Freedom Foundation: It’s time to get rid of precinct caucuses

Many Minnesota partisans have recently been saying out loud what many of us have said for years: Precinct caucuses are a major contributor to the angry, political division permeating politics today.

As a former statewide endorsed candidate and longtime Republican activist, I can testify caucuses serve no meaningful purpose in selecting qualified candidates or restoring civil debate in our state's political realm. It's time for them to go. For this to happen, the legislature and governor must act now. We need to join 41 other states that feature political party primary elections instead of the bygone era of caucusing.

Precinct caucuses in both the DFL and Republican parties aren't nominating or attracting the most qualified candidates for some very important government offices.

Minnesota political activists have for decades been hoodwinked into believing precinct caucuses are a grassroots effort allowing average citizens the opportunity to meet and endorse candidates and develop policy platforms for their respective political parties. The halcyon days of peaceful, neighborhood political gatherings are a thing of the distant past.

(For the complete opinion piece, see the May 9 print edition of The New Prague Times;
Annette Meeks is CEO of the Freedom Foundation of Minnesota.)