I’ve been warning about this on the blog and in every forum I come across, Prop 14 will result in more Dem-on-Dem fights. It will be a drain on the Democratic party, and will result in a net loss for the party in terms of resources. Don’t trust me? Well, how about the Center for Govermental Studies. Goo-Goos seem to like them, anyway. So, how will they like this:
CGS broke down the registration and voter-turnout figures for recent primary elections and found that more than one-third of general election races could end up being fought between two members of the same party. Most of those single-party contests would be between two Democrats (largely in Los Angeles County and the Bay Area). Just two of the races analyzed in the study would have resulted in a general election between two Republicans.
The report also found that campaigns would be “significantly more expensive” under Proposition 14, mainly because candidates would have to campaign to a broader base of voters, as opposed to just voters in their party, in the primary.(SacBee)
In other words, Dem primaries end up getting played out twice. But because there just aren’t that many Republicans left in the state, theirs end up as snoozers into the general. You can read the full report (PDF) here.
Prop 14 is bad for the Democratic Party, bad for third parties, and well, not so great even for the Republican Party. It will make for much more expensive elections, and thus politicians that are even more susceptible to the sultry tones of the corporate lobbyist.
Yet somehow, St. Abel Maldonado is playing this out as a good government measure. As the results in Washington and Louisiana have shown, this is anything but good government.
Two chances to vote against incumbents while holding the seat!
In seats where two Dems make the runoff, the Dem who appeals more to Republicans will win, defeating the one who appeals more to Democrats. In a district split 60/40 for Dems, more than three-fourths of Dems could agree on a candidate, but that person would still lose to the person drawing Republican votes plus the most conservative one-fourth of Dems. In such districts, Prop 14 would be an anti-labor, anti-gay, anti-choice wet dream. If this passes, progressives will rue the day.
Propostion 14 lets candidates hide their Party affiliation from voters–and yes, most voters DO want to know a candidate’s party affiliation. This will encourage candidates to mislead voters even more than they already mislead them.
Proposition will also encourage backroom deals by the most well-heeled interests in the district and state. A likely scenario is as follows: Since the top two candidates make it to November, parties and certain interest groups will not want too many of their preferred party’s candidates running, risking that the final two candidates might both be from the ‘other’ party. So, legislative leadership, party big-wigs, large contributors and various corporate interests will try to create back-room deals to narrow down the number of candidates before the voters get a chance to weigh in. Remember, there is no ranked choice voting here. IF Reeps are successful in keeping their list of candidates to two in some districts, and the less-disciplined Dems have 8 candidates running, we could have two Reeps in November for a somewhat Dem-leaning district.
Prop. 14 is a horrible idea that is only on the ballot because Abel Maldonado knows (by his own admission) that Latino Republicans generally have a tough time winning partisan Republican primaries.
Finally, Prop. 14 could drive UP the cost of elections. Not a good thing for those supportive of grassroots politics and good government.
VOTE NO on 14 please.
would it be legal for two democrats, when running against each other in a runoff, to agree to cap out their campaign spending at an amount reasonable to reach the voters of the district, and then do the rest of their fundraising to help democrats elsewhere? it seems like refusing to do so, if this became standard, could become damaging to candidates in progressive districts like the bay area where people want to see dems win broadly, not just in their own district.
I don’t see this as reform, it doesn’t make anything better. Maldonado is making the election system the problem, when it is his party that doesn’t support moderates anymore. If he wants change, he should work on his own party as opposed to turning our elections upside down.