Pa. primary coming too late
The presidential primary elections are drawing huge interest, especially among Republicans, as Donald Trump tries to stave off challenges from U.S. senators Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz and Ohio Gov. John Kasich.
On the Democratic Party ticket, Hillary Clinton is leading U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders, but the Vermont senator has generated much enthusiasm in his campaign, especially among young people, and it’s still too early to write him off.
All in all, it seems that more people are interested in politics than they’ve been for quite some time. Even the Herald-Standard opinion poll showed this phenomenon. Of the 762 people who took part in our poll about interest in the primaries, 55 percent said they were closely following the presidential primaries with another 25 percent saying they were somewhat following the races. Only 5 percent said they had no interest in the campaigns.
So, voters should be lining up to vote in Pennsylvania’s presidential primary on April 26, right? Well, not so fast. The biggest problem is that there’s a good chance both races could be over by time the commonwealth gets around to holding its primary.
It’s been this way since the primaries first took hold back in the 1950s. Pennsylvania’s primary is usually held in late April, when the nominations have already been decided. The only exception was back in 2008 when Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama were locked in a fight for the Democratic presidential nomination, and the race was still being contested when Pennsylvania held its primary that year. Then, both Hillary and her husband, Bill, made stops in Fayette County. Clinton went on to beat Obama in Fayette County and Pennsylvania although she lost out to him for the nomination.
Things could have been different this year. Last year, State Rep. Keith Greiner, a Republican from Lancaster County, introduced legislation moving the Pennsylvania primary up to March 15. Imagine that. Pennsylvania would have been in the spotlight this week right along with Florida, Ohio, Illinois, North Carolina and Missouri. Residents across the commonwealth would have had their voice heard loud and clear no matter which candidate they supported.
But Greiner’s bill ran into opposition from leaders of both the state Democratic and Republican parties.
“I have not been supportive of changing the primary date because of the way it affects so many other people,” said Rob Gleason, chairman of the state’s Republican Party. “You’d have to change the date for petition circulation. You’d be circulating petitions in January and February. I’ve always kind of resisted that.”
“I see no reason right now to change it, from the Democratic side,” said his counterpart Jim Burn. “It throws everything out of whack; people are going to have to start a very complex series of events during the holidays…The costs and the complications far outweigh any benefits.”
Now all of that would make sense if this were a local election, involving township supervisors, mayors, borough councils, school board members and tax collectors. Then, a change would affect thousands of people across the state and wouldn’t be worth all the bother.
But this election involves mainly races for the legislature, where 81 of the 185 incumbents running for the state House of Representatives have no challengers on either side. So, we’re talking about an extremely small group of people, maybe a couple hundred or so across the state. And because of them, Pennsylvania residents are going to be denied a meaningful role in the nomination of presidential candidates.
It’s simply absurd. Of course, you can’t just blame the political leaders. The legislators could have gone around them and changed the primary date on their own. And it’s not like they didn’t know about Greiner’s bill. There was a lot of talk about it. But in the end the legislators decided to stay with the calendar they’re familiar and comfortable with over trying to do something helpful for their constituents.
It’s just another example of why Pennsylvania is so backwards compared to other states.
The next time you see your local legislator be sure to ask him or her why they didn’t vote for the Greiner bill. Their answer should tell you a lot about themselves and what they think about you.
Mark O’Keefe is the editorial page editor of the Herald-Standard. He can be reached by email at mokeefe@heraldstandard.com., by regular mail at 8 Church St., Uniontown, Pa., 15401 or by phone at 724-439-7569.