Thomas D. Elias is probably the most powerful supporter of California’s Proposition 14. He has a newspaper column that appears in over 100 California newspapers, and he is a fervent support of the “top-two open primary.” Here is his latest column, which appears in the Redding Searchlight. In the days and weeks to come, this same column will appear in dozens of other California newspapers. This column is titled, “Voters declare their independence.”
Elias is very convincing, but the reality he paints is divorced from actual reality. His four columns in favor of “top-two”, over the last year, have never acknowledged that we have already seen how “top-two” works, in Washington and Louisiana, and in practice it makes it even easier for incumbents to get re-elected, than normal primary systems. None of his four columns has ever mentioned either Washington or Louisiana.
His latest column also does not mention the Public Policy Institute of California analysis, which is based on actual data, and which says that the blanket primary system in California, in use for four years, made no difference in the State Senate and only a slight difference in the Assembly.
His columns have never mentioned that, since 2001, eight California legislators have been elected in special elections, and those special elections use the blanket primary system, and those eight state legislators don’t behave any differently than the legislators elected in regular semi-closed primaries.
His latest column implies that independent voters who vote by absentee don’t have the ability to ask for a partisan ballot, but the instructions for obtaining a sample ballot clearly explain how an independent voter may request a partisan primary ballot via the postal mail.
Ironically, the latest Elias columns celebrates the excitement of Massachusetts independent voters electing Scott Brown to the U.S. Senate in the special election earlier this year. If Elias had actually analyzed the Massachusetts election, he would have noted that if Massachusetts had used a “top-two open primary”, it is almost certain that Scott Brown would not have qualified for the second round. Over 50% of Massachusetts voters are registered independents, and they have always been free to choose any party’s primary ballot. At the Massachusetts primaries, Martha Coakley polled 311,548 votes, Congressman Michael Capuano polled 185,157 votes, and Scott Brown polled 146,057 votes. It is true that registered Democrats were not free to vote for Brown in the Democratic primary except by writing him in, but there were only 1,800 total write-ins in the Democratic primary. Because U.S. Senate was the only race on the ballot, independents who wanted to support Brown had no reason not to choose the Republican ballot, and it is obvious that independents did choose the Republican ballot in order to support Brown at the primary stage…but still, Coakley and Capuano were the two top vote-getters, and it is they who would have faced off in any second stage under “top-two.”
Elias also perpetuates the idea that general elections in California never result in any significant changes. Actually, in California in November 2008, four of the 80 Assembly seats switched parties.
