Guilford County Commissioner Bruce Davis says he will attempt to qualify as an independent candidate for North Carolina State Senate. See this story. Guilford County is North Carolina’s third most populous county, and includes Greensboro.

Davis needs a petition signed by 4% of the registered voters of his district. The story says he needs 5,000 signatures, but does not say if this is the legal requirement, or the number that he realistically needs to collect. If he gets on the ballot and wins, he will be the first person elected to the North Carolina Senate, who was not a Democratic or Republican Party nominee, since 1900, when the Peoples Party elected three Senators.

The Los Angeles Times has this story, by its Sacramento correspondent George Skelton, that is a model of fairness and clarity compared to earlier stories and editorials today in the Sacramento Bee and the Santa Rosa Press-Democrat. However, even this story fails to mention that Proposition 14 also makes it more difficult for ballot-qualified parties to remain qualified.

Two California journalists, Dan Morain of the Sacramento Bee and Pete Golis of the Santa Rosa Press-Democrat, have opined that it is “shameful” for anyone to try and correct the existing Title of California’s Prop. 14, the “top-two open primary.”

The bill that passed Proposition 14, in February 2009, dictated that the title should be “Elections. Primaries. Greater Participation in Elections.” A lawsuit was filed to change that title. The Election Code says the title of ballot measures should be neutral.

“Greater Participation in Elections” is puffery and bears no relation to the truth. California has six ballot-qualified parties, but Proposition 14 says only two candidates may run in the summer and fall season. Obviously, with only two candidates in the last six months of the election season, four (or possibly five) parties will be squeezed out. Proposition 14 even disallows write-ins. It also makes the barriers for a party to remain ballot-qualified considerably more difficult, and would eliminate the Peace & Freedom Party and seriously threaten the Libertarian Party. Finally, when similar systems were implemented in two other states, Louisiana and Washington, primary turnout dropped.

But when a lawsuit was filed to change the Title, and the Defendant (the Legislature) agreed to change the title, the Sacramento Bee described this as “talks to spell the demise of an open primary measure”, something that is “an especially underhanded play”. Dan Morain, the author of this article, then quoted supporters of Proposition 14 as saying the legislature’s action was “frankly embarassing”, and quoted the attorney for Proposition 14 as saying “I must say I have never seen a more cynical or shameful attempted abuse of power.”

The Santa Rosa Press-Democrat picked up that lead. Pete Golis headlined his story, “State lawmakers’ Latest Shame”. He writes, “As politics slips into the ooze…the politicians we elect decide whether government will represent the public’s best interest.” The paper also ran this editorial, echoing the same idea, although the editorial is somewhat more nuanced.

Neither of these articles questions the legitimacy of lawsuits that were filed over the wording of Proposition 8 in 2008, or lawsuits over the wording of the statewide ballot measures in May 2009.