Jayne: Washington’s top two primary is good sportsmanship

You see, in Washington we have a top two primary system. Candidates run in the August primary and the top two vote-getters advance to the November general election. It might be two Republicans; it might be two Democrats; it will be the two candidates who best connect with voters. While party officials don’t like this system, I think it best serves the electorate — and this week I found a kindred spirit in the person of Slade Gorton.

The voice of experience

You might have heard of him. Gorton, after all, represented Washington in the U.S. Senate from 1981 to 1987, and again from 1989 to 2001. Before that, he spent time in the state House of Representatives and as Attorney General of Washington. In other words, Gorton knows his way around the proverbial smoke-filled back rooms, so when he visited with The Columbian’s Editorial Board the other day, he provided us with a little bit of insight and a whole lot of entertainment.

“The top two primary has two huge advantages,” the 88-year-old Gorton said. “One, it tells the candidate, ‘You are always talking to all the people. Not just after the primary, but before the primary, as well. Everybody is your constituent, and you’ve got to talk to all of them.” That might be anathema for politicians, whose standard mode of operation is to cater to their party’s base, secure the nomination in the primary, and then move toward the center. Just watch Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton try to pander to the centrists between now and November.

But Gorton wasn’t finished. “The second thing is it says you as voter will always have a choice for the Legislature. It may be two Democrats, it may be two Republicans, but there will be differences between the two of them and your vote will still really count.” Take Washington’s 4th Congressional District. Two years ago, voters in the staunchly conservative Eastern Washington district got to choose between two Republicans in the general election. That provided citizens with a more viable choice than having the Republican primary winner slay a sacrificial Democrat in November.

The only problem with the top two primary? “It gripes me a little bit because it keeps being called the California system,” Gorton said. “California copied us. We were the ones who started it.”

Not that everybody buys in. In 2014, Oregon voters rejected a top two primary system with 68 percent of the vote, entrenching mostly uncompetitive general-election races for the foreseeable future.

Washington, meanwhile, will continue to advance the two most viable candidates out of the primary. It will continue to embrace the spirit of competition. It will continue to better serve the electorate, which should be the goal of any election system. After all, it’s the sporting thing to do.