to Governor

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Washington’s PCO elections are on the verge of being back in business. A year after a federal court judge ruled state-run PCO elections unconstitutional in the context of the Top 2 Primary, the Legislature has approved a bill requiring PCO elections to be conducted during the state’s Primary Election, which occurs Aug. 7 this year. The House concurred with Senate amendments to House Bill 1860 sending the proposal to Gov. Gregoire for her probable signing. Precinct committee officers are local Republican and Democratic Party leaders who run neighborhood precinct organizations. Over a year ago, the state Democratic and Republican parties asked U.S. District Court Judge John Coughenour to declare the PCO elections unconstitutional. In January 2011, Judge Coughenour ruled in their favor, declaring that Washington’s PCO election system was unconstitutional. The judge wrote:

“Washington’s method of electing precinct committee officers is unconstitutional because it severely burdens the political parties’ ability to identify and associate with members of their respective parties. Precinct committee officers are grassroots representatives of the political parties, yet all voters, regardless of party affiliation, receive the same candidate ballot and have an opportunity to elect those officers. The political parties have a right to object to Washington’s method of determining party affiliation for these officers, and Washington has not shown that its interests in using this system outweigh the First Amendment’s special associational protections (11 JAN 2011, PG 24 Coughenour Decision).”

The judge indicated he was open to a legislative fix of the PCO issue, which opened the door to House Bill 1860. Under the bill sent to the Governor’s Office:

• Only contested races will appear on the Primary Election ballot in even-numbered years, and write-in candidates are not allowed. That greatly reduces the number of PCO elections on the ballot. If only one candidate files for a PCO position, then the person is deemed elected without appearing on the ballot.

• If nobody files for a PCO position, it can be filled by appointment by the county chair of that county’s party.

Just before last Christmas, the state Republican and Democratic parties went to court to ask that the state be ordered to continue running PCO elections. The case is presumably now moot. Washington voters don’t register by party. There currently are about 6,500 precincts throughout the state, so there potentially are about 13,000 PCO contests. Typically, 3 percent of the PCO races are contested, 32 percent have one candidate file and 65 percent have no candidate file.