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Few progressives seem to see that Prop 14 is a revolution in the hidden phase of the CA election process. The easy-to-see parts are the primary and general election. The hidden, and maybe the most important, part is the petition and signature gathering phase. Under the old system, it was easy for qualified parties to get names on the ballot. That's why the Dems and Repubs had nearly 10 names each in the June 2010 primary election. People who felt the calling to run had their best chance of getting on the primary ballot by working through the officially qualified party apparatus. Under the old rules, they only had to get a small number of either Dem or Repub signatures on their petition for the ballot.
Since only candidates in qualified parties could get on the primary ballot, independents and non-qualified third party members had no chance at all. There were over three million of them, pre-Prop 14.
The revolution here is that the "qualified" status of a party is no longer relevant. The path to a spot on the primary ballot is now open to everyone who feels the calling. All an individual has to do is obtain the required number of valid signatures from any registered voter no matter what party the signer is registered in, even if no party preference.
The old system artificially propped up the two majors, and made them the only game in town. Now, the voters have stripped the two majors of one of the main reasons to work within them. There are no more privileges in law for being a qualified party. Everybody is out in the streets together. The competition for qualifying to get on the ballot is now starting from an entirely new place.
The D/Rs have the momentum from their dominant past; that is, office-holders they helped elect owe them favors, and so do the special interests they served, they have name recognition, and hefty contributors. But the hold they had on ordinary voters was always tenuous. Most people voted D/R because it was the only game in town, in a practical sense. These voters figured that voting for qualified third parties, or some write-in candidate, was a throw away protest vote, and they didn't want to throw their vote away.
But the historical momentum of the two majors can now be dissipated.
Suppose you wanted to support Laura Wells, of the Green Party, for CA governor. Could she have a viable candidacy under the new Prop 14 rules? Or, would Big Money simply buy the whole election as pessimists like Ralph Nader predict?
Under Prop 14, she would have no advantages for getting on the ballot just because she is in a qualified party, because the law has taken away those advantages. Each individual candidate will have to meet the same signature requirements, no matter what party, or no party. Assuming that something like 25,000 valid signatures would be required for a person to be on the primary ballot as a candidate for governor, Wells could surely meet that goal.
What are the indications of that likelihood? First, in the 2010 primary, the Greens received 22K votes, and Wells got 17.5K of those.* Therein lies the bulk of her needed signatures under Prop 14. Secondly, there are a lot of progressives who registered Dem under the old system, but who would sign a petition to put Wells on the primary ballot in the new system.
Third, among the 3M+ independents who were excluded from primaries in the past, there are surely thousands of people who would support Wells in getting on the primary ballot.
Given these facts, her being on the Prop 14 primary ballot is not iffy, but a shoe in.
Suppose that Wells is one of 25 names on the post-Prop 14 primary ballot. Does she have a chance of beating either a Brown or a Whitman, and getting one of the top two slots? I say YES.
The Internet has tremendous potential for organizing a new CA left petition-signing and voting bloc. Politically active Americans have only just begun to tap into that potential. The Deaniacs in 2000 shocked the political world. They self-organized on the net, and raised both awareness of Dean and money in ways that had never been done before. The Obama campaign went further by creating a supporter website, which gave his followers a central meeting place. Although he disregarded the majority opinions expressed there, like legalizing pot, ending the war in Iraq, single payer, etc, he showed how net organizing can be done. Another shock to the political world is possible in CA, and due.
With rallies, meet ups, furious Internet activity, and lots of good old fashion footwork by energetic, committed lefties, we can beat Big Money and their D/R puppets in CA. We don't need a lot of dough to beat Big Money, just energy and smarts.
The Prop 14 Revolution in the pre-primary phase frees all the misfit sub-groups in the majors to go their own way without the fear that doing so will make them losers. For example, Progressive Democrats of America (PDA) is like a wart on the face of the Democratic Party. They don't fit in where they are, and they really aren't wanted there. They are an annoyance to the DNC, and they almost never win on any of the issues and candidates they push. Just recently, they have lost on single payer, war funding, several primary candidates they backed, and on environmental issues.
Yet, they could be a powerful pre-primary and primary force in CA if they broke away from the Dems and helped to organize a leftist alternative. The two-party system pushes them into the Democrat Party, because, like other folks, they see it as the only practical choice when you look at the Republican alternative. But Prop 14 opens up new potentials for all sorts of insurgencies PDA for Dems, and Tea Partiers for Repubs.
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