[EL] competitive primaries are common in Calif. leg races when no incumbent
Rob Richie
rr at fairvote.org
Sun Jul 8 10:38:35 PDT 2012
Doug is correct. That was the case this year, in fact, in the presidential
primary - -as FairVote's own resources on open/closed primaries made clear
if I had consulted them!
http://www.fairvote.org/congressional-and-presidential-primaries-open-closed-semi-closed-and-top-two
Rob
On Sun, Jul 8, 2012 at 1:30 PM, Douglas Johnson <djohnson at ndcresearch.com>wrote:
> Correction to "given the fact that such voters already could choose to
> vote in a major party primary in the old rules"****
>
> ** **
>
> Under the old rules, each party had the *option* to allow independents to
> vote in the party's primary. The CA Republican Party usually chose to close
> its primary while the Democratic Party usually (but I don't think always)
> chose to open it.****
>
> ** **
>
> - Doug****
>
> ** **
>
> Douglas Johnson****
>
> Fellow****
>
> Rose Institute of State and Local Government****
>
> m 310-200-2058****
>
> o 909-621-8159****
>
> douglas.johnson at cmc.edu****
>
> ** **
>
> ** **
>
> ** **
>
> ** **
>
> ** **
>
> *From:* law-election-bounces at department-lists.uci.edu [mailto:
> law-election-bounces at department-lists.uci.edu] *On Behalf Of *Rob Richie
> *Sent:* Saturday, July 07, 2012 2:15 PM
> *To:* larrylevine at earthlink.net
> *Cc:* law-election at uci.edu
> *Subject:* Re: [EL] competitive primaries are common in Calif. leg races
> when no incumbent****
>
> ** **
>
> Larry and Richard both make good points. This was an example of Top Two
> NOT making a difference. It's also agood example of how much it is a
> "crapshoot primary," as Steve Hill has been calling it.****
>
> ** **
>
> First, to be clear Top Two is only different from the old system when two
> candidates of the same party advance to the November ballot -- given the
> incredibly low turnout of unaffiliated voters in most Top Two races this
> year, given the fact that such voters already could choose to vote in a
> major party primary in the old rules and given that fact that partisans
> overwhelmingly would vote for someone one of their party if a candidate
> runs,****
>
> ** **
>
> But ue to the vagaries of split votes on the Democratic side and 20% of
> voters backing the one Republican in the race, that didn't happen here.
> With relatively paltry turnout (far less than half of what it will be in
> November), this district's representation has already been determined for
> the next two years. Democratic candidate Nazarian now will coast -- even
> though a shift of a relative handful of votes toward the third-place
> Democrat from Democratic candidates placing 4th through 7th, and it would
> have been a whole different contest.****
>
> ** **
>
> Independent expenditure spenders certainly knew about this dynamic. They
> threw HUGE sums of money into this race. including tactical money trying to
> affect who finished second The Teachers Union spent $400,000 against the
> Democrat Johnson who narrowly finished in third, with pro-charter school
> forces spending three that much on his behalf. See****
>
> *
> http://www.scpr.org/blogs/news/2012/06/18/6669/california-teachers-association-backs-nazarian-val/
> * ****
>
> ** **
>
> Furthermore, if you look just at the Democratic votes only and recaluate
> their percenates, you get:****
>
> ** **
>
> Adrin Nazarian - 34.5%****
>
> Brian Johnson - 25.0%****
>
> Andrew Lachman - 24.2%****
>
> Lauretee Healy - 13.5%****
>
> Adriana Lacarols - 3.0%****
>
> ** **
>
> Lachman was more aligned with Nazarian, so he's a legitimate nominee, but
> still it shows split votes and spoilers are an ongoing problem with the
> system. Backers of ranked choice voting (instant runoff) like me would
> suggest that you at least use it to reduce the field to two so you don't
> have vote-splitting affect who gets to advance- - -and better yet, be
> daring and reduce the field to three or four and then use RCV again in
> November to give voters real contests when so many more of them are at the
> polls.****
>
> ** **
>
> By the way, it will be interesting to see if Justice Stephen Breyer
> develops an opinion of Top Ttwo based on the fact that his son has
> qualified for the November ballot in Assembly District 19. Phil Ting won
> more than 50% of the overall votes, with Michael Breyer back at 22%, but
> the two Democrats both advance, with the Republican out of the running with
> 17%.****
>
> ** **
>
> - Rob Richie****
>
> ** **
>
> ##########****
>
> On Fri, Jul 6, 2012 at 1:29 AM, Larry Levine <larrylevine at earthlink.net>
> wrote:****
>
> There were not just two Democrats in the AD 46 Primary; there were five. I
> live in the district; my office is in the district. As a political
> consultant, I observed this race very closely. I knew some of the
> candidates personally, knew their consultants, and knew some of the people
> involved in the independent expenditures. I think in the old traditional
> closed Democratic Primary system we would have had the same winner. It
> wouldn’t have mattered who was the second place finishing Democrat but the
> likelihood is it would have been close between the actual third and fourth
> place finishers, who would have been the second and third place finishers
> in a closed Dem primary. This Primary is not a very good example of
> anything because there were too many influencing circumstances. ****
>
> Larry****
>
> ****
>
> *From:* law-election-bounces at department-lists.uci.edu [mailto:
> law-election-bounces at department-lists.uci.edu] *On Behalf Of *Richard
> Winger
> *Sent:* Thursday, July 05, 2012 9:54 PM
> *To:* law-election at uci.edu
> *Subject:* [EL] competitive primaries are common in Calif. leg races when
> no incumbent****
>
> ****
>
> Rick Hasen's Election Law Blog tonight talks about how close the primary
> between two Democrats was, in the Assembly (lower house of the Cal.
> legislature), 46th district in which Rick happens to live. But there was
> no incumbent. It is not rare in California, or in the U.S. generally, to
> have a competitive primary for a congressional or legislative seat when
> there is no incumbent.
>
> It seems to me, even if there were no Prop. 14 top-two open primary in
> California, the race in that district's Democratic primary would have been
> close, given no incumbent. Perhaps the same two Democrats would have run
> in the old partisan system.
>
> In 2010 in California, under the old partisan system, there were some very
> close legislative primaries. For Democrats, just for the Assembly, there
> were close races in these districts: 3, 7, 9, 20, 21. For Republicans,
> there were close races in these Assembly districts: 25, 59,70.
>
> Also in 2010, the Democratic primary for State Senate, 40th district, saw
> these results: Juan Vargas 24,282 votes; Mary Salas 24,260 votes, a
> difference of only 22 votes.
>
> Richard Winger
> 415-922-9779
> PO Box 470296, San Francisco Ca 94147****
>
> ****
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Law-election mailing list
> Law-election at department-lists.uci.edu
> http://department-lists.uci.edu/mailman/listinfo/law-election****
>
>
>
> ****
>
> ** **
>
> --
> ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
> "Respect for Every Vote and Every Voice"
>
> Rob Richie
> Executive Director
>
> FairVote
> 6930 Carroll Avenue, Suite 610
> Takoma Park, MD 20912
> www.fairvote.org <http://www.fairvote.org> rr at fairvote.org
> (301) 270-4616
>
> Please support FairVote through action and tax-deductible donations -- see
> http://fairvote.org/donate. For federal employees, please consider a
> gift to us through the Combined Federal Campaign (FairVote's CFC number is
> 10132.) Thank you!****
>
--
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
"Respect for Every Vote and Every Voice"
Rob Richie
Executive Director
FairVote
6930 Carroll Avenue, Suite 610
Takoma Park, MD 20912
www.fairvote.org <http://www.fairvote.org> rr at fairvote.org
(301) 270-4616
Please support FairVote through action and tax-deductible donations -- see
http://fairvote.org/donate. For federal employees, please consider a gift
to us through the Combined Federal Campaign (FairVote's CFC number is
10132.) Thank you!
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://webshare.law.ucla.edu/Listservs/law-election/attachments/20120708/0165edc3/attachment.html>
View list directory