The South Dakota initiative for non-partisan elections (for all office except President) has been found to have enough valid signatures, and will be on the November 2016 ballot. Thanks to IndependentVoterNews for this news.
Meanwhile, the proposed Arizona initiative on the same subject still has not been finalized, so no petitioning for it is proceeding.
The South Dakota initiative is for a constitutional amendment. It is similar to Proposition 14 in California in 2010, except that there is no associated legislation (like SB 6).
Instead the legislature will have to amend the election code. Most House districts in South Dakota are two-member districts. Primaries in these districts will be Top 4.
No, they won’t be top-two or top-four. “Top-two” is a term invented in 2004 by the Washington state press, and it means an election with party labels. Non-partisan elections in the U.S. are over 100 years old, and most elections for public office in the U.S. are non-partisan. No one ever dreamed of calling them “top-two” until recently when a few supporters of top-two decided to make top-two seem more mainstream by labeling non-partisan elections as “top-two.”
NO such thing as nonpartisan LAWS for 3000 plus years.
How nonpartisan are the LAWS in the Nebraska regime ???
NO primaries.
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P.R. and nonpartisan App.V. (later for executive and judicial offices).
In Arizona it was defeated soundly in the last election. As a result of all the opposition to it the word is the supporters will not try to get it on the ballot this time
Justice Scalia used the term “top 2” in his opinion in ‘California Democratic Party v Jones’, for a primary he characterized as non-partisan.
I would not call Justice Scalia a nobody.
That is not true. Scalia said, “Respondents could protect their state interests by resorting to a nonpartisan blanket primary…under a nonpartisan blanket primary, a state may ensure more choice, greater participation, increased privacy, and a sense of fairness, all without severely burdening a political party’s First Amendment right of association.” Nowhere did Scalia say the proper name for a nonpartisan election is a top-two election.
The 2000 CA Donkey opinion is one more of the MORON opinions by the hacks.
PUBLIC nominations of PUBLIC officers by PUBLIC laws — too difficult for the SCOTUS hacks to understand.
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NO primaries.
ONLY equal nominating petitions for ballot access.
P.R. and nonpartisan App.V.
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Hell on earth may be coming with the D/R hack Prez primaries and caucuses and the later national conventions of the top hacks.
See the hacks in 1860 going NUTS — result – about 750,000 DEAD in 1861-1865.
This is just a deceptive way of implementing a Top Two Primary. I’d call it Non-Partisan Top Two Primary.
The end effect is that it will be a net negative for minor parties and real independents.
Let’s quote the system that Justice Scalia described – not the benefits of such a plan.
“Respondents could protect them all by resorting to a nonpartisan blanket primary. Generally speaking, under such a system, the State determines what qualifications it requires for a candidate to have a place on the primary ballot-which may include nomination by established parties and voter-petition requirements for independent candidates. Each voter, regardless of party affiliation, may then vote for any candidate, and the top two vote getters (or however many the State prescribes) then move on to the general election.
You will have to explain to me how you could have party nominations in a nonpartisan election. In his dissent, Justice Stevens in his dissent said that Scalia was talking about the Open Primary in Louisiana.