Washington state seeks worse government - Supreme Court agrees

Alert reader APP informs me that the Supreme Court has just approved Washington state's adoption of the "Cajun" primary. This form of primary election, currently practiced only in Louisiana (hence the name), is essentially just a runoff. All candidates of all parties run in the election, and the top two vote-getters, even if they're in the same party, go to a runoff.

Yes, this assures more moderate officeholders, on the whole. It also means that any sense of order, responsibility, and accountability provided by the political parties goes right out the window. As any student of Louisana's current political system or California's under cross-filing (1913-1959) will tell you, strong parties may be annoying, but weak parties are an invitation for corruption.

I explain this in greater detail here, but the long and short of it is that government by the people pretty much doesn't exist. People simply do not have the time or interest (or, arguably, the competence) to run a government by themselves. So they shirk, and someone else steps in to organize government for them.

That entity can be a party -- which has a public agenda and can be voted out of office if it misbehaves -- or something else, like a group of unelected lobbyists. Or even an unelected super-lobbyist like Artie Samish (left) who controls all the other lobbyists, who control all the legislators. It can be many things, but it's not accountable to voters, and there's no reason to expect it would operate in their interests.

Good luck, Washington!