Open primary debate reignites (Contra Costa Times)

Open primary debate reignites
By Lisa Vorderbrueggen
Contra Costa Times
February 22, 2009

IN THE PRE-DAWN hours of the budget fracas last week, a lone — and now lonely — state senator revived the open primary fight in California.

Sen. Abel Maldonado, a moderate Central Coast Republican, broke with his party and demanded the Legislature let voters decide the open primary question in return for his critical vote on the budget.

Horse-trading for votes is disturbing on many levels, but the open primary was headed for the ballot anyway. Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger reportedly told legislators that he would spend millions of dollars bringing it to the ballot through an initiative.

In fact, one of the seltzer pills offered to gagging Democrats was the idea that it would allow them to put the measure on the election of their choice — June 2010 — rather than an earlier date that could put it in play in the governor's race.

So, the open primary debate has arrived. Here's how it would work:

Today, voters register as members of qualified political parties or as a "decline to state."

Voters of each party nominate in the primary their top choice for the general election. (Most parties allow independents to vote in their primaries with some exceptions.)

In the open primary, all candidates appear on the same ballot and they need not list their party preferences.

The top two finishers would advance to the general election regardless of party affiliation. That means two Democrats or two Republicans could face each other.

It would apply to all partisan races including Congress, legislative seats, the governor and other constitutional offices.

Parties hate it but advocates say the open primary opens the doors to moderates who fail to gain traction in low-turnout primaries where voters are typically the most liberal or conservative members of the parties.

Lawmakers elected by a cross-section of voters may be less inclined toward the hyperpartisan politics that led to the budget meltdown, they say.

Former Assemblyman Joe Canciamilla of Pittsburg is a fan.

The moderate Democrat was elected in 2000 during California's brief flirtation with an open primary. (The courts later struck it down after the parties sued.)

Once in office, Canciamilla infuriated party leaders when he cofounded a bipartisan coalition that produced alternative budgets.

He termed out and eyed a run for the Senate but withdrew in the face of challenger Mark DeSaulnier, a more liberal lawmaker who had the full force of the party and its allies behind him.

In the open primary, Canciamilla could have survived the primary to run in the general, an election with far higher turnout.

"Lawmakers should be accountable to a broad range of constituents, not just a handful of people in your base," Canciamilla said.

DeSaulnier doesn't buy it.

He was a Republican who previously won in a Democratic-leaning Contra Costa supervisor district and now "I'm a Democrat who has been accused of being too liberal," he said.

"Frankly, I don't see open primaries making much of a difference except that you have the potential for a tough primary and then a tough general election."

He's right about the reruns. The bloody and costly 2008 senate primary battles, for example, with Mark Leno/Joe Nation/Carole Migden in San Francisco or Loni Hancock/Wilma Chan in the East Bay would have gushed into the general election.

There is no evidence that open primaries elect more moderates or give voters more choices, says Steve Hill, director of the Political Reform Program at the New American Foundation.

Only two states have open primaries and neither offers much in the way of guidance. Louisiana has had it for decades and its politicians are hardly moderates. Maldonado modeled his measure after Washington state's, but it has had just one election since the courts upheld it.

It may give voters more choices in the primary but it would cut their options in the general, Hill says.

Third-party candidates would hardly ever make the top two. And in the Democratic Bay Area, Republican voters would likely find no Rs on the general election ballot.

"Politicians always think that if they tinker with the system, people will change," Hill said. "But most voters don't pay attention to the sorts of details about elections that wonks and political reporters do."

None of this addresses the key question, said Jim Mayer, director of California Forward, a reform group.

"What do we want to achieve?" he said. "This is a question about how to make changes in the system that changes the chemistry in Sacramento. Open primaries deserve consideration."

The bigger question may be one of strategy: With every party and their allies lined up to defeat this measure, who will spend the money to persuade voters?

GOT POLITICS? Read Inside Politics at www.ibabuzz.com/politics for the latest political news:

# Republican Dean Andal will not challenge Rep. Jerry McNerney, D-Pleasanton, to a rematch in 2010.

AND FINALLY: Canciamilla bet me $100 that state senators voted on bills during those wee hours which they had not read because they were not written.

They wouldn't do that, right? As it turns out, no one saw the open primary bill. Instead, they were assured by party leaders that it would "look just like the Washington plan."

All day Thursday, the legislative Web site showed SB6 as a hazardous waste measure, its original content. It didn't reflect the open primary wording until Friday.

Uh, Joe, do you take IOUs?