Question Three on the November ballot is good, but it could be better.
This is the proposed law that would eliminate state political primaries and throw the process open to whoever can run and win, regardless of party.
It is designed, if possible, to take some of the politics out of politics.
In other words, the proposed law would eliminate primaries as we know them and set up a system where all eligible candidates running for governor, for instance, would be listed on the ballot without having to go through the party endorsement process.
It would provide primary voters with one ballot and not force them to choose between a Democrat or Republican ballot.
The two candidates getting the most votes in a September primary — no matter what party — would then run against one another in the November election.
Gone would be the practice of both Democrats and Republicans holding conventions, which are dominated by political insiders, to endorse primary candidates.
It would also empower the vast number of unenrolled, or independent, voters who do not normally turn out to vote in large numbers in the primaries where they must choose between a Democrat or Republican primary ballot.
There are some 3.2 million registered independent voters in Massachusetts compared to 1.3 million Democrats and 424,000 Republicans.
One obvious result of the measure, should it become law, would be to weaken the political stranglehold the Democratic Party holds over Massachusetts, which is, in effect, a one-party state where Democrats control everything and politics is all.
All six statewide offices, from the governor on down are controlled by Democrats, as are both the House and the Senate. Republicans are irrelevant.
The proposal, if passed, would be a refreshing reform in how business is conducted by governors at the State House, a place where politics and patronage control just about everything.
Of course you cannot take politics out of politics.
But you can make changes.
One of them would be a sweeping reform of the executive branch of government by turning over the powers of the governor to an experienced manager — a chief administrator — hired to run the state like the way cities like Worcester and Lowell hire apolitical city managers who actually run things.
It would be a first, to be sure.
Just think for a moment how different things would be for Boston, for instance, if it had an experienced, nonpolitical, city manager running it instead of Mayor Michell Wu making a political hash out of the city’s relationship with the Massachusetts Senate.
The same holds true for the state.
The point is that state government has gotten too big for politicians with limited experience outside of politics and state government to run it. You need a CEO with experience in running huge entities.
Right now, you have legislators voting to send the governor a whopping $63 billion budget who cannot balance their own checking account.
And you have Gov. Maura Healey, with no experience outside of politics and state government — yet who oversees 137,000 state employees — sign the bloated political $63 billion document without making a single change or cut anywhere.
How is that possible?
It is possible because there is no accountability anywhere but at the ballot box once every four years.
A future proposed amendment to the constitution would abolish the office of governor as is, and have the governor replaced by an experienced, contracted nonpartisan chief administrator hired by the elected eight-member Executive Council.
The chief administrator, or state manager, like the city or town managers on the local level, would run the state while a member of the Council could handle the civic and public relations duties of the symbolic governor.
It works in cities and could work for the state.
It’s a dream, of course, and needs a champion. But what is life without dreams and champions?
Peter Lucas can be reached at: peter.lucas@bostonherald.com
