The June 23 Arizona Republic has this op-ed opposing the Arizona top-two open primary initiative. It is authored by Ed Phillips, who was a State Senator 1990-1994 but who is better known in Arizona as a television commentator. Here is more information about Phillips.
Ballot Access News
Edited By Richard Winger
Evan Mecham + Fife Symington III were elected governor under the partisan primary system. For that matter Edwin Edwards was as well.
Edwin Edwards won one election under a partisan nomination system, and three elections under top-two. Virtually every observer agrees that Edwards would have lost in 1991 to Buddy Roemer, if a partisan nominating system had been in place in 1991. In 1991, Roemer would have won the Republican primary, and Edwards would have won the Democratic primary, and in the general election Roemer would easily have won.
#2 Buddy Roemer is unlikely to have beaten Edwin Edwards in 1987 in a Democratic Primary. Remember what propelled Roemer to victory was when the candidates in a debate were asked whether they would support Edwards if he was the leading Democratic candidate. Other Democrats hemmed and hawed, but Roemer said sometimes you have to slay the dragon, and do what is right. While other candidates were still trying to refine their answer, Roemer was printing “Slay The Dragon” buttons.
If a partisan nominating system was in place, Roemer would not have been governor in 1991, and he is unlikely to have switched to the Republican Party.
You didn’t address the issue of Mecham and Symington.
What is the relevance of two bad governors being elected under a partisan primary system? One need not believe that partisan primaries always result in good candidates to believe that top two is worse.
#4 Drew, the op-ed that BAN referenced began with:
“Remember David Duke, the Ku Klux Klan grand wizard in Louisiana? He is what you can get in an open primary.”
and then continued with how the winner Edwin Edwards was later convicted and sent to prison. The inference that one is apparently expected to draw is that the Open Primary produces crooked governors.
But this was from a newspaper in Arizona, where two recent governors were removed from office, after being elected by the Partisan Primary system. Admittedly, one was later acquitted of the criminal charges, and the other had his conviction overturned, but Edwards was never removed from office.