Critics of “top-two” sometimes argue that “top-two” is even more favorable to incumbent office-holders than normal elections are. A look at Louisiana’s U.S. House elections, 1978 through 2006, tends to confirm this criticism. Louisiana held 120 regularly-scheduled U.S. House elections in that period, the period in which Louisiana used “top-two” for Congressional elections. Special elections are excluded from this study, since virtually by definition, there is no incumbent in a special election.
Out of those 120 U.S. House elections, an incumbent was defeated only three times. And in two of those three instances, it was impossible for an incumbent not to lose, because one incumbent was running against another incumbent, due to redistricting.
But, when Louisiana abandoned “top-two” in Congressional elections starting in 2008, and used ordinary elections in which each party chose its own nominee in closed or semi-closed primaries, two incumbents were defeated in the general election, out of seven races. The two incumbents who were defeated in the general election of 2008 were William Jefferson, a Democrat from New Orleans, and Don Cazayoux, a Democrat from Baton Rouge. Both of the 2008 elections in which the incumbent lost were multi-party races, in which the winner was elected with a plurality, but not a majority.
During the years Louisiana used “top-two” for Congressional elections, the only incumbent who lost and who wasn’t running against another incumbent was Claude Leach in 1980. The two incumbents who lost to other incumbents were Jerry Huckaby and Clyde Holloway, both of whom were defeated in 1992, after Louisiana lost one seat in the House due to the 1990 census.
Almost every democracy in the world has all political political parties running against each other in a general election. A top two system is simply a power grab by the two larger parties to prevent any independent or smaller party from presenting their case to the voters.
1) Billy Tauzin retired before the 2004 elections, his son Billy lost to Charlie Melancon
2) Top-Two is pretty likely to benefit incumbents but Louisiana is also a very pro-incumbent state compared to the average. I think that Mississippi and Arkansas can challenge Louisiana for that title.
Another part of California’s problem probably involves having so few legislators represent so many people. Or having 40 state senators and 53 Congressmen
Every election is NEW and has ZERO to do with any prior election.
P.R. and nonpartisan A.V.
NO STONE AGE party hack caucuses, primaries and conventions are needed.
Thank you very much, Mr. Anon. I will fix the post.
#1: “A top two system is simply a power grab by the two larger parties…”
Neither the Democrats nor the Republicans like the “top two,” since they want to be able to have official nominees, and the “top two” does not guarantee them the ability to have a candidate in the final election. The California Republican Party has come out against the “top two”; I don’t think the Democratic Party has taken a position yet, but the state Dem chairman is strongly against this monstrosity.
In Louisiana, Claude “Buddy” Leach was facing criminal charges in 1980, and, if memory serves, he went to prison. A big factor in Jerry Huckaby’s loss in ’92 was that he had bounced a bunch of checks in the House Bank.
Clyde Holloway had finished a distant fourth for governor in 1991.
In the 6th CD, Don Cazayoux had just been elected in a series of 3 special elections in the Spring of 2008 (Democratic primary, Democratic runoff, and then the special election). He was not elected with a majority (there were 3 minor party candidates who got 4.5% of the vote).
In November 2008, Cazayoux(D) faced Bill Cassidy (R) and Michael Jackson (independent). Jackson got 11% of the vote, and Cassidy was elected with 48% to 40% for Cazayoux. But Jackson had run as a Democrat during the special elections in the spring, and had received 43% of the vote in the Democratic runoff against Cazayoux.
So in effect, the November general election was more like a conventional Louisiana election in that all candidates and all voters participated, except that there was no runoff. Moreover, Cazayoux was running with a presidential candidate who was quite unpopular in some parts of the district. In Livingston Parish, the 2nd most populous in the district, Obama received 13% of the vote. Cazayoux received more than twice as many votes as Obama there.
So the incumbent had only been in office for 6 months, had first been elected in a series of special elections using the corrupt partisan primary system without a majority; the November general election was actually more like an open primary; and was conducted at the same time as a national election where the incumbent’s party’s presidential candidate may have dragged him down. Also turnout for the November election was over 3 times as great as for the May special election.
In the 2nd CD, the incumbent, William Jefferson(D), was under federal indictment and the federal government had recovered $90,000 in cold cash from his freezer. The election schedule had been pushed back because of Hurricane Gustav, so that the Democratic runoff was held on the November 8 at the time of the presidential election, and the “general election” was in December. Turnout for the “general election” was 40% of the vote in the Democratic runoff. President-elect Obama refused to campaign for Jefferson and many Democrats sat out the runoff. Had the general election been on schedule, Jefferson would have won – but he might have lost a primary runoff in October. If Jefferson hadn’t been under indictment, it is unlikely that there would have been a 2nd primary, so the general election would have been in November. You simply can’t attribute Jefferson’s defeat to the switch to partisan primaries – the hurricane and the indictment were extremely significant in the result.
Note that there was another open seat in Louisiana in 2008, in CD4, where the “general election” was in December, and which the winner did not receive a majority.
Looking back over the results from 1978-2007, not only were incumbents rarely defeated, they were rarely challenged. The only time an incumbent was defeated was in 1980 when Buddy Roemer defeated Buddy Leach in CD4.
Buddy Leach had first been elected in the first open primary in 1978, when 9-term congressman Joe D. Waggonner did not seek re-election. Roemer had criticized Waggonner’s pet project for the district, and Waggonner had endorsed Leach. In the open primary, Leach 26.9% and Republican Jimmy Wilson 26.8% had eliminated Roemer 25.6% and 6 others. Leach defeated Wilson by a narrow 266 votes (0.2%).
In 1980 the same top 3 contested the open primary. This time it was Leach 29.1%, Roemer 26.8%, and Wilson 24.4%, and Roemer went on to defeat Leach in the runoff 63.8% to 36.2%. Such a result would not have been possible in a conventional partisan primary system. Leach would probably have won a Democratic primary in 1978 based on the retiring incumbent’s endorsement, and Roemer might not have even challenged an incumbent in a party primary in 1980.
So this 1980 election was similar to the 2008 election in CD4, where you had a short-term incumbent, and a very narrow (albeit majority) victory in the final preceding deciding election.
Roemer would of course go on to defeat (TKO) an incumbent in the 1983 gubernatorial race, and was himself defeated in his 1987 re-election attempt in the open primary. In fact, of the 4 open primary gubernatorial elections in which an incumbent has sought re-election, 3 times the incumbent has been beaten (1983, 1987, and 1991). In a potential 5th instance in 2007, the incumbent decided not to seek re-election rather than be defeated.
The moron California Republican Senator Maldanado who pushed the “top two” on to us would have lost his own 2006 race for State Controller under that system. Plus it would have been two Democrats facing off in November.
Controller; Democratic Party
John Chiang ………. 1,157,724 votes 53.3%
Joe Dunn ………. 1,014,418 votes 46.7%
Controller; Republican Party
Tony Strickland ………. 689,065 votes 40.7%
Abel Maldonado ………. 626,552 votes 37%
Jim Stieringer ………. 210,691 votes 12.4%
Bret R. Davis ………. 91,758 votes 5.4%
David L. Harris ………. 76,310 votes 4.5%
#6: “Roemer would… go on to defeat (TKO) an incumbent in the 1983 gubernatorial race, and was himself defeated in his 1987 re-election attempt in the [“top two”]. In fact, of the [5 “top two”] gubernatorial elections in which an incumbent has sought re-election, 3 times the incumbent has been beaten (1983, 1987, and 1991).”
It was in 1987 that Buddy Roemer was elected governor, and in 1991 that he was beaten.
In 1983, one-term Republican Gov. David Treen lost to the Democrat Edwin Edwards, who at the time was one of the most popular politicians in Louisiana history. After serving the limit of two consecutive terms, Edwards had been out of office for four years. He and Treen were the only serious candidates in the ’83 race, and Edwards won without a runoff, getting some 64% of the vote.
Edwards sought re-election in ’87 despite having (1) been tried for fraud, and (2) raised taxes in a bad economy. He nevertheless finished second to Roemer, also a Democrat. Edwards then declined a runoff, and Roemer took office after getting just 33% of the vote.
Roemer was a weak, lousy governor. He flip-flopped on abortion and got divorced, both of which badly hurt him in a heavily Catholic state. He switched to the Republicans in March 1991, and despite having the backing of President Bush I and the national GOP, Roemer didn’t even make the ’91 runoff, which featured Edwards and David Duke, the ex-Ku Klux Klan leader (Clyde Holloway, who was endorsed by the state GOP, ran fourth).
When Roemer ran again in 1995, he finished fourth.
In 1975, the first year Louisiana used the “top two,” the incumbent Edwards was re-elected, as was Gov. Mike Foster, a nominal Republican, in 1999.
The 1995 runoff featured Foster and a black liberal Democrat. Now-US senator Mary Landrieu had finished third. (Foster, age 65 and a lifelong Democrat, had switched to the Republicans a short time prior to the first round of voting.)
Post #7 isn’t really being fair to Senator Maldonado, because the 2006 race for California State Controller was in a semi-closed primary.
One could also say that if “top-two” had been used for the presidential election of 2008, the only candidates in November 2008 would have been Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, since each of them received more presidential primary votes than any Republican running for President did. However, that wouldn’t be a good analysis either, because the presidential primaries of 2008 were sometimes closed, sometimes semi-closed, and sometimes open. But none of them were using “top-two” rules, so it would be a cheap shot.
#6: “… the corrupt partisan primary system…”
The only states that use the “top two” to elect all of their state officials are Louisiana and Washington state; only Washington uses it to elect its congressional delegation.
Louisiana uses party primaries for its congressional elections; both Louisiana and Washington state provide the option of presidential primaries. All of the other states use primaries to choose the parties’ candidates for state and congressional offices, and party primaries are also used in some local elections. (A few states also have other nominating options– such as conventions.)
So if party primaries are inherently corrupt, there’s obviously one hell of a lot of corruption in the good ol’ U. S. A.
Never mind that party primaries are the most democratic method of nomination.
#10 Get REAL. TOTAL corruption.
The EVIL special interest PLURALITY gangs pick the extremist nominees in the Donkey / Elephant party hack primaries. Runoff primaries in about 8 [???] southern States — pre-1964 totally Donkey.
Only about 4 percent of gerrymander districts are any where near *competitive*.
Result — in about 96 percent of the gerrymander districts the primary extremist nominee gets de facto AUTOMATICALLY elected due to the rigged gerrymander districts.
The U.S.A. is NOT a *democratic* regime — but a totally EVIL de facto monarchy / oligarchy of the EVIL gerrymander MONSTERS due to gerrymanders, plurality primaries and plurality general elections — pre-school math.
P.R. and nonpartisan A.V.
NO party hack primaries are needed.
The bottom line is that the top-two system is unfair to independent and/or “third party” candidates. Therefore, in the long run, it will not be considered by the U.S. Supreme Court to be Constitutional. We may have to be very creative while waiting for that final verdict, however.
#12 Louisiana in fact has two legislators elected as independents. Compare that to California where it is all but impossible for an independent to even get on the ballot.
In November 2008, California had two independents on the November ballot for US House, and one on for State Senate. Independent candidates have been elected to the California State Senate in 1986, 1990, 1992 and 1994.
#14 California had to change its laws to permit Lucy Killea to run as an independent in 1992. She had registered as a Democrat in order to support the election of FDR, and was elected as a Democrat in a special election late in 1989.
Disgusted with the partisan antics of the legislature, she changed her voter registration to DTS in 1991; at which time she found that she would be unable to run as an independent for re-election in 1992. While California only requires a candidate to be a member of a party for 3 months in order to seek the nomination of that party, it forbids someone who was a member of a party within the previous 12 months from seeking office. The law was changed so that for someone seeking office as an independent candidate, the 12-month lockout was based on the date of the (November) general election rather than the June (or March) primary.
Lucy Killea and Tom Campbell were among very few political persons who supported the blanket primary.
It is not entirely clear to me why Quentin Kopp ran as an independent in 1986. There is mention of Republican support for his candidacy in a strongly Democratic district. But this may be because of the partisanship of the Democratic candidate in that race. Kopp had come close to being elected mayor of San Francisco in 1979 in a non-partisan election, and about half the district was in the city (and the other half in San Mateo County would likely at least to have some name recognition).
Incidentally, Kopp’s campaign manager in the 1979 mayoral race cited the runoff which Kopp lost as a reason for opposing IRV.
“The six-week slugfest saw Feinstein — who had lost two previous mayoral campaigns — reach inside herself and pull up the strength to fight back and narrowly defeat the underdog Kopp. This was the moment Dianne Feinstein started the climb to greatness.”
http://www.clintreilly.com/ranked-choice-voting/
In California, an independent candidate must have a petition with signatures of 3% of voter registered in the district. For S8 and S39, this would amount to between 13,500 and 14,000 signatures. 3% of registered voters is not so much less than the 5% of votes cast that are required in Illinois for an independent candidate (and California does not give a discount for elections following redistricting, sometimes described as years ending in “2”, where opportunities for non-incumbents may be at there greatest).
If Quentin Kopp had not been a prominent politician in non-partisan offices in a major city, and had Lucy Killea not first won office under a partisan designation they probably could not have even qualified as an independent. So I think “all but impossible” is a reasonable characterization.
Under SB 6, qualification for all candidates regardless of their party preference would be 40 signatures.
Note that on the California Secretary of State’s web site there is a complete explanation of how to run as a partisan candidate in 2010, how to run as a write-in candidates, and how to run in the non-partisan Superintendent of Public Instruction race, but nothing on how to run as an independent.