Are US political parties unable to expel members?

Factual Questions
21

Part of the difference, I think, is the odd importance of the state in politics and governance. States came before parties existed. The founding fathers not only didn’t expect parties to form, they loathed the concept. However, the realities of politics engendered two factions to form into parties within only a couple of years after Washington became the first president.

But the basic power unit remained the state. State legislators directly elected (or appointed) senators. It wasn’t until the 20th century that the general public got to vote on them. The House of Representatives represented local constituents in segments of the states. (Rotten boroughs, as in British politics, were deliberately made impossible.) Delegates to the Electoral College were elected by states to stand for a candidate, rather than voting for the candidate himself.

And then there were all the elections internal to the state. The governor and Lt. governor. In some states, all sorts of additional offices are voted on. Attorney General. Commissioner of Railroads. Comptroller. State judgeships may be voted on, which is unusual elsewhere. These offices, especially the judgeships, were not necessarily sorted by party membership. In some states all judges must run as independents.

So the state regulating all election proceedings was a natural outcome of the unusual federal/state split in the U.S. government.

And the split of the country into slave and non-slave states exacerbated this. Even before the Civil War, almost all political power in the slave states was concentrated in the Democratic Party. It certainly was for a century afterward. These were effectively one-party systems, with the barest token existence for Republicans. In all these states, the real election was the Democratic primary. Whoever won that won the office at the regular election, because there would be either no or only token opposition.

It gets weirder. All states are divided into counties, and county governments in most (but not all) states are powers of their own. Cities and towns and villages are separate entities, even when their boundaries co-exist with the county boundaries. There are dozens of offices in county and town governments, and all of these fall under the state election laws, and all or almost all of these also require primaries. And then there are multitudes of school districts, all of which are internal to counties or cities but separate in most ways from the other governments. And then there are a zillion special voting districts for fire protection or whatnot.

Again, all of these have to be overseen by the state government. Each state sets a state voting day, normally in November. This day, under current laws, is also the day for federal elections, which occur every two years. All candidates have to be registered with the state and properly approved in all ways under all regulations sufficiently far ahead of time to print up the statewide ballots (which also may include any number of propositions, state constitutional amendments, and other non-positional votes).

So the only way to eliminate chaos, and lower the incredible costs of an election, is to have the state oversee the party primaries as well. These are also done on a single day for statewide races, and other races often piggyback on top of these. (Localities can have separate primaries and even elections for strictly local races.)

All this is a major reason for the mechanical and electronic ballots we have. I know that posters from other countries made incredulous noises at the outcome, or rather lack of, in the 2000 presidential election. Why not just count the X’s, they asked? It’s because a ballot may have literally dozens of simultaneous races on it, with candidates from a dozen or more political parties (who may run on more than one line in some states), at a half a dozen levels of government, hardly any two of which are co-terminus in area boundaries. It’s amazing we get elections counted on the same day on any regular basis.

But the woolly history of U.S. political divisions and the history of parties and their politics are so intertwined in the U.S. that there is no hope of separating them. Especially since the party that controls the state government gets to write the laws under which the divisions operate and the elections are held. It’s a horribly bad system in many ways, and a wide-open small-d democratic system in others, but it’s uniquely ours.

And so complicated that outsiders can’t be expected to understand how any of it works or how the whole comes together. I assure you that most citizens don’t. :smiley:

22

True. At last year’s election here in Minneapolis, in an off-year with neither Federal, State, nor County offices, just local offices like City, Library, Parks, etc., the general election had 60+ candidates seeking 31 separate offices. The Primary election started off with nearly 150 candidates running.

And I would strongly disagree with this opinion.
But as this is GD, not IMHO, I won’t go into details.

23

Actually, I believe that Texans do not register with a party.

24

In the US system, party affiliation is irrelevant in the general elections where the actual winners are chosen. It matters completely in a parliamentary system. Your government is run by the party leaders on the basis of their party membership. Ours is run by persons directly chosen by the people, and their party affiliation has no formal significance other than their names having a guaranteed spot on the ballot if the party is large enough.

But the “internal vote” *doesn’t * mean everything in the US the way it does in the UK. You don’t have to declare any affiliation to vote in the general elections, or to vote on local issues when those happen to be held on primary election days. You only have to affiliate yourself with a party in order to participate in choosing that party’s nominees, which seems only fair. Even that rule is pretty soft in some states.

25

I must confess that I do find the American system very strange, even though most of the time it does seem to work. That’s partly because I come from a country (Australia) where political parties are membership organisations, with the normal things that go with that, including the right to expel members for breaking party rules.

Part of the difference is that in the US a major role of political parties has been taken over by the state (note the lower case, since here “state” = States, Counties, Cities, etc.). The most common way of selecting candidates in elections is through primaries run by the state. In contrast, in Australia, party candidates are chosen by methods internal to the party. It’s called “preselection” (not “primaries”), and it’s usually done either by a committee/council/conference elected to represent the paying party membership, or by a direct ballot of the paying party membership in the appropriate electorate. This has the disadvantage of many fewer people taking part in preselections than take part in primaries in the US, but it is a process that involves active party membership.

And in Australia political parties will have regular state conferences and federal conferences, where the delegates from the active party membership debate and adopt policies and political platforms. As far as I can see, there is no way for party supporters in the US to take a role in policy formation like this, at least in the major parties. (The minor parties, like the Greens and the Libertarians, operate outside the nornal system, so they might do something like this).

If you break party rules, you can get expelled from the party, and often do. The most common reasons for getting expelled from a political party in Australia would be:
(1) publicly supporting a candidate running against an endorsed candidate from your own party.
(2) running against an endorsed candidate from your own party (this would be the most serious offense, and be automatic expulsion).
(3) as a member of parliament or of a local council, voting against a caucus decision.
(4) belonging to another political party (even if you try to keep this secret – and I’ve known that to happen, e.g., with people belonging to various Trotskyite parties trying to infiltrate the Labor Party).

26

They’re run by the state only as a convenience to the parties and to the people. The parties could hold their own primary elections if they wished, or use any other method they like to select their own nominees. Caucuses and conventions still play a role in that process, although not what they used to historically, and policy platforms are created there just like in Australia.

The 2 systems don’t seem actually different in that regard. A party supporter who wishes to take a greater role in its direction, in deciding its policies and platforms, does so by getting involved - by showing up at party functions, taking on jobs, devoting energy, getting increasingly trusted and relied upon, getting bigger and more important jobs, and so on deeper into the inner circles to the extent that his time and energy and interest permit.

The list you provided of things that will get you expelled from an Australian party looks pretty much like the list of things that will get you repudiated by a US one.

27

If you’re going to quote me, then make sure you quote the smilie as well. Since the smilie is a commentary on the seriousness of the statement, it cannot be excluded without changing the tone.

I’ve had this happen to me several times recently and I’m sick of it. As far as I’m concerned it’s equivalent to a deliberate misquote, which is a violation of the Board rules. Next time anybody does this I’ll notify a mod and ask for an official warning.

28

Just to be clear here, you do not need to register with a party in order to vote in the United States. You have to register with your state government (e.g. Maryland) in order to vote at all, yes, but you don’t have to declare a party affiliation. Registering to vote amounts to giving them your name and address, proof of residence, and then getting notified which voting precinct you belong to (which determines where you go to vote).

You would probably declare a party affiliation, on the voter registration form, if both (1) the state provides such an option, and (2) the state holds closed primary elections that you want to participate in. Not all states have closed primaries, or primaries at all. Or, maybe you just want to be a registered Republican. It gives you a warm glow inside, and free stickers. However, whether you declare a party or not, you still get to vote in the general election.

29

Not true, most states have party conventions. MA just had our Democrat Convention where they choose the official party candidates for the primary, but also have other candidates qualify to be on the primary ballot. Rank and File can be involved in that by working up from the ward and town committees.

30

But do party conventions debate policy and/or platform? Or do they just select candidates?

31

They tend to be more pep rally than debate forum, but yes.

32

They don’t select them but generally endorse them. Slight difference, but usually (not always) the endorsed candidate wins the primary election. The endorsement brings access to regular party donors as well as an existing network of volunteers.

Policy debates are usually pretty limited to making a couple of speeches. Most of the actual policy debate has already taken place behind the scenes.

33

I have some experience here, so I’ll comment. It should be mentioned that I almost always vote Democratic and I am in Texas. I grew up in Travis County (Austin), which is a large, urban county. I now live in a much smaller county without a major urban center.

In Texas, one registers to vote with the county registrar of voters. This process is uniform across Texas and can be done when changing the address on your driver license. It is quite easy and no real formal documentation is required.

The party primaries are held in March (in Texas. Other states are different.) A voter can choose to vote in any one primary. He/She can also choose not to vote in a primary at all. When voting in the primary, the election judge stamps your voter registration card with the appropriate party name. This is the closest one comes to being a “card-carrying whatever.” The election judges are chosen by the party holding the primary. The larger parties have regular polling places. Smaller parties might hold a caucus meeting to choose candidates. Also on the primary ballot will be local party officers, like the county or precinct chairs. This is where the true party politics takes place.

One might choose not to vote in a primary because Texas requires independent candidates to gather signatures on a petition in order to appear on the November ballot. In order to sign a petition, one must not have voted in a party primary. Since I am supporting an independent candidate for governor, I did not vote in the party primary. Unfortunately, this also meant that I could not vote for local party officers, which I would have liked to do. I have decided not to push further party activity during the current election cycle because I will publicly support this independent candidate. I do not wish to hurt the county Democrats by doing this, so I will keep them at arm’s length until after the election.

After the primary election (like immediately after the polls close), the local party conventions are held. In Travis county, these were precinct convention. In my current county, it’s a county convention. In urban counties, the county convention is held a few weeks later.

At the county (or precinct) convention, the actual platform is argued and decided. For example, a position might be drafted that says “The XYZ County Democrats favor extension of marriage rights to same-sex couples.” This would then be argued and voted upon. If the measure passes, the proposal would be carried forward to the state convention to be argued and voted. The state convention passes resolutions on to the national convention. In 2006, there are no nationally elected offices being elected, so there are no national party conventions. The next national conventions will be in 2008.

It is these local precinct and county party convention that define a political party. It is where the average citizen can make his voice heard. I urge anyone to get involved and make the party what you think it should be.

Your state may be different.

34

The Texas Republican Party platform.

The Texas Democratic Party platform.

35

Exactly. Those platforms do not simply spring-forth from nothing. It is the lower party participants and delegates who bring those issues to the state conventions. The delegates to the conventions craft all of those party planks into a cohesive platform.

36

As I understand it, although in theory the party’s candidates are chosen in the primaries, in practice it’s useful to impress the party officials (and the various party officeholders) during the months and sometime years before the primary officials. This is why the primaries are, in practice, sometimes a foregone conclusion, since the party officials (on the county, state, and federal level, depending on the level of the position that the primary is for) will be so convinced of the superiority of a particular candidate that it will be difficult for any other candidate to get much publicity. This isn’t always true, since occasionally a candidate can run a grassroots campaign that bypasses the party structure, but that’s not very common.

37

But these “platforms” are meaningless. No candidate is obliged to defend it like a candidate of a real party is obliged to defend his party’s Program. Candidates routinely ignore parts they don’t like and still remain the candidate of that party.

Weird.

Real parties have Programs.

38

I wrote:

> and sometime years before the primary officials.

I meant:

> and sometimes years before the primary takes place.

39

There is some truth to this, though I wouldn’t call the platforms meaningless. However, the candidates don’t have to completely toe the party line. I don’t know if that’s weird, though, considering that parties weren’t really supposed to rise to such prominence in the first place. I think that the parliamentary notion of completely changing the government after an election is weird. I sure do like watching Question Time in the UK House of Commons on C-Span. They sure mcuh more entertaining than our Congress, even if I don’t always understand the issues or the players.