1. I hope they have another vote pretty soon on amending the state constitution again to get rid of top-two, and return to the usual way of holding primary elections.

2. IMO, California should return to partisan primaries BUT with Condorcet or instant runoff voting for all offices in both the primary and general election. I think a petition circulated on the basis of making a new reform will get further than simply a proposal to return to the old system.

3. The talks about the need for political opposition to be genuinely split to have any chance of majoritarian victory, and of course that’s an awful requirement.

4. I oppose top two and favor a return to partisan primaries for Congress and state office in California, but top two is not the reason the California Republican Party is a declining force in California politics. California has a larger than normal percentage of immigrants, and they all have relatives who are U.S. citizens. When California Republicans lined up behind Prop. 187 and engaged in vicious anti-immigrant rhetoric, they ensured declining support from voters who are more tolerant. And Californians rejected George W Bush’s pre-emptive war in Iraq, and have expressed that rejection by voting against pro-war Republicans. Republicans have to adopt views that are acceptable to California voters if they want support. Top two has magnified the Republican decline, but Republicans brought on their own problems with California voters.

5. So California voters choose pro-war Democrats instead? Obama expanded the war on terror and set the precedent for killing American citizens with drones. People need to see the truth that both parties are pro-war, they are two sides of the same coin, and when you have a bad coin you hand it off and demand change.

6. The California Republican Party won the gubernatorial elections in 1994, 2003 and 2006. Also the California Republicans won a slight majority in the Assembly in 1994. So at least initially, Prop. 187 (which passed in 1994) wasn’t the total reason the Republicans are so weak in California.

7. Brandon – Barack Obama ran in 2008 on a platform of withdrawing from Iraq – and he did withdraw almost all US forces. Yes, we can criticize his interventionism, but the Republicans under Bush pushed for a full scale invasion preceded by a massive missile assault.

   Richard, except for Arnold Schwarzenegger being elected Governor in 2003 and 2006 based on celebrity, the Republican victories you mention took place in 1994, the year Proposition 187 passed. Republicans thought it would help them and it did, in 1994. But their losses since then reflect a shift in voting by Hispanics; there had been a growing Hispanic Republican element in California until 1994, and that growth reversed after passage of the “Save Our State” initiarive.

8. Obama did run on that, but he was reelected in 2012 by a huge margin in CA, and by the time he left office those troops and drones that he “pulled out” of Iraq were fighting/bombing in a total of 7 countries (Syria, Afghanistan, Libya, Yemen, Somalia, Pakistan, and Iraq(still))

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