Less than three weeks before the June 8 primary, support for Proposition 14 continues to rise. In a PPIC survey of 2,003 likely voters in California, 60% support the state constitutional amendment, while 27% oppose and 13% remain undecided. Support for the open primary initiative has risen another 4 points since March.
Less than a month before the June election, a strange-political-bedfellows coalition of public employee unions and the state GOP party announced May 11 their opposition to Proposition 14, which would eliminate partisan primaries and allow the top two vote-getters – regardless of party – to advance to a November run-off.
One of the few things supporters and opponents of Proposition 14 agree on is that it doesn’t create an “open” primary. Backers of Proposition 14 contend that its system increases the chances of smaller party candidates reaching the November ballot and elected office.
The legacy of Governor Schwarzenegger is still very much a work in progress. On the one hand, he can be counted as the first Governor of California since Ronald Reagan to come from Hollywood and yet still manage to formulate a gubernatorial philosophy – one which his supporters believe is more nuanced and intellectually coherent than the Gipper’s.
The open primary battle continues to generate a tremendous amount of political controversy. Over at The Moderate Voice, Nancy Hanks recently criticized the two major parties, as well as Libertarians and Greens, for opposing the upcoming Top Two Open Primary ba
The ever controversial nonpartisan, “Top Two” open primary initiative slated to appear on the June ballot has, at a bare minimum, been making its way through most procedural obstacles with relative smoothness.
According to the San Jose Mercury News, the California Green Party is suffering from a shrinking membership. Currently, it’s downsizing from an enrollment of 158,000 registered Greens (0.95 percent of California voters) to 111,000 (0.66 percent).
You won’t believe this until you see it. In a stunning admission, former Governor of Kentucky and current State Senator Julian Carroll admitted, “I could care less what [independents] want…we operate democracy in this country with a two-party system.” These comments were expressed following an interview with independent activist Michael Lewis, where the Senator suggested that if ind
California lawmakers continue to offer their opinions of the upcoming Top Two Open Primary initiative in June. Assemblyman V. Manuel Perez briefly presented his views in a recent Q&A session with The Desert Sun.
Newly available Legislative Counsel data has corroborated the obvious. California is the most partisan state in the nation. According to the latest statistics, individual Democrats voted with the majority of their party 99% of the time, while individual Republicans voted with the majority of their party 96% of the time.
