“Are ‘we the people’ in charge of the democracy, or are the two parties in charge of the democracy?”

That question, asked by Michael Calcagno during the “Oregon Voters First” virtual town hall meeting on Monday, reflects our state’s populist history. He has a solution, which would go before voters in November 2024.

Led by William S. U’Ren, Oregonians opened the 20th century by embracing direct democracy. Voters established our initiative and referendum system, the right to many elected officials and the direct primary election.

Yet Oregon’s partisan primaries have fallen out of favor as being exclusionary and out-of-touch with modern democracy. Calcagno said Oregon is among only nine states that maintain fully closed primaries; that is, restricted to the political party’s voters and candidates. 

(Oregon’s Republican and Democratic parties could open their primary to others but rarely have done so, despite urging from opinion writers, including yours truly.)

Calcagno went on to say, “And we believe that candidates who win office by partisan primary are incentivized to govern to benefit their supporting special interests, and that undermines liberty and justice for all. It undermines public-interest public policymaking.”

Former state Rep. Marty Wilde, D-Eugene, and other speakers at the Zoom meeting agreed.

Calcagno is the board chair and a chief petitioner for All Oregon Votes, whose proposed constitutional amendment would open the primary election to all candidates and voters regardless of any party affiliation.

That’s it. The details would be left to the Legislature to work out, or someone else’s ballot measure. “If we’re going to be overhauling the system of elections in Oregon, perhaps that should be done in a public process,” Calcagno told me later.

He is focused on the big picture: getting Initiative Petition 16, which he said is about rebalancing power, on the 2024 general election ballot.

“People are frustrated,” he said. “When I go to college campuses and talk with students, there is this sense that the powerful and monied interests that control the nature of our politics don’t care about the needs of the average, common Oregon resident.”

Forty percent of voters were excluded from the 2022 May primary because they were not registered as either D or R. Roughly a third of Oregon’s registered voters are Democrats and a fourth are Republicans.

His theme is that Democrat Tina Kotek and Republican Christine Drazan, who advanced to the November gubernatorial election, were chosen by small slices of the electorate in May. That left most voters choosing between a candidate they didn’t like and a candidate they really didn’t like.

Calcagno pointed out that the second-place Democratic finisher in May, State Treasurer Tobias Read, received nearly twice as many votes in his primary as Drazan did in her crowded Republican primary. Yet Read did not advance to the general election.

Under IP 16, the general election could have featured Kotek and Read if there were only two candidates. 

Therein lies what some Oregonians would consider a huge drawback – potentially an all-Democrat finale. On the other hand, is that any different from the all-but-assured Democratic victory that currently exists? Read would have been a more moderate choice than Kotek. 

And for some offices and in some parts of Oregon, there likely would be all-Republican finales.

Ah, but what if there were even more candidates on the general election ballot from whom to choose? Or if you could vote for more than one candidate? And indicate the strength of your preference? 

A different organization, the Oregon Election Reform Coalition, filed IP-19 on Feb. 9. It would create an open primary, shift that election to early August, send the five candidates with the most votes to the general election, and allow ranked choice voting for the general election. It also would move Oregon’s presidential election to the second Tuesday in March.

Previously, proponents of STAR voting filed initiative petitions 11 and 12. In that system, voters would score candidates from zero to five stars. 

Meanwhile, HB 2004 in the 2023 Legislature would use ranked choice voting for federal and statewide offices – but not state representative, state senator or the judiciary – and allow its use for local elections. House Speaker Dan Rayfield, House Majority Leader Julie Fahey and several other Democrats are sponsoring the bill, which is in the House Rules Committee.

“Our elections get a lot more interesting and intriguing and exciting and competitive again when you factor in diverse candidates,” Calcagno said at Monday’s meeting of democracy-reform advocates.