On March 15, at 1:30 pm, in room 3191, the California Senate Elections Committee will hear SB 205. This bill makes it illegal for anyone to pay anyone else to register voters, if the payment is made on a per-registration card basis. The bill is authored by Senator Lou Correa (D-Santa Ana), chairman of the Elections Committee.
The only feasible way for a group to become a qualified party in California is to persuade 103,004 voters to change their voter registration, so that the record lists them as members of that new party (the 103,004 figure is 1% of the number of voters who voted in November 2010). No party has used this method for getting on the ballot in the last 50 years without paying canvassers to get out on the street and persuade voters to change their registration. Experience shows that it is necessary to pay these canvassers on a per-registration basis. SB 205 provides that if the payment is made “willfully”, the person who pays must not only be fined, but sent to prison for six months.
The Senate Elections Committee will also hear SB 168 by Senator Ellen Corbett (D-San Leandro) to make it illegal to pay anyone “directly or indirectly” to gather signatures on an initiative, referendum, or recall petition on a per-signature basis.
This the usual method, they pass the Top Two claiming it will help us, then start adding stuff only for us and the Indys.
right on, Knighton!
California, stop this bill and repeal prop 14.
Richard Winger
Please post the text here. Also do you plan to me there?
Sincerely, Mark Seidenberg, Vice Chairman, American Independent Party
is there a chance to testify?
hank c
Yes, anyone can testify. I plan to be there. Anyone can read the bill on-line by going to the web page of the California State Senate, and clicking on “Legislation”, and then entering the bill number.
How does this have an impact on party qualification?
Do political parties actually hire solicitors on the basis of paying them $10 if the voter registers in a particular party, and $0 if the voter registers in some other party? If so, then isn’t there a big incentive for such a solicitor to induce voters to join that political party, or simply discard registration forms for the wrong party?
#1 What does this have to do with Top 2, especially since you are in Washington where there is no party registration, and in the last Pick-A-Party election in 2006 there was exactly one legislative candidate who was neither a Republican nor a Democrat.
It is is a live legal issue whether the California Secretary of State is misconstruing SB 6 with respect to party affiliation of candidates who happen to be affiliated with a party that is not qualified to conduct a presidential primary in California.
Jim Riley
That is why the elector needs to check their own registration. I remember in 1968, I registered for
the first time as a 21 year old Republican. I thought
at the time to try registering in San Franciso as American Independent Party elector. But the deputy registrar of voters in San Francisco rejected my application, because I was a college student and had to register at my parents home.
The point of the above was employees of the County in
San Francisco in early 1968 were actively trying to keep
the American Independent Party off the ballot in 1968.
Not filing voter registration is a crime. I can not
see a reason not to pay people that work on registration to get payed for it by elector.
I was not going to broadcast my joining the AIP to my
parents. So I registered Republican and voted for
Ronald Reagan and not George Wallace. Being Jewish
and AIP would have not gone over very well with my
Rabbi. He was bent out of shape because, I was a Republican and not a socialist Democrat.
Sincerely, Mark Seidenberg,
Vice Chairman, American Independent Party
How does this have an impact on party qualification?
Both make it very difficult for anyone except a Democrat or Republican to participate in November elections or have their party label on the ballot in any election. Especially when taken together.
Do political parties actually hire solicitors on the basis of paying them $10 if the voter registers in a particular party, and $0 if the voter registers in some other party?
Solicitors is the wrong word, but yes, political parties do hire people for this purpose.
If so, then isn’t there a big incentive for such a solicitor (sic) to induce voters to join that political party, or simply discard registration forms for the wrong party?
Of course the idea is to get people to register with a political party (not necessarily join, since that usually involves paying money to the party). Discarding valid registrations is already illegal.
California is nearly a lost cause not just for the AIP (regardless of which faction), but for all third parties, even the Greens.
Pingback: California has bill which proposes to make it illegal to pay people to collect voter registrations on a per registration basis | Independent Political Report
The WEST must/will save the East.
Some of the EVIL party hack ANTI-Democracy gerrymander robots in CA are apparently as EVIL powermad as any EVIL rotted statist monsters in world history — Stalin, Hitler, Kaiser Bill, Napoleon, etc.
P.R. and App.V.
You [should] know what to do — esp. in CA.
See Col. John Wayne – Horse Soldiers movie 1959.
and — 1776 DOI – para. 2.
#8 If a candidate can not finish in the Top 2, then what does it matter whether they participate in the election which determines who is actually elected?
In Washington, before they implemented the Top 2 Open Primary, there was exactly one legislative candidate who was not a member of the Republican or Democratic Party. It was only after Washington adopted the Top 2 Open Primary that the Salmon Yoga label appeared on the ballot.
In the first special senate election in California, there were more candidate who were not affiliated with a qualified party, as there were in the previous two dozen special elections combined. The simplest straightforward reading of California statutes would not restrict candidates affiliated with non-qualified parties from running with that party affiliation on the ballot.
It was adoption of the Top 2 Open Primary that caused the opposite of the effect you claim it does.
So you are saying that political parties pay individuals to assist persons to fill in a voter registration affidavit if the voter agrees to register with Party A, but would not pay the individual rendering the assistance if the voter chose to register with Party B? Why is someone getting paid piece work, going to spend any effort helping someone register if he isn’t going to get paid. While he can’t discard a completed form, is he required to offer a form to any individual he encounters? And even then is he required to take the form back into his possession? Can’t he just tell the individual to mail it in?
Unless there are other plausible ways to minimize fraud by paid signature gatherers, I’m afraid that we are going to have to accept a loss on this issue. That includes losing in the courts. Two circuits have upheld these provisions. The only courts to invalidate them are district courts.
Is there a state constitutional issue in California that is not raised by other state constitutions?
#13, All the lawsuits on this issue that have actually presented evidence on the issue of paying people per-signature have won. That includes Citizens for Tax Reform v Deters, which won in the 6th circuit as well as in U.S. District Court. Ohio asked for U.S. Supreme Court review and the U.S. Supreme Court turned the state down. See 518 F.3d 375 (2008).
It is true that in 2006, the 9th circuit refused to strike down an Oregon law like this. But, the 9th circuit said, “We do not hold that Oregon measure 26 is facially constitutional. Rather, we hold that because the district court did not clearly err in determining plaintiffs failed to establish that Measure 26 significantly diminishes the pool of potential petition circulators, increases the cost of signature gathering, we cannot conclude that Measure 26 imposes a severe burden. We express no opinion, however, regarding whether Measure 26 could withstand strict scrutiny had plaintiffs proven the measure imposed a severe burden.” Prete v Bradbury, 438 F 3d 949. The plaintiffs in that case foolishly presented no evidence.
In 2010, a US District Court in Colorado held a trial on a similar law and found that the experts who have actually studied petition fraud believe that a ban on per-signature collection does not help prevent fraud. He also found that the vast majority of professional circulators do not engage in fraud. They are good at what they do and committing fraud might end their careers. The Colorado case is The Independence Institute v Buescher.
Yup, the “California Forward” agenda of wiping out multi-party democracy in the state continues.
Obviously the days of third parties in California are over. They really have themselves to blame for their petty infighting and their allowance of inflitrators like David Cobb to enter our state and completely corrupt our political process inside the parties themselves.
Of course with no electoral recourse, alternative politics in the state are going to undertake, shall we say, “alternative” means of making their message heard. I don’t think the powers-that-be are going to enjoy those means very much.
#15, so — yes or no — contrary to what the California State Senate staff analysis says, there’s actually a circuit split on this?
Charles Douglas
Who is David Cobb?
Sincerely, Mark Seidenberg
Vice Chairman, American Independent Party
Mark — Cobb was the fake Green Party presidential candidate in 2004 who divided the party and kept Ralph Nader off the ballot in several key states, particularly California. The Green Party nationally never recovered from his “anybody but Bush” penetration of the party by Democrat sympathizers, and the GP of Humboldt County has since been crippled by his infiltration and Stalinist purge.
Again – petition circulators are akin to NOTARY PUBLICS — a HIGH public office.
Would King George III loved to have had laws against ALL petition circulators — paid and unpaid — in those bothersome American colonies on the East Coast ???
#15 Did any of these cases involve solicitation of party registration switches where the solicitor was paid to induce voters to switch their party registration, or was paid a different amount for favorable party registrations vs. unfavorable party registrations?
That appeared to be the premise behind your original post, that this would bill would harmful to political parties. Since the ballot qualifications for individual candidates was greatly reduced by Proposition 14, didn’t its passage harm the business of the professional solicitation firms? Would someone hire a professional solicitor to collect in-lieu-of signatures, or the 40 signatures needed to run for the legislature or congress?
Wouldn’t it be simpler to get rid of the high qualification standards for presidential candidates in California?
If a voter is just encouraged to register, or to sign a qualifying petition for a measure or a candidate, there is little direct harm to the voter. There may be indirect harm if a measure is passed, and the result harms the individual – but in that case the electorate as a whole will have to vote for the measure. It is similar in the case of an individual candidacy, where having the candidate on the ballot could result in the defeat of the candidate favored by the voter. But the read direct harm would be if resulted in a voter being barred from voting in a primary election.
If a candidate can not finish in the Top 2, then what does it matter whether they participate in the election which determines who is actually elected?
For one thing, they might actually come from behind and get elected. For another, it gives them the opportunity to build for next time, identify supporters, get the message out, build the party or organization, swing the race, participate in debates, get a ballot statement in the election pamphlet, and give voters a choice who don’t otherwise have one.
Your question makes as much sense as asking if the candidate can’t finish in the top one why should they participate in the election.
Why two? What if there are three or four candidates that are all very close together? What if the third place finisher just narrowly misses the cutoff?
If “top two” becomes the norm in American elections this country is done, you will have a dictatorship in everything but name, since the top two are usually not that different and you will cut off one of the very few remaining ways of making large numbers of people aware of that fact.
If anything, get rid of government-printed ballots and let people vote for whoever they want using their own ballot slips whether they are home made or distributed by a party machine.
In the first special senate election in California, there were more candidate who were not affiliated with a qualified party, as there were in the previous two dozen special elections combined. The simplest straightforward reading of California statutes would not restrict candidates affiliated with non-qualified parties from running with that party affiliation on the ballot.
Yet that is not the interpretation which is being implemented, and it still restricts those candidates out of the bulk of the real campaign season when a lot more people are paying attention.
It was adoption of the Top 2 Open Primary that caused the opposite of the effect you claim it does.
That’s not what my friends in the Libertarian Party of Washington State tell me. It has been a virtual death knell. And California’s system is even worse.
So you are saying that political parties pay individuals to assist persons to fill in a voter registration affidavit if the voter agrees to register with Party A, but would not pay the individual rendering the assistance if the voter chose to register with Party B? Why is someone getting paid piece work, going to spend any effort helping someone register if he isn’t going to get paid. While he can’t discard a completed form, is he required to offer a form to any individual he encounters? And even then is he required to take the form back into his possession? Can’t he just tell the individual to mail it in?
If I am out there being paid by one party to register voters, why should I register voters for any other party or hand out free forms? If I was not out there, then the person who runs in to me would not be getting any assistance or having forms handed out. They can still go wherever they would otherwise go to register to vote. having me out there registering voters does not take anything away from that person. If the state makes my job illegal, they will not gain anything, as I will simply not be out there and they will still not get any assistance or free forms.
However, in many such cases I have had a large supply of forms on hand and I actually did give out free forms. Assistance in filling them out or turning it in for them, not so much. But even a free form handed to them is more than they would have gotten had I been precluded from having those jobs.
It’s absolutely astounding that anyone would think it would be my obligation to hand out forms, help them to fill them out or hand them back in for free if they want to register with a different party, and their solution to that would be to not have me out there at all. How does that help such people? The answer is that of course it doesn’t, it does one thing and one thing only and that is keep additional parties from being able to get or stay on the ballot. Which is exactly the intent: to take choices away from people.
@21 Petitioning is not soliciting. Soliciting is something prostitutes and lawyers do.
That appeared to be the premise behind your original post, that this would bill would harmful to political parties.
Of course it would. If you have to register 100,000+ voters, they are not just going to fall in your lap, nor are you likely to do it with volunteers or with paying people by the hour.
It is absolutely no one’s rightful business who pays who how much to do what if both parties are willing and the work does not involve initiation of coercion. The only legitimate parties to such an agreement are the ones paying and the ones being paid, and the government should keep its meddling out.
#22 For one thing, they might actually come from behind and get elected.
Isn’t this also true of the race for the Superintendent of Public Instruction, or for county supervisors, or most city officials?
For another, it gives them the opportunity to build for next time, identify supporters, get the message out, build the party or organization, swing the race, participate in debates, get a ballot statement in the election pamphlet, and give voters a choice who don’t otherwise have one.
Candidates may produce a ballot statement for the primary, they may participate in debates; and swing the race. The purpose of an election is not to build parties or organizations, though it may be used as a vehicle for that. If you wanted to advance to the Top 2, wouldn’t you seek to identify your supporters before the primary? You have not identified anything that can not occur before the primary.
Why two? What if there are three or four candidates that are all very close together? What if the third place finisher just narrowly misses the cutoff?
At one time, some New England states held what they referred to as “trials” in which they tried to elect a candidate with a majority. If no candidate received a majority, they would simply hold a new election in a month or two. Sometimes this would go on for the whole congressional term.
Certainly you could have more than two advance, but then you would have to provide for additional elections. How would you handle this?
If anything, get rid of government-printed ballots and let people vote for whoever they want using their own ballot slips whether they are home made or distributed by a party machine.
This was the case when the New England states held trials. Sometimes the same candidates would show up in trial after trial, and finally a new candidate might appear. Sometimes that would make no difference, and the original candidate might return to the race. Some of the complete deadlocks occurred in the period when slavery was heating up as an issue when the Democrats and Whigs were competing for control of Congress, and Free Soilers would not give way. Top 2 Would have broken the deadlock.
Jim, California already had experience with primary ballots that list all the candidates, in the blanket primary years 1998 and 2000. The primary ballots for offices like Governor, US Senator, and even president had from 14 to 23 candidates. In such a crowded primary field, there was no visibility at all for the minor party and independent candidates. Even Ralph Nader in 2000 within San Francisco only placed fifth, far from being first or second, which top two requires in order to run in the election itself. You haven’t lived through it; those of us in California have lived through it.
Isn’t this also true of the race for the Superintendent of Public Instruction, or for county supervisors, or most city officials?
Yes.
Candidates may produce a ballot statement for the primary, they may participate in debates; and swing the race. The purpose of an election is not to build parties or organizations, though it may be used as a vehicle for that. If you wanted to advance to the Top 2, wouldn’t you seek to identify your supporters before the primary? You have not identified anything that can not occur before the primary.
Far fewer people pay attention during the primary, plus what Mr. Winger says at 27.
Certainly you could have more than two advance, but then you would have to provide for additional elections. How would you handle this?
I would go with the system of allowing each party to have one candidate on the November ballot per office. They would be required to pay for their own internal candidate selection process, whether it be by convention or primary. I’m guessing most would go with convention. Independents would get on the ballot without having to go through primaries through some very easy system, and the only disadvantage to them would be not having a party label.
The California race for Supt. of Public Instruction is NOT like a top-two race. The California race for Supt. of Public Instruction, which is non-partisan, has the election itself in June. It is an “election” because someone can get elected at it, and generally someone does. There is a run-off in November if no one gets 50%. But because the first event is an election, debates for that office are held before the first event, because that might be the only opportunity. By contrast, no one hosts inclusive debates in a top-two system before the first round, because there are too many candidates, and there is a guarantee that the election itself will be held, in November, no matter what.
An *election* is making a choice.
Obviously may or may not be final in a public election — depending on the LAW.
#29 In 4 of the last 6 elections for Superintending of Public Instruction, no one was elected at the primary in June (or March). In the other two elections there was an incumbent, and relatively few other candidates, and the incumbent was re-elected with around 55% of the vote.
If there was a possibility of a winner in an Open Primary, as there is in Louisiana and in special elections in California, you would be in favor?
ps Turnout for the AD 4 special primary: 21.5% which is comparable to turn out in special elections before Proposition 14. The results from Los Angeles were less because Lindsey Lohan was not on the ballot.
Where is the reform petition in CA for —
1. Equal ballot access for all candidates for the same office in the same area.
2. P.R.
3. App.V.
ONE *election* day.
NO primaries are needed or wanted.
#29 State elections in California must comply with the California Constitution and the US Constitution, correct?
In addition congressional elections in California must also comply with the time, place, manner regulations promulgated by Congress (so long as those are in compliance with the US Constitution), correct?
These elections are conducted under California statutes, but if there is any part of the statute that is in conflict with either constitution, then it is the statute that gives way.
Since the California Constitution says that state and congressional elections shall be conducted at Top 2 Open Primary elections, shouldn’t your lawsuit seek to enjoin the statutory provisions that you believe are unconstitutional, rather than demanding that the elections be conducted in violation of the California Constitution?
#27 Ralph Nader received 6.5% of the vote in the March 2008 primary, and 7.8% of the vote in November. Candidates who received 21.5% of the vote in March were excluded from the November ballot, so one would expect Nader to pick up some of this support.
The November ballot included the 1st, 4th, 5th, 7th, 13th and 18th place candidates from the primary, plus another who was not even on the primary ballot.
Many voters may have voted in the races that they thought were more interesting, even though they were told that their votes would be disregarded. If the San Francisco voters had been choosing the nominees, Al Gore would have been the nominee of the Democratic, American Independent, and Natural Law parties; George Bush the Republican nominee; John McCain the Libertarian and Reform nominee; and Ralph Nader the Green nominee. In a Top 2 format Al Gore and Bill Bradley would have qualified.
The closest approximation that a blanket primary provides to a Top 2 Open primary is when the general election and primary ballot are the same (ie only one candidate per party nomination, and no independent candidates). In races like these, the minor party candidates did better in the primary than they did in the general election. Are you arguing that minor parties do better when no one is paying attention?
It is more likely that voters can vote their true preference in such an election, knowing that their vote will not be wasted. This would be even more true in an actual Top 2 election when voters knew that their vote might help their preferred candidate qualify.
@31 Open primary is a misnomer.
I am in favor of a system where each political party has one candidate on the ballot in November per office, plus independents. How the parties pick their candidates should be up to them, but it should not be billed to the taxpayers.
Being stuck in a crowded field with multiple Democrats and multiple Republicans is not a way to get media exposure, debate opportunities, etc., for say a Libertarian Party candidate. That will still be the case even if one Democrat or one Republican is an overwhelming favorite and can win the whole thing in the first round.
See Richard @27.
#28 Why should a party be permitted to “have” a candidate on the ballot. Maybe for debates, there could be the party chairman, with the candidate sitting on their lap. Whenever the candidate speaks, their could be a camera shot that shows their back so we can see whether the chairman’s hand is moving. Perhaps political ads could have a disclaimer, “This ad has the approval of the Partyist Party, and does not necessarily reflect the viewpoints of the candidate”
Why should someone be elected without support of a majority of the voters?
#35 How would you characterized a process that was open to all candidates and voters, and was the first, or primary, step in a two step election process.
Dale Ogden got 1.5% of the vote in 2010. I doubt that he will even get a American Express commercial.
Reviewing the gerrymander history of pre-top 2 CA politics is a total waste of time.
CA 2012 top 2 primary getting closer each day.
The top 2 primary with the latest and greatest gerrymander districts has lots of party hack robot incumbents sweating political bullets.
HOWEVER – the circa 30 percent minority rule math will be the same — average 60 percent winners in a bare majority of the gerrymander districts for one robot party control.
Jim Riley, Richard Winger, & paulie
This is not related, but you all currently on this topic line so I wlll let you know a dog and pony show on redistricting will take place at the Auditorium of the California Secretary of State Building tomorrow at
12:30 and at 5:30 p.m. tomorrow.
Sincerely, Mark Seidenberg
“#8 If a candidate can not finish in the Top 2, then what does it matter whether they participate in the election which determines who is actually elected?”
Anyone who knows jack about politics knows most of the movement on a campaign happens during the last couple weeks. This is especially true for underdog candidates. All top two does it make it ten times harder for underdogs, but making them have to catch up to the big names by the primary, instead of having the entire calendar to catch up.
#40 They only have to get into the Top 2 during the primary.
#41 They “only” have to get into the Top 2 during the primary? That is much more restrictive than California’s past general election ballot access laws.
Number of statewide candidates for each office:
2010: 6
Top Two: 2
Number of candidates for Board of Equalization:
2010: 4 or 5 per district
Top Two: 2
#42 What about Superintendent of Public Instruction?
Pingback: Further Entrenching America’s One Party State « Red Quixote
Pingback: Free and Equal: ‘All-out assault on democracy in California’ | Independent Political Report
Pingback: Free and Equal: ‘All-out assault on democracy in California’ | Daily Libertarian