Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger is the leading proponent of California’s Proposition 14, the top-two primary ballot measure. He is hosting a dinner at his home in Los Angeles on the evening of May 18, Tuesday. The event is for the purpose of raising money to promote Proposition 14. Tickets to the dinner at his home are $100,000 per couple. The home is in the Brentwood neighborhood of west Los Angeles.
Minor party activists, and also major party activists, are planning to gather as near the site as they are permitted to be, with leaflets and signs expressing opposition to Proposition 14. See this story at the Free and Equal web page. Check back to www.freeandequal.org for updates. A sign-making event will be held Monday evening, May 17, 6:30 p.m., at the Peace & Freedom Party office at 2617 Hauser, in Los Angeles near Culver City. The demonstration itself starts at 5:30 p.m. on Tuesday, May 18. The fundraising dinner starts at 6:30 p.m.
Governor Schwarzenegger has not generally shown concern for voting rights. He has repeatedly vetoed bills to enhance voting rights. Twice he vetoed the National Popular Vote Plan bill. He also vetoed a bill to provide that the intent of the voter should control, when a voter casts a write-in vote, so that such votes would count even if the voter didn’t know to “X” the box next to the name written in. He also vetoed a bill to let general law cities and counties use Instant Runoff Voting for their own elections if they wish.
This piece told absolutely nothing about what Prop 14 would actually DO.
Proposition 14 would provide that all candidates for Congress and partisan state office would run on a single primary ballot, and all voters would use that ballot. Then, only the 2 candidates who came in first and second would be on the November ballot. No write-ins would be counted in November. The measure also changes the qualifications for a party to remain ballot-qualified, by effectively deleting the easier of the two methods. It would probably mean that the Peace & Freedom Party and the Libertarian Party would go off the ballot entirely and then their presidential nominees would not be on the November ballot. This system was invented in Louisiana in 1975 to preserve the status quo. It has been used for years in Louisiana, and for the first time in 2008. The chief impact is to keep minor party candidates off the November ballot; also it seems to make it even easier for incumbents to be re-elected. It does not make the legislators less partisan or polarized; we know this because Political Scientist Boris Shor studied all 50 state legislatures and found no correlation between primary system and polarization. Although California does have the most polarized legislature, Washington state has the 2nd most polarized legislature, yet Washington state has mostly used a blanket primary during the period of the study, the last 15 years.
I’m sure that Jim Riley will be hopping on a plane for Los Angeles.
The opponents of the Proposition 14 monstrosity should hold a “hot dogs and beans” fundraiser at the same time as Arnold’s fancy dinner.
How much cash did it take to get the 1776 DOI published and circulated ???
DOOM coming for the extremist party hacks in the CA legislature in their ONE party safe seat gerrymander kingdoms ???
Four California Assembly seats switched parties in the November 2008 election, out of 80 seats. It is not true that all California legislative districts are safe for one major party or the other.
Doesn’t Louisiana have one of the least polarized legislatures in the country (based on your preferred metric)?
Didn’t the Louisiana legislature confirm a new Lieutenant Governor in two days, compared to almost 6 months in California?
Doesn’t the Louisiana legislature have a larger share of independents elected as such than all but of 1 of the 48 other states with partisan legislatures?
Wouldn’t Proposition 14 lower the petition requirements for independent statewide candidates from over 170,000 to 65 (not 65 thousand, but 65 period)? The last independent statewide candidate – not counting the 2003 recall or presidential elections, was Ed Clark back in 1978 (when Jerry Brown was governor).
Wouldn’t Proposition 14 lower the petition requirements for independent congressional and legislative candidates from several thousand to 40? In the last 900 congressional races, there have only been 9 independent candidates or 1%.
# 5 Hmmm 4 of 80 = 1 of 20 = 5 of 100
A mere 95 percent did NOT switch = an army of extremist party hacks taking CA to destruction.
P.R. and A.V.
Who the hell can afford to pay that much money? Probably Republicans and Libertarians. We Democrats are poor.