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Cross-posted at dailykos.com, mydd.com, congressmatters.com, and possibly others
the government of California made a deal with the devil, in the form of State Senator Abel Maldanado. He was the single Republican vote that was needed to pass the desperately needed budget. Hundreds of thousands of jobs and billions of dollars rested on this man's shoulders.
So, of course, he chose to be greedy and selfish.
Among other trivial and selfish requests that held up this man's vote was a request for a nonpartisan top two primary. Californians will have a chance to defeat this at the ballot box just like they did in 2004, and defeat is what must happen.
For those of you unfamiliar with the top two primary system, it is most famously used in Washington state and was just used in Wisconsin the other day for a few nonpartisan local races. All candidates for a seat go against each other in a single primary and the top two vote-getters go against each other in the general election. That means that two Democrats or two Republicans or two independents or any combination of parties could go against each other in the general election.
However, this is a terrible "reform." It does nothing to strengthen democracy and hopefully the opposition from many within the Democratic and Republican parties - along with a strong third party opposition - will lead to a defeat for this misguided ballot measure.
The best analysis of the failures of Washington's system I have seen is a recent op-ed in the Sacramento Bee by author, activist, and analyst Steven Hill. He starts by going over the goals of the top two system, and then reviews whether they have been met in Washington:
Certainly, the top two primary would give voters more choice during the primary election. But it actually would reduce voters' choices in the November election to only two candidates, which is when most voters turn out. Moreover, in a very liberal district, such as in the urban areas, the top two candidates in November very likely would be two Democrats; in a conservative district, the top two probably would be Republicans. Third-party candidates and independents almost never would appear on the November ballot.
Would the top two primary foster more competitive races? To answer that question, I examined elections from the state of Washington, which used the top two primary for its 2008 state legislative elections. Here's what I found:
Of the 98 state House races, only five races (5 percent) were won by a competitive margin (defined as a 4 percentage point difference between the top two candidates). Sixty-five races (66 percent) were won by landslide margins of 20 points or higher, with 17 of those races uncontested.
The results in the 26 state Senate races were very similar, with 62 percent of races won by landslides and only two races competitive. That's a level of competition that is no better than what we have now in California.
How about electing moderates? How did the Washington elections do in that regard? The term "moderate" is a relative one, with different definitions from state to state, so a better way to examine this is to look for how many opportunities are available for moderates to get elected. In theory, when you have two Democrats running against each other in November, or two Republicans, the voters from the other party could cross over and act as a moderating influence against either the most conservative Republican or the most liberal Democrat winning.
In Washington's House races, only six out of 98 (6 percent) had two candidates from the same party, and in the Senate, two out of 26 races (8 percent) did.So that's not a lot of races in which moderates could have an opportunity to get elected. With Washington's elections being so noncompetitive generally, that greatly limited electoral opportunities for moderates.
One positive from the Washington elections is that for the handful of races that were decided by competitive margins, they did not have to worry about spoiler candidacies coming from third-party candidates. But is essentially banning third parties from participating in the November election really the best way to handle this?Afar better way would be to use instant runoff voting, where voters could rank a first, second and third choice, and the runoff rankings would be used to elect majority winners in a single election. Third-party candidates would not be spoilers, and this would preserve voters' choices. As discussion of the top two primary proceeds in California, it seems important that the discussion be factbased.
Another decent article about this was run by the Contra-Costa Times:
Some political observers, though, are unsure whether open primaries would have the desired effect.
"The advantage is exaggerated," said Bruce Cain, director of UC Berkeley Center in Washington, D.C. "Likely, some moderates would be elected. But would it change the composition of the Legislature? Would it make it a less partisan place? I don't know."
Other factors determine how partisan a Legislature is, Cain said, such as interest group influence and promises of money or punishment from legislative leaders, or pressure to conform within caucuses.
Even if more moderates were elected, it wouldn't necessarily result in more decisive action, Stern said.
"You might get more Correas," Stern said, referring to Orange County Democratic Sen. Lou Correa, who initially resisted voting for a tax increase out of fear of being punished by conservative constituents in his next election. He later committed to voting for it after being promised millions of dollars in property tax relief for schools in his district.
"It could work the other way," he said. "It could mean more timid legislators."
Party leaders said they oppose the open primary as an intrusion into internal political affairs.
"This is the abolition of primaries," said one Republican party leader who asked not to be named. "It replaces it with a general election in June and a runoff in November. If this passes, a number of unintended consequences will take over."
Open primaries would devastate parties and put elections and campaigns further in the hands of special interest groups, said the official, who called the deal "Machiavellian."
"It's a complete scam," said Bob Mulholland, campaign adviser to the state Democratic Party. "When people say we should manipulate the rules to force a certain kind of candidate, I say let the voters choose."
As you can see, this is a pointless system that just limits voters' choices. There are far more effective reforms available that actually accomplish something. All in all, the top two primary could do more harm than good.
So, Californians and anyone around the nation who is concerned about the state of our democracy, I am asking you to help defeat this bill when it is brought to the ballot.
