ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Saturday, March 30, 1996 TAG: 9604010007
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: A7 EDITION: METRO
IN RULING that state political parties come under the provisions of the federal Voting Rights Act, says the executive director of the Virginia Republican Party, the U.S. Supreme Court "has basically trampled on the rights of free association of the party."
But that's the point: Association with the Virginia GOP isn't free. Participation in the state Republican convention, where the party's nominees for top offices usually are selected, carries a mandatory $35 fee plus whatever surcharge local party organizations choose to add.
In deciding 5-4 that three University of Virginia law students can continue their court challenge to the fee, the justices were recognizing the reality that a major political party is something more than just a private association.
The two major parties are granted special status by state elections laws - lines on the ballot, poll-watching rights, a campaign-finance checkoff-box on state income-tax forms - that are not granted to churches, chambers of commerce, labor unions, neighborhood organizations and other kinds of associations.
Moreover, the days when the Virginia Republican Party was small enough to meet in a telephone booth are long past. In the state's current political Olympics, the Virginia GOP is the official sponsor of the governor, the attorney general, one of the state's two U.S. senators, five of its 11 members of the U.S. House of Representatives, 20 of Virginia's 40 state senators, 47 of the 100 members of the House of Delegates and a small army of county and municipal elected officials.
Because the high court's ruling simply allows the lawsuit to go forward in U.S. District Court here in Roanoke, whether the fee in fact violates the Voting Rights Act remains unanswered. If the practice is found to be in violation, the state GOP perhaps could come into compliance by adopting the Virginia Democrats' practice of asking for voluntary payment of convention-filing fees.
But even if it proves OK under voting laws, the mandatory fee is wrong. One of the students, who filed suit after the 1996 convention nominated Oliver North as the GOP's U.S. Senate nominee, claimed that a North supporter offered to pay the $35. The allegation is denied by North campaign officials. But whatever the truth of this particular charge, the mandatory fee opens obvious opportunities for vote-buying.
And no one should have to pay to vote. Of course, filing fees aren't the only or highest of barriers to participation created by both Virginia parties' customary preference for nominating candidates by convention rather than by primary election. Attending a convention incurs many costs - of transportation, lodging, meals, time away from family and work - that voting in a primary does not. Such costs discourage wider involvement by ordinary Virginians in the nomination of party candidates.
Rather than leaving the convention-vs.-primary decision to the whims of party officials or incumbent office-holders, Virginia should mandate primary elections, as most other states do.
The 24th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution says the right to vote "in any primary or other election" for president or Congress "shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or any state by reason of failure to pay any poll tax or any other tax." Not only would primary elections open up the political system in Virginia. They'd also help clear up this business of charging people to vote.
LENGTH: Medium: 65 lines KEYWORDS: POLITICSby CNB