This is either a way for the public to screw the politicians who screwed them or for the public to get screwed harder once the big money figures out how to make this work for them. Either way, it’s change we can believe in!
The time for tinkering is done.
That was the message Californians sent when they voted Tuesday to radically rejigger elections in the nation’s most populous state. Under Proposition 14, a measure that easily passed, traditional party primaries will be replaced in 2011 with wide-open elections. The top two vote-getters — whatever their party, or if they have no party at all — will face off in the general election.
Supporters argue that without parties picking candidates for the general election, moderates and independents will move to the fore, and voters will pay more attention to the electoral process.
Critics of the measure say it will give a huge advantage to candidates who have the most money or the widest name recognition.
That no one actually knows what the real effect of Proposition 14 will be seems almost beside the point to frustrated voters. What mattered, supporters said, is that something fundamental about politics — anything fundamental — had been changed.
As supporters celebrated, they promised to bring the so-called “top two” system to a state near you, with Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger leading the charge — though his second term, plagued by budget meltdowns and plunging popularity, was, analysts said, one of the leading motivators for the measure.
Wow. Using a state as an experimental laboratory for democracy. What a concept.
I see a big problem. One of the main stimuli for this change was to get money out of elections, but what with our Conservative Activist Supreme Court ruling Corps can contribute unlimited money, seems to me they can short circuit what little illusion of check and balance remains by funding and running their own candidate? Some retired CEO like the two condidates in California already?
Is this a populist or a corporatist move?
I fear for my country.
Louisiana has had open primaries for years. What has happened, is the two radical sides with diehard supporters get the most votes and the broad middle gets divided up among good candidates. Our most difficult election caused by this was the 1991 election for Governor between David Duke (KKK Leader) and Edwin Edwards (currently in federal prison for corruption). The best bumper sticker was: Vote for the Crook. Its Important!
Good Luck California!
Mike–excellent point.
Didn’t the original constitution call for an “open election” of the President with the number two vote getter becoming the VP? Set up too much conflict so the two are now elected as a team.
Pro’s and Con’s to all we do.
Doesn’t look like Public Financing of Election would solve this issue either.
Mandatory Debates with qualified anchors providing follow up questions?
Maybe Democracy just doesn’t work? Random picks from the phone book?
Fixing the gerrymandered districts in CA would have been better idea. But, CA is screwed with or without this Prop passing.
You know what would help? Finding a way to fairly apportion congressional districts. Gerrymandering is killing our republic.
I’m with bobbo in #1. Now the big money boys can cut out the middlemen (the political parties) and spend as much as they want to directly elect their hand-picked candidates.
Coming soon, the senator from Exxon…
Big money has always bought elections and most elected officials.
The one thing this certainly does is weaken the ability of party bosses to decide who ends up on the ballot.
On the other hand without some sort of party organization behind you the odds are you will get trashed.
It may be that the odds are a little better that a third party might emerge in such a state and more independents might get elected.
I don’t like it.
The party with the fewest candidates will win the top two slots. Party leadership will support who they want and there is no room for a popular choice without diluting your side to the other party. When the general election takes place, you might not have a candidate you can identify with.
This is more likely to protect incumbents at the expense of dark horse candidates and third parties.
How is this going to screw up Presidential elections? When other states have a red and a blue Presidential candidate at election time, California may have two completely different candidates. That will throw the state’s votes away.
I _used_ to support open primaries but don’t any more.
Open primaries only work if everybody respects the democratic process and honestly votes for who they think is the best candidate.
But in the last election, the conservatives, led by Rush Limbaugh with Karl Rove in the background, showed that they will gleefully corrupt an election with dishonest voting.
Rush and other right wingers told their huge audiences to vote for the Hillary to drag-out the primary against Obama.
The conservatives weren’t even ashamed of their cynical and sleazy politics — they crowed proudly about it!
You can be sure that conservatives are going to deceive and manipulate the vote in California to get their guys into power.
Is it any wonder California was first in this? THAT’S WHERE HOLLYWOOD IS (aka “Holly-WEIRD”)! For crying out loud, even California’s GOVERNOR is an ex-ACTOR! Can’t ANYONE put two and two together?!
We deserve what we get people!!!
Try looking in a mirror at the REAL problem cause when we (the public) pay more attention to totally stupid things like TV SHOWS (American Idol is just pegging my meter here) – WE DESERVE IT!!!
So keep voting for that idiot singer and ignore your congressional representative. And while your at it, pay your “entertainment” (cable/satellite) bill and don’t protest your phone company’s bill either. (Just where do you think all that money REALLY goes anyway?) Does ANYONE know who sits on their Public Utilities Commission board? See what I mean?!
So let’s all embrace this, bend over and continue to buy products from companies like BP so they can continue to pollute the globe and give us a better political system. But whatever you do, DON’T do YOUR part! “They” will do it for you!!!
#9 So, the GOP guys WANTED the idiot Obama to win the Presidency?
Until we ditch the ‘pick one’ voting ballot and replace it with a ‘number these choices from 1 to X in order of your preference (1 being most preferred)’ there will be a hesitation to vote for any kind of a long shot. Voting for C means that you are giving up your power to choose between A and B. Until we do that our voting system will always favor the most visible and pre-polled candidates.
What the final election needs is a “None of the Above” category. If the elected official is NOTA, go back to the previous plan.
When that happens, something will have been learned.
Just because Louisiana had one bad experience, that doesn’t mean California will; it’s illogical to say it will. Plus, these are very different states with different populations and cultures.
This is how it ends.
Big money gets wind of this idea, rigs the electronic machines, and stages a takeover, and they didn’t have to involve the military.
Goodbye democracy!
#9. Rush Limbaugh encouraged that activity in part as a response for the Democrats doing that to the Republicans to give us McCain: thus, both sides are guilty of the sleaze.
To everyone: years ago I learned of a mathemaitical theorem that basically says that it doesn’t matter how you set up the vote, because there will always be a way to manipulate it to get results contrary to how the majority truly feel. Thus, changing the system will only shake things up a bit.
Having said that, I like Utah’s caucus system (this is the first year I participated in it from the beginning). It keeps life interesting!
Also: There is no way to keep money out of politics. Money is key to free speech (for how else would you get your message out?), and anyone has the right to say anything, so long as it’s not libelous or slanderous.
Actually, California is working on the Gerrymandering problem with the approval of a citizens committee that will set all but the federal representative election district borders. This was passed by proposition in the general election and first takes place in 2012 I believe. It’s a step in the right direction…
@#14 Two extremely bad experiences, many similar. This can’t work properly in any state or country. Essentially it is killing primaries and there are two-staged general elections. Which very well can be shrunk to one.
What will happen: party BigWigs will decide who can get into primaries behind closed doors and there will be only two candidates in “primaries” with any clout to get to general elections. Parties will not risk missing general elections. So, the people vote within parties will be gone. For a remote chance that some third-party / independent candidate may break in…
There ya go. Another excellent reason why I am moving out of the state in which I was born. After 61 years, I hate living in this state. Good thing is, some fool will buy my house for $900,000 and I can buy a ranch somewhere in Idaho, Montana, Arizona, or Utah. Places with, by the way, CCW shall issue laws. Very important as I grow older. I know all the leftists here will laugh and point at me, but then, you can all live in California, as it becomes Northern Mexico.
This attempt at a direct form of democracy will end up backfiring on the voters. As mentioned before this could cause elections to be skewed by having both parties vote for the least electable candidate in a race to the bottom. Combine this with unlimited funding from large corporations and we have the makings for a disaster. G-d help us all.
Speaking of primaries, what do you think Obie I will offer Alvin Greene to quit the SC senate race? JCD should start a poll on this question.
#17, Correct me if I am wrong, but that anti-gerrymandering proposition FAILED. California is stuck with the corrupted district borders so as to insure continuation of the dynasties.
Since primaries are made up bullshit by the political parties I don’t see why this matters. Real change would be to acknowledge that these things were made up by the republicans and democrats and eliminate them and reform state election laws to remove all the crap that the two political parties got passed in the first place.
I’m not sure that this solution really tackles the problem. Isn’t the problem with elections and money that each election has too much value? I mean if there are 50 legislators in a house and you can get 10 in your pocket, that’s a lot of power and many will see it as worth the money. So, how could we make legislators worth less?
In the original wording of the constitution the federal house of representatives should be 1 per 30,000 people. That means that when the population hit 300 million there should have been 10,000 representatives in in the house. So to have any real power you’d have to buy 2000 reps instead of 10, a much more onerous task. I realize that this is a cynical way to look at it but I think this is what essentially happens.
This might also solve the gerrymandering problem by making the districts so small that there isn’t any room for a lot of the bizarre mapping there is now.
#21 He will offer Alvin Greene a job. The problem is that Alvin Greene will lose if he can’t answer questions at least as well as Sarah Palin. When asked how he would have voted on TARP, he asked what it was.
Then again maybe William F Buckley had something when he said that he would rather be governed by the first 100 names in the Boston phone directory than by the entire faculty of Harvard University.
I just hope that someone in the Democratic Party of South Carolina grooms him on the issues before he tries to debate De Mint. As of now he is clearly the weaker candidate.
#24 – Not the exact wording but you’re warm. The law capping the # of Reps killed the idea of the House representing “The People” though. Just as the Amend killed the Senate being the Reps of the States. The problem is now each Rep “represents” ~650,000 as opposed to ~35,000 as was the original intent. This has allowed big money to rule these elections. It was a calculated move by the parties in power to consolidate power. Well done for pointing this out. Most people are clueless about this major issue.
First of all, the new law in California does not affect presidential elections. Second, a major result will be loss of ballot status by all the parties except the Democrats and Republicans. Ballot status is determined by at least 1 candidate from a party receiving more than 2% of the vote for a statewide office in the general election.
Since there will be no third party candidates on the general election ballot, they’re screwed. This will, like the last attempt, wind up in the Supreme Court and will most likely be struck down.
Oh, and Faxon, have fun freezing/burning your ass off in whichever of those nasty places you wind up in. There’s a reason California is the most populous state. People like it here. Please leave your water.
“There’s a reason California is the most populous state.”
AND, there is a reason it has had net out migration over the last decade… Enjoy your new 3rd world country…
Cranky,
I agree with you half-way — people generally get the leaders they deserve. (but you should work on your debate skills — “HollyWIERD” is pretty lame)
However…
It takes an educated, literate public to have a good democracy.
And conservatives have been attacking teachers and defunding schools and colleges for decades.
So we are also getting the democracy that conservatives WANTED and WORKED for — ill-informed, fear-driven, easily-manipulated voters.
This is not a
“Critics of the measure say it will give a huge advantage to candidates who have the most money”
How is that any different from letting the Repubs and Dems slug it out?