State could stop running presidential preference primaries

PHOENIX — If you want to vote in a presidential preference primary, next month could be your last chance.

On an 8-6 vote Wednesday the House Appropriations Committee voted to make the March 22 state-run event the last one, ever. After that, it would be up to each political party to find its own way of picking delegates to the national convention.

That means the cost would be borne by the parties involved.

That’s the way it was through the 1992 presidential election.

The following year lawmakers decided to have a state-run primary, at least in part amid hopes that it would attract candidates to the state. That has produced mixed results.

But Secretary of State Michele Reagan told lawmakers Wednesday there’s another reason that having the state spend close to $10 million a year no longer makes sense: A good number of Arizonans can’t participate.

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She pointed out that there are more people registered as independents than there are either Republicans or Democrats. But the law limits voting in the presidential primary solely to those actually registered with each party.

House Minority Leader Eric Meyer, D-Paradise Valley, said there’s a simple answer for that: Open the process to independents.

There is precedent for that. Independents can vote in the regular primary in August.

No one on the committee suggested that as an alternative.

Reagan said scrapping the primary does not necessarily mean Arizona would have the same kind of political caucuses just conducted in Iowa.