John D. Arnold is a Texas resident who was a hedge fund manager for Enron. During 2001, he is credited with having earned approximately $750,000,000 in profits for Enron. When Enron collapsed in 2002, Arnold founded a new company. He is a billionaire. See this wikipedia page about him.
On September 17, Arnold donated $500,000 to a new committee formed to support the Oregon top-two system, Measure 90. The new committee is “Open Primaries Committee”. The president is John Opdycke, director of development at CUIP (the Committee for a Unified Independent Party), which was formerly known as the New Alliance Party.
On October 1, Arnold gave another $1,000,000 to the Open Primaries Committee. Part of the money ($50,000) was then donated to CUIP for “outreach” on behalf of Measure 90. Here is a link to the Oregon state government campaign finance web page for this committee.
ANY millions for having —
NO primaries.
EQUAL ballot access stuff
P.R.
Nonpartisan App.V.
Not quite sure how $50,000 in “outreach” monies to CUIP helps out CUIP and their other name, IndedependentVoting.org, if it actually curtails general election ballot access for indpendents.
I would be very interested to see a financial statement of how the “outreach” monies was used.
Is Arnold a Democrat or a Republican?
What would motivate such a wealthy man to give such much money to the Top Two effort?
If he is a Democrat, I think I know the reason why. If he is a card-carrying Republican, I cannot think of why he would contribute to an electoral system which does more damage to the GOP than it does to the Democrats. Of course, it is also the best way to destroy 3rd parties and Independents from having a real voice in then process.
He is 38 and retired in order to work full time at giving away his money. According to this column, he is a Democrat.
http://philanthropy.com/article/AttacksVitriol-Will-Not/145647/?q=news/attacks-and-vitriol-will-not-deter-me-supporting-fixes-public-policy
I thought he might be a Democrat. For only a Democrat would see the long term benefit of a Top Two Election system.
A Top Two Election system is only a façade for becoming a 1 party state.