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A CHANCE FOR CHANGE IN CALIFORNIA:
The Open Primary Makes A Comeback
by Jim Mangia
Posted by: Jim Mangia
on 4/1/2009 at 12:00 PM
California has a long history in leading the way on political reform. Thanks to State
Senator Abel Maldonado, Californians will again have an opportunity to lead the way by
supporting a new open primary initiative. To be successful open primary supporters
must effectively engage California’s key political reform constituency: independent
voters.
As we have witnessed during the budget battle, California’s current political system is
mired neck deep in partisanship. During good times the state can usually continue along
with business as usual without too many partisan fights. However during our current
time of crisis, our partisan political process has produced a near nightmare result.
Instituting an open primary system in California would be a huge step towards fixing our
broken political process by giving voters – particularly independent voters (known as
“decline to state” in California) – real leverage against the partisan interests. Open
primaries would literally “open up” the process by giving voters the ability to cast their
ballot for a candidate regardless of party affiliation. In particular independent voters –
whose votes literally count for nothing in most legislative and congressional elections –
would become a very important constituency with real power.
The best evidence that open primaries work is President Barack Obama, whom
IndependentVoice.Org endorsed in the Democratic Presidential Primary. When the
Democratic Primary began, it was Hillary Clinton who had the backing of the entire party
apparatus – so much so that her campaign strategy was to run as the “inevitable”
nominee. What derailed this “inevitability” was huge numbers of independent voters
casting ballots for Obama’s message of change in the thirty-one open primary states. If
independents were denied access to the primary process, Hillary Clinton would have
ridden her early support of party insiders and easily defeated Barack Obama.
This will not be the first time that Californians have gone to the ballot for an open
primary.
In 1996 Californians approved Proposition 198, which established a system where
voters could request the ballot of any party during the primary. Before the United
States Supreme Court ruled it unconstitutional after the 2000 presidential primary, it
significantly boosted voter turnout by nearly 1 million voters per election.
In 2004 Proposition 62 proposed a new and constitutional “top-two” open primary.
Fearing the loss of partisan control of the primary process, the opposition pulled out all
the stops. In order to confuse voters, they placed an initiative on the ballot –
Proposition 60 – that sounded like reform but simply kept the current partisan system in
place. They ran deceptive campaigns claiming that the open primary was an attack on
minority voting rights and the existence of third parties. Meanwhile, the bipartisan
coalition in support of the open primary failed to reach out effectively to independent
voters as a key constituency supporting reform. The initiative went down in defeat.
For the sake of California, reformers must get it right this time. For the blueprint, we
only have to look at the recent passage of redistricting reform in Proposition 11 last
November. Polls showed that a big surge in support and turnout among independent
voters pushed Proposition 11 over the top to its 1% margin of victory.
In order to duplicate that effort, a broad coalition that includes independents as well as
Democrats and Republicans must be formed. The coalition must reach out early and
often to independent voters as a key constituency.
If we are successful then Obama’s people powered victory over the party insiders –
driven by independents supporting him in open primary states – can become a reality in
legislative and congressional races here in California.
Jim Mangia is the Chair of IndependentVoice.Org, California’s largest grassroots organization
of independent voters. IndependentVoice.Org was part of coalitions to support the Open
Primary Proposition 62 and Redistricting Reform Propositions 77 and 11.
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