Joe Mathews has this piece, advocating proportional representation for the California legislature. Mathews lives in southern California and comments frequently on politics and govenment.
Ballot Access News
Edited By Richard Winger
Joe Mathews has this piece, advocating proportional representation for the California legislature. Mathews lives in southern California and comments frequently on politics and govenment.
Why not let the 2nd place candidate fill out the remainder of the term, if a candidate resigns for a reason other than death or health reasons?
If someone wants a special election, let them pay for it.
I don’t see how having the next person on a list fill-in will give representation to people in Fresno. Would there be anyone from the Central Valley on a party list?
I’d like to see proportional representation in at least one house of our legislature, but Jim raises a fair point about the possibility of a whole region going unrepresented if we go with one statewide list. We could use multi-member districts of equal population to balance the issue of regionalism with broad representation, or if we must stick with bicameralism then have a statewide purely proportional chamber and another one still chosen from districts.
Other alternatives to the issue of special elections would be holding a resigning office-holder financially responsible for the costs of filling a seat he ran for and then abandoned, or simply requiring candidates on the ballot to designate a “running mate” to serve as an unpaid alternate who can step in should he not be able to complete his term. The second option would at least mean it’s those same general election voters choosing any *potential* officeholder to fill out that term.
I prefer having multi-member seats over Proportional representation for the State Assembly. Each District could hold from 5-9 seats with all candidates active Party membership listed. Furthermore, a limit (of 1/2 the seats available rounding up) on the number of candidates a voter could vote for would work to provide different views a place in the legislature. A problem with party lists is party big-wigs would usually control who could get on it, thereby stifling dissent within a party. For the issue of vacancies I suggest the next 2 or 3 candidates be listed as Alternates to fill- in the unexpired length of an Assembly member’s term.