If I told you that a major rock-n-roll celebrity had thrown his hat into the political ring, you’d probably reach for your wallet. Or your revolver.

The candidate is Krist Novoselic. He may be a rock legend, but he lives in the country, grows vegetables and raises chickens, and belongs to the local Grange.

Besides, he’s running for the County Clerk position in Wahkiakum County, Washington. The county boasts less than 4,000 citizens. If he wins, he can’t do much harm.

Especially since he pledges to resign, if elected.

What’s going on here?

Krist Novoselic, bassist for the late, great grunge band Nirvana, and, until recently, bassist for the punk band Flipper, doesn’t exhibit your standard celebrity shallowness. When we hear of some Hollywood actor or rocker going political, we think “limousine liberal.” But for Novoselic, politics is not flash. Or power.

He’s more interested in procedural issues.

He wants to save our democracy.

He’s been a prominent proponent of Instant Runoff Voting (IRV), a fascinating — and promising — reform that aims to increase voter influence on elections and break the hold of insiders on the political process. Novoselic believes that IRV would increase voter participation and interest in elections.

So, though he hails from a left-of-center segment of the political spectrum, he’s someone whose way of thinking I can understand. As I see it, procedural issues are key. Ballot access, initiative and referendum rights, term limits — these reforms have been my main interest for years. I support them, in part, for the reasons Novoselic supports IRV.

I met him once, at a FairVote conference. He’s a tall, quiet man with a trimmed beard and dark, thinning hair. I regret I have not read his book, Of Grunge and Government. I have it on good authority, though, that the book deftly moves from his participation in grunge rock performance and culture to his participation in political activism.

And now he’s running for county clerk. Why?

Well, the key to it all is his party. Novoselic is a leader in the Democratic Party of his little rural county, but he’s not running as a Democrat. He selected the Grange Party as his “party of preference.”

Here’s the rub: The Grange does not run candidates. It’s nonpartisan. And his local Grange did not approve his candidacy.

Reading Novoselic’s prepared statement, voters learn that though the Grange may spend time and money to refute his candidacy in normal public venues, under Washington state law the Grange cannot control his party preference on the actual ballot — “the only place,” Novoselic notes, “a voter is guaranteed to see my claim.”

There is a long story behind all this. Some time back, Washington state’s popular open primary system was declared unconstitutional. Parties are private organizations, the Supreme Court reasoned, and had an interest in controlling who may vote in their primaries.

So then-Governor Gary Locke, backed by the Grange, supported an initiative, I-872, that would allow something like open primaries. The measure passed and ended up making the party system pretty much moot — among I-872’s several features was to allow candidates to declare a “party preference” without so much as a by-your-leave from the party itself.

Obviously, peoples’ association rights have been weakened, not strengthened — thus running up against the constitutional issues that led to the measure in the first place.

Novoselic could have run as anything. The law is that vague. He would have raised no concerns — and therefore made no point — had he run as a Democrat. Had he run as a Republican, or as an American Legion candidate, he might have stirred up actual anger. But since he is, himself, Master of the local Grange, he thought the “Grange Party” preference made the most sense.

The whole thing is a stunt — as he freely admits. Novoselic is proud of his Grange associations, but he wants to spur interest within the Grange, and outside it, to change the law.

Novoselic’s stance in favor of free association is on target: “As a strong believer in private association, I oppose the way the state has implemented I-872, the Grange-sponsored Top Two primary . . . My issue is with the way candidates can appropriate the name of a private group. . . .” Continued...