California county election officials tried very hard recently to eliminate county central committee elections. These party office elections are expensive for county elections officials to administer. These party officer elections use closed primaries, so election administrators must supplement the top-two primary ballots for Congress and state office with closed primary ballots for party office.
SB 441 briefly had been amended to abolish county central committee elections, and then it was amended again to make them voluntary, but the bill has been amended yet again to leave the party central committee elections intact. Ironically, the top-two state constitutional amendment, Prop. 14, passed by the voters in June 2010, adds a provision to the State Constitution saying the legislature shall provide for county central committee elections. Previously, those offices had not been mentioned in the State Constitution. The amendment to SB 441 curtailing the elections tried to get around this constitutional provision by having the legislature tell the parties to provide for these elections. However, if that interpratation were adopted, it would probably be unconstitutional under a 1989 U.S. Supreme Court opinion Eu v San Francisco County Democratic Central Committee, which said state cannot tell parties how to be organized. Thanks to C. T. Weber for this news.
County election officials are not giving up. I was told it was withdrawn until the Democratic Party meets early next year and will then be introduced again.
The California Libertarian and Peace & Freedom Parties ought to put out a press release blasting the Assembly Elections Committee for rejecting one idea that would save taxpayers a lot of money, and not do serious harm, versus the same committee the same day passing a bill that will injure the voting rights of voters who in the future want to vote for parties that do not have registration of about 110,000 members or so.
Please explain, Richard. Are you for or against making the State of California provide for these county central committee elections?
Amend Prop. 14 ASAP — remove all mentions of party hack stuff = help save Western Civilization.
P.R. and App.V.
NO primaries.
If California had fair ballot access for minor parties and independent candidates, I would be in favor of eliminating government-paid-for elections for party office. But California ballot access is so horrible, Peace & Freedom Party, and also American Independent Party, needs county central committee elections to help settle all the competing and warring parts of those parties. Right now, California law lets parties do without these kind of elections, and the Libertarian Party is the only party that has told the state not to hold these kinds of elections. The LP has saved the taxpayers a lot of money by its decision. Half the states do not hold public elections for party officers.
Richard, you write that “SB 441 briefly had been amended to abolish county central committee elections, and then it was amended again to make them voluntary.” I can’t find the text of the first amendment, the one that would have removed county election officials from central committee elections entirely and (according to your post) required parties to run these elections themselves. You mention that this would have constitutional problems under Eu vs. San Francisco Democratic Party. I think it would also have constitutional problems by analogy with with Lubin v. Panish. Not all political parties can afford to run reasonably secure, valid elections for themselves.
By the way, is it possible that the Libertarian Party’s policy of opting out of government-run central committee elections is open to challenge under Prop. 14? What does “provide for” mean in this context? Does making them optional (as the Elections Code currently does for some parties) count as “providing for” them?
Richard Winger,
As the County Central Committee Chairman for Orange County of AIP, the only problem I have is with one member of the County Central Committee. He will not
speak with me or the officers. Therefore, we do not have a problem.
If you good give the history with the amendment history and the dates of these amendment that text changes history would be informative.
Mark Seidenberg, Chairman, Orange County, American Indepeendent Party
What do you mean by “major parties”? Are you using it in the sense used by Gautam Dutta? Or in the more conventional sense of Republican and Democratic parties?
… Glad I don’t live in California anymore
#6 The version passed out of the Senate simply eliminated Section 13305. See the “Introduced” version. Since there is no other text that matches the Senate floor analysis, it appears that California does not separately document the version passed out of the senate committee, or passed by the senate if there is no change.
I could find no direct evidence that the Senate Election and Constitutional Amendments committee has actually met in any of 2011, in terms of agenda, minutes, or any video.
It is clear that this version was supported by the county election officials. In the June 2010 election in San Diego County, the Republican Party provided a three-color insert:
http://www.sdcounty.ca.gov/voters/Eng/election/0610-reppartysbinsertpage.pdf
The San Diego Democratic Party sued the San Diego County Registrar of Voters (see BAN April 23, 2010).
If you read the bill analysis, the “cost” to the counties is defending against lawsuits, not the cost of including the inserts. I don’t know whether the Democratic Party is still opposed to this type of insert or not. They may have realized that they could do the same. If they are still opposed, then they would appear to be using the county election officials to front for them. It is also possible that the county election officials are concerned that the flyer gives the impression of bias, since the sample ballot will be mailed from the county election officials.
The “6/28 Amended” version appears to be the one that eliminates the election of county central committees. But it provides the alternative of a caucus. But the “7/1 Assembly Committee Analysis” says that it was the intent to remove all the central committee elections junk, and go back to the version passed out of the senate.
This analysis says that the county elections officials supported a “prior version”. It is really not clear who instigated all the added provisions.
The second part of Eu v San Francisco County Democratic Central Committee is so badly written it is unclear what are the limits of State regulation of party organization.
In particular it fails to define was it means by “political parties”. State recognition is accorded on the basis of mass support by voters, either in the form of registration or voting for the candidates of the party. Providing that the party is governed by voters affiliated with a political party is no more remarkable than statutes that provide that corporations are governed by their shareholders.
Are the meetings of CACEO open to the public or press? I see that there is a session on implementation of SB 6 at their upcoming convention.
Jim Riley,
Thank you for clearing thing up. Give more details of
what the CACEO is doing about the implementation of SB 6?
Thank you,
Mark Seidenberg, Vice Chairman, American Independent P
Party
Richard Winger
You stated that the State can not tell the parties how to organize. This does not seem to be the practice.
The CA Election code tells the AIP that the Convention and Organizational Meeting of the State Central Committee must meet in the same community (one of 25
communities) in Sacramento County on certain dates.
It tell the AIP the time the meeting or convention
starts and the order of business.
Sincerely, Mark Seidenberg, Vice Chairman, American Independent Party
#14 CACEO is a sponsor of SB 441. The analysis said that a number of county clerks supported the version that had simply eliminated Section 13305. They may have supported the version that tried to change the election of county central committees. If they did, they should be embarrassed for trying to make a bazillion hacks, instead of actually cleaning up the code.
The whole issue has a kind of weird context:
(1) The Republicans did something that the Democrats didn’t like (at the June 2010 primary).
(2) The Democrats sued the San Diego County registrar.
(3) The county election officials support a bill claiming that it will save the taxpayers from legal expenses when sued by political parties. Their solution is to eliminate the thing the Democrats didn’t like.
(4) It is also suggested that this is part of a SB 6 cleanup. Ironically, the Republican insert opposed Proposition 14.
(5) It is implied that the major parties were on board with the elimination of 13305, but were against elimination of the party committee elections.
It would make sense that they were opposed to elimination of 13305, and were indifferent to elimination of the party committee elections.
Since SB 6 was mentioned in the analysis of SB 441, I checked to see if CACEO had a web site. They do, though it is mainly oriented to members rather than the public. I happened to notice that at their convention (which happens next week, or maybe the week following) that one of the presentations was on SB 6. Since they are public officials, and the meeting is part of performing their job, I assume that any information presented is public.
Proposition 14 and SB 6 will require major changes in how elections are conducted, particularly the primary. The special elections conducted under SB 6 really aren’t that significantly different than under the old regime, since there were not true partisan primaries. I doubt that 1% of voters really noticed a difference.
Presumably the election officials would discuss changes in voter registration procedures, though they are not substantially different than the old method, despite Gautam Dutta’s protestations to the contrary.
The conduct of the primary will be quite different since there is no segregation and lockout of voters based on their political beliefs. But it is complicated by the moving of the presidential primary and the retention of the central committee elections.
They would probably go over the procedures for gathering information about pass registration status of candidates, and gathering and presentation of party endorsements on the sample ballot. Since the sample ballots are produced on a county by county basis, conceivably different county parties could make different endorsements in a statewide or multi-county race.
But I would be most interested in how they arrived at the conclusion that a candidate who has expressed a preference for a “non-qualified” party on their registration can not have that preference on the ballot. It is contrary to the California Constitution, and the express language of Elections Code 300.5 and 8002.5.
To Richard Winger (#5, above):
Even if California did have “fair ballot access for minor parties and independent candidates,” there would still be a need for county central committee elections “to help settle all the competing and warring parts” of the American Independent Party of California and the Peace and Freedom Party of California. Writing from the perspective of a political moderate (and a democratic socialist), I think that the State of California and the Counties of California should be compelled to provide these elections at no cost to the parties involved.
Although I understand that you are a Libertarian and I do respect your position, I must take a different approach. It does not seem correct to me that the Libertarian Party voters should be denied the right to vote in primary elections for their party. There have been too many cuts to the budgets of the state and the counties already. Many things should be untouched by budget cuts and we need to bring about higher taxes on the very wealthy (and the huge corporations) to help create a more civilized society and a better world.
Phil
Philippe L. Sawyer, Member:
Sacramento County Central Committee; Peace and Freedom Party of California
Phil, the Vermont Progressive Party is the most successful minor party in the United States at this time, and has been throughout the last decade. But it does not have any state involvement in choosing its party officers.
The Arkansas Green Party, and the Maine Green Party, have elected state legislators, and they have never had any state involvement in choosing their party officers. The Hawaii Green Party has elected partisan county officials, and it never has had any government involvement in choosing its party officers. The Michigan Human Rights Party of the 1970´s once elected partisan local government office-holders and it never had any government involvement in choosing its party officers.
Back in the 1910’s decade, when the Socialist Party was very successful, it went to court in many states to try to avoid being forced to use state primaries to choose its party nominees. The party lost all those cases, but it wanted nothing to do with government control over its nomination process for public office, not to mention party office.
Thank you, Richard, for the very fascinating and informative response. I now understand your position much better. It is my personal belief that the qualified political parties – in all states – should all have to provide for primary elections for all office (including county central committee). I understand, however, that it may take an amendment to the U.S. Constitution for this to happen.
Phil
Philippe L. Sawyer, Member:
Sacramento County Central Committee;
Peace and Freedom Party of California
Parties –
PUBLIC part — as being PUBLIC Electors-Voters in the PUBLIC nomination process
PRIVATE part – as being clubby folks — as in any private club — with INTERNAL clubby officers, meetings, etc.
See the 1989 Eu case in SCOTUS.
Some of robot party hack gangs in CA apparently just love those CA statist laws regulating their private/internal structures.
#19 States require public corporations to elect their board of directors so as to ensure that the owners (shareholders) have ultimate control of the governance of their corporation.
If a State accords recognition to a political party on the basis of citizens affiliating with the party, then the State should ensure that the voters have ultimate control over governance of the party.
This doesn’t mean that the State need conduct or fund the elections for corporate boards of directors, or the elections for party executive bodies, but the State should provide parameters within which the parties operate.
California currently goes way overboard in this regard.
To Jim Riley (#21, above):
As I wrote in #19, above: “I understand, however, that it may take an amendment to the U.S. Constitution for this to happen.” I am going to stand my ground on the moral correctness of my position “that the qualified political parties – in all states – should all have to provide for primary elections for all office (including county central committee)”; and I respectfully disagree with your comment that “California currently goes way overboard” in the regulation of poltical parties.
Phil
The underlying ROT is some sort of notion that some fractional part of ALL Electors-Voters have some sort of *right* to have THEIR party hack candidates on PUBLIC election ballots with a party hack label.
1. ALL Electors doing nominations — top 2 States
2. SOME Electors in gangs doing nominations — party hack primaries, conventions, caucuses.
Difficult ONLY for the MORON party hack SCOTUS idiots to understand.
#22 You think that the State of California should be telling the Democratic Party to use different composition of central committees in Santa Clara and Sacramento counties, and in the city and county of San Francisco. You think it should be telling the parties how to choose their presidential elector candidates?
Start reading the Elections Code at about Section 7000 and see if you still come to that conclusion. Are there any other States in country that have so many laws that are specific to individual named political parties?
# 24 Which CA party will go to court and demand $$$ damages to bankrupt the election law bureaucrats involved ???
Do ANY State legislatures pay ANY attention to ANY SCOTUS opinion — since 1789 ???