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North
County Times
Top-two
primary is a horrible idea
By Steven Hill and Roy Ulrich
April 7, 2004 California voters may be asked to vote again
on our primary election system in November. Voters created an
open primary system but lost it in 1996 after an unfavorable
U.S. Supreme Court ruling.
State leaders, including Leon Panetta, Richard Riordan and
Controller Steve Westly, are pushing a voter initiative
suggested by conservative Justice Antonin Scalia. It's
political deform masked as reform.
The initiative would adopt a version of Louisiana's
"top-two" primary which, like the blanket primary,
allows voters to choose any candidate, regardless of party, in
primary elections for state and federal office, except
president. But there are important differences with the
blanket primary that proponents are fudging.
Under the blanket primary, the highest vote-getters from each
party compete in the November election ---- Democrats,
Republicans and third-party candidates. But with the top-two
primary, only the top two go to a runoff. And the top two can
be from the same political party.
In Louisiana, the two finalists often are from the same party
-- two Democrats in a liberal district, or two Republicans in
a conservative one. Third-party candidates never appear on
Louisiana's final ballot.
What impact will it have on California's already low turnout,
to have even fewer choices in November, perhaps two from the
same party? What impact will it have on California's third
parties? In Louisiana, they have been wiped off the ballot.
This hardly seems a step forward.
Proponents say the measure will increase voter turnout and
will help elect more moderates. Yet the system fails on both
counts.
Louisiana often ranks near the bottom in voter turnout. In
2002, just over one-third of eligible voters showed up for
congressional elections. That's not surprising, given that
voters had so few choices on the final ballot.
California democracy took a hit when incumbents gerrymandered
their own legislative districts to guarantee themselves safe
seats. Adding the top-two primary will reinforce these
one-party fiefdoms, increasing voter alienation.
That alone is reason enough to reject the top-two primary. And
Louisiana shows this will not elect more moderates.
Ex-Klansman David Duke made it into Louisiana's 1991
governor's runoff with 32 percent of the vote. His rabid
supporters held together while moderate candidates split the
rest of the vote, allowing Duke to make the runoff.
Louisiana columnist Bill Decker wrote, "The fact is that
Louisiana's primary system isn't a good test of the state's
mood and intentions. The multi-candidate primary is about who
can attract 20 percent to 30 percent of the vote on one
day."
California has its polarizing candidates and demagoguery
around issues of immigration and race. The top-two system has
a record of exaggerating such divisions.
The top-two primary tends to elect members from the parties'
extremes, and third parties and independent candidates are
locked out. So the gain is minimal, while the loss is great.
The desire to improve California's democracy is commendable,
but any version of Louisiana's top-two primary is the wrong
way to do it.
Steven Hill is an analyst for Center for Voting and Democracy
(www.fairvote.org) in San Francisco and author of "Fixing
Elections: The Failure of America's Winner-Take-All
Politics." Roy Ulrich is a public-interest lawyer in Los
Angeles.
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