On April 11, the California Assembly passed AB 80. It moves the presidential primary from February to June. It passed unanimously. Assuming this bill becomes law, California will only hold one primary in 2012. By contrast, in 2008, California had held a presidential primary in February and a primary for other partisan office in June. Thanks to Josh Putnam of Frontloading HQ for this news.
Ballot Access News
Edited By Richard Winger
You’d think states would be working on those primaries closer to January. Maybe we could have all the primaries on the same day. Just kidding. This move by California will save money. The cost for a special election in CA must be over 50 million. For smaller states like Montana the cost to have a primary or special election is over one-million dollars.
I bet if George W. Bush was in power and the Dems wanted a challenger then they wouldn’t move the primary at all.
Good for california. Spend money on ads and ca gets attention. Remember 1968. 2008: obama vs clinton. Maybe 2012 have a close primary.
What MORONS in NH and IA thought it was a great idea to have Prez candidates moving around in the dead of winter ???
Why in Hell do the national party hacks allow ANY Prez primaries before May south -June middle -July north — 13 weeks NOT enough to find a qualified Prez candidate ???
Did they forget to change Section 1000(a)?
I bet that got moved to April when they moved the presidential primary to February.
Why don’t they move both to early April?
#6 California used to have a May presidential primary and an August statewide primary, which is really the logical time to have it (though September would be better).
During WWII, the two were consolidated in June as a cost saving measure, and they never figured out how really stupid it was to have primaries 5 months before the general election.
But they realized June was too late to have much impact in a presidential race, so they moved it it to March. It was at this point that they realized it was really, really stupid to have primary elections 8 months before the general election, and when they moved the presidential primary to February they split the primaries, and moved the statewide back to June.
Democrats don’t expect a presidential contest in 2012, so they don’t care whether there is a primary, but they also don’t want California to have influence in the Republican primaries, so that it is less likely that the Republicans will nominate someone attractive to Republican voters.
This will in general reduce turnout, and make the public worker unions more influential in the primary, and give the appearance that they are interested in reducing costs.
Well then they should at least have a caucus.