Lynchburg Republicans get the open primary they wanted to avoid. An era of closed nominations comes to an end.

Lynchburg Republicans this week voted to follow the law.

Yes, I realize that shouldn’t be newsworthy, but it was because Lynchburg Republicans had been dead-set to do otherwise — they wanted to set up a party-run process by which to nominate their candidates for the city council, even though Attorney General Jason Miyares warned that would run afoul of a new state law that effectively requires state-run primaries, and even though the state Republican Party’s attorney told them flat-out not to do it.

Nonetheless, Lynchburg Republicans fussed and fumed before grudgingly agreeing Tuesday night to hold a state-run primary — with the caveat that they’ll look for ways to fight the law in future years.

“Regardless of what happens this year, this is not a fight that I’m willing to give up,” vowed party chair Veronica Bratton.

“This is just another big government move, right?” said city council member Marty Misjuns. “It’s just a power grab.”

“These people have backbones about the strength of a worm,” complained committee member Andrea Hurtt about state party officials. “If we don’t, as Republicans, start to fight back, it will not matter about the elections.” 

The latter is the current frontrunner for the quote of the year.

All these are strong words. As a practical matter, this seems a big fight over a small prize. At the time Lynchburg Republicans made their initial decision for a firehouse primary, the only election involved here was in a single ward of Lynchburg — Ward IV, where incumbent Chris Faraldi faces a challenge from Peter Alexander in a test of what kind of Republican the party wants to represent them. It’s not even an old-fashioned center vs. right battle. Faraldi is a Donald Trump supporter. The general forces arrayed against him — led by fellow council member Misjuns — present themselves as even more conservative, although from a distance their differences seem mostly personal and stylistic. (Since Tuesday’s meeting, a second contested nomination has arisen, with Beth White saying she’ll challenge incumbent Jeff Helgeson in Ward III, giving Lynchburg Republicans not one but two primaries.)

As a philosophical matter, however, there are some big questions at stake — namely, who gets to pick a party’s nominees? One reason that Lynchburg Republicans pushed so hard for a party-run process — aside from whatever impact it would have on the Faraldi-Alexander contest — is that they wanted to be able to limit the participants to fellow Republicans. They worry that in a state-run primary, non-Republicans might show up to vote. That’s not an unreasonable concern, because Virginia does not register voters by party. That means any state-run primary is an “open” primary where any registered voter may cast a ballot. 

Virginia, unlike other states, doesn’t have a particularly long history of primaries. After Virginia Democrats shucked off the segregationist Byrd Machine, the party rarely held primaries for statewide office; not until the 2000s did that become routine. Republicans have been even more averse to primaries. They’ve only held four primaries to nominate candidates for governor — ever — and in one of those, the only candidate was unopposed. That means, historically speaking, these complaints about people from the other side voting in a primary are relatively new — but they are fairly consistent.

Just last year, there were complaints from both Democrats and Republicans about interlopers in their primaries. Then-Del. Dave LaRock, who lost an eight-way Republican primary for a state Senate seat in the northern Shenandoah Valley, complained that “unfortunately, I’ve personally witnessed the Democrats working to undermine our Republican Primary.” Meanwhile, in Fairfax and Loudoun counties, Republican committees openly urged people to cast ballots in the Democratic primary, mostly as a way to try to defeat certain candidates that they figured would win, if nominated, in the fall in those Democratic-leaning communities. 

Is this ethical? Does it matter depending on your motivations — whether you really hope the candidate you’re voting for would go on to win in November, or whether you’re trying to nominate the weakest opponent possible? That would make an interesting discussion for some Sunday School class. I’ve never seen any evidence that there are enough “crossover” voters to make a difference, but the philosophical question still remains: Should this be allowed?

Virginia is not unique in not requiring voters to register by party.

According to both Ballotpedia and the University of Virginia’s Center for Politics, 20 states don’t have party registration. Most of these are in the South and the Midwest, particularly around the Great Lakes. If you’re a fan of Alanis Morisette-style irony, those who want Virginia to adopt party registration are really pushing for Virginia to become more like California and New York. If that comparison makes Lynchburg Republicans who want party registration uncomfortable, this might make them feel better: Party registration also would make Virginia more like Florida and West Virginia.

Over the years, there have been attempts in the General Assembly to adopt party registration — all have obviously failed. All the ones I’m familiar with have come from Republicans, and been opposed by Democrats. The general thinking has been that Republicans would benefit from party registration, although I wonder if that’s really true. They certainly would in, say, Lee County, but Loudoun County might be quite different.

One of those who has pushed for party registration is Rich Anderson, now the chairman of the Republican Party of Virginia. A dozen years ago, he was a state legislator from Prince William County and sponsored a bill to register voters by party. It died in committee, at a time when Republicans controlled the House. Another Republican legislator — state Sen. Bill Stanley of Franklin County — introduced a similar bill in 2012. It was defeated 24-16, with four Republicans joining Democrats to kill the measure. Put another way: Even in the years when Republicans controlled both chambers of the legislature, and the governorship, they still couldn’t get a party registration law enacted. This year, Del. Tommy Wright, R-Lunenburg County, and Del. Bill Wiley, R-Winchester, introduced separate party registration bills, HB 56 from Wright and HB 1439 from Wiley. Both died in committee — of course, with a Democratic majority, all those committees are now controlled by Democrats. If Republicans had won last year’s General Assembly elections, maybe things would be different but right now there simply seems to be no enthusiasm in Richmond to require voter registration by party. 

Meanwhile, a new state law that took effect Jan. 1 all but requires political parties to nominate their candidates via state-run primaries. In theory, there’s a sliver of daylight that allows parties to design a party-run process, as long as it meets the state requirement for accommodating absentee voters — and Lynchburg Republicans thought they could take advantage of that slight opening. Then Attorney General Jason Miyares issued his opinion, which cast doubt on whether they could — and the Republican Party of Virginia’s lawyer followed up with an advisory that localities should hold state-run primaries, period. With Virginia’s lack of party registration, that means party nominations will be decided in primaries open to voters on the other side if they choose to participate. 

Lynchburg Republicans shouldn’t blame Miyares for his interpretation of the law. He voted against it when it passed back in 2021. So did every other Republican who was in the House of Delegates at the time. When the bill, sponsored by Del. Dan Helmer, D-Fairfax County, got to the Senate, it garnered more bipartisan support. It passed there 29-10, with eight Republicans — nearly half of those in the chamber — voting in favor. Miyares didn’t tell Lynchburg Republicans what he’d like the law to say; he told them what it does say. They may not like his interpretation but what they really don’t like is the law itself; everyone ought to admire a politician who isn’t willing to twist the law to suit his preferences. Lynchburg Republicans may not like this law but the reality is it’s not changing anytime soon — and unless Democrats have a change of heart on party registration, that won’t be changing anytime soon, either. To change either or both of these laws, we’d need a Republican governor, Republican control of the General Assembly — and Republicans who actually want that change, when Republicans themselves are divided on the question. The earliest that could happen is the 2027 legislative elections — assuming, of course, a Republican wins the next governor’s race, which is by no means certain.

For now, the era of conventions, mass meetings and firehouse primaries as a means to nominate candidates is now behind us. In the future, all contested nominations will be decided by primaries, and, for Lynchburg Republicans, that future begins the same as everyone else: On June 18.