Regional Presidential Selection Act of 1999

Mr. LIEBERMAN. Mr. President. I am happy to join Senator GORTON in introducing a bill that we hope will restore some common sense to the way the country chooses party nominees for president. As Senator GORTON already has explained well, anyone taking a objective look at the current primary and caucus system could reach only one conclusion: it makes very little sense.

Our primary system was meant to serve a very important purpose: to determine the two-or perhaps three-individuals who will have the opportunity to compete for the most powerful office in our nation, and perhaps in the world. Given the importance of the process, it is critical that it be a fair one, one that tests the mettle and the ideas of all of the candidates, one that allows the voters to hear and weigh the views of those seeking their parties' nominations, and one that gives the primary electorate-the whole, national primary electorate-a chance to choose the person they think will best represent them and their views in the ultimate contest to determine who will become President of the United States.

But that just isn't happening now. Instead of a system that tests a candidate's character and his ability to offer reasoned opinions over the long haul, we have an increasingly compressed schedule, one in which States whose primaries once were spread out over months now compete to see who can hold their contests the earliest, and candidates compete to see who can raise more money than everyone else before the first primary voters ever step foot into the election booth. That "money primary" has already eliminated four of the Republican candidates for President.

This is no way for the world's greatest democracy to choose its leader. As Senator GORTON already has explained, the bill we are proposing today offers an alternative system, one that can restore the primary season to what it should be: a contest of candidates discussing their ideas for America's future. By creating a series of regional primaries, we will make it more likely that all areas of the country have input into the nominee selection process, and that the candidates and their treasuries will not be stretched so thin by primaries all over the country on the same day. By spreading out the primaries over a four-month period, we have a chance to return to the days when the electorate had an opportunity to evaluate the candidates over time, and where voters-not just financial contributors-had decided who the parties' nominees will be.

Anyone looking at the current system knows it has to change. I hope that we can make that happen before the 2004 campaign begins.