The Brookings Institution, a venerable think tank in Washington, D.C., has posted this article about top-two primaries.
The report, by Professor Elaine Kamarck and Georgetown Graduate Student Alexander R. Podkul, uses confusing vocabulary, and sometimes refers to top-two primaries as “blanket primaries.” Blanket primaries only exist in Alaska, and they provide that the top vote-getter in the primary from the ranks of each party advance to the general election. These definitions are all set forth in “Voting at the Political Fault Line” (lead author Bruce Cain), a compendium of scholarly articles about primaries published by the University of California Berkeley Press.
In California Democratic Party v Jones, Justice Scalia described the systems used in Washington and California as nonpartisan blanket primaries.
No, he didn’t. He described an imaginary system that he made up in his own imagination, and said that would be constitutional. It is obvious that what California and Washington later chose to do is not what Scalia had in mind. Scalia dissented in the Washington state top-two case and said the Washington top-two system violates freedom of association. It is obvious that what Scalia imagined in his 2000 decision was a system without party labels on the ballot.
See ALL of the primary articles.
http://www.brookings.edu/research/flash-topics/flash-topic-folder/the-primaries-project
How many types of primaries are there NOW in the U.S.A. —
1. All voters vote — top 2 primaries.
2. Some voters vote by party without non-party voters.
3. Some voters vote by party with independents.
4. Some voters vote by party with other parties.
5. 3 and 4 combined.
6. Even more strange types ???
NO SUPER-DANGEROUS EXTREMIST primaries.
A BAD idea in 1890 — now a pending political time-bomb.
P.R. and nonpartisan App.V.
Why did Justice Stevens in his dissent say that Scalia was describing Louisiana?
Justice Scalia said that all candidates would qualify for the primary ballot, and that the state would set the qualifications. He said the parties might make nominations. So the Natural Law Party would make a nomination, and the nominee would qualify based on that nomination, but would appear on the ballot without “Natural Law”?
California and Washington have set the qualifications. In California it is a petition plus a fee. In Washington it is a fee.
Neither the system used in Washington nor California have the crucial aspect of California’s 1998-2000 partisan blanket primary, that the primary serves to make party nominations.
Scalia did not say that the system used in Washington was not what he had in mind in the California decision.
Demo Rep:
I’d rather have some type of primary election than revert back to the old convention system when the “bosses” did control the outcome.
At least the primary election – even in the Deep South – which was dominated by the Democratic Party – did provide a choice of candidates.
In those primaries there could be sometimes 10 or 12 persons seeking the nomination for the offices to filled.
Again, at least the voters had a choice. And that choice ranged from progressive candidates to conservative candidates and some in between.
NO primaries.
ALL candidates get on GENERAL election ballots by nominating petitions.
Then – P.R. and nonpartisan App.V.
SIMPLE enough for the SCOTUS MORONS to understand ???
Demo Rep
When I was a kid growing up, I developed an interest in politics. Living in a state where the Democratic Party dominated, I remember seeing the sample ballot printed in the local newspapers with the large caption before the listing of the candidates reading DEMOCRATIC PRIMARY.
Also, the candidates would hand out their cards (or what few could afford the nicer brochures), and there were words on the card or brochure which would read something to the effect “Subject to the Democratic Primary.”
I just thought those words meant the elections were democratic in nature, and it was a few years later before I realized there could be such a thing as a REPUBLICAN PRIMARY.
And of course in this particular state, no one ever heard of a INDEPENDENT candidate.
Now some decades later, things have really changed, even though 3rd parties and Independents have not caught on with the voters as they should.