Michael Feinstein, a Green Party leader and a former Mayor of Santa Monica, has this article about California’s Proposition 14 at Fox & Hounds. Feinstein also debates Proposition 14 on Los Angeles Public Radio KPCC on May 27, Thursday, at 1:50 p.m. The pro-14 position will be represented by attorney David Fleming.
For a year now, the campaign to pass Proposition 14, the California top-two measure on the June 8, 2010 ballot, has ignored the problem that Proposition 14 injures minor parties.
However, the Los Angeles Times ran this editorial on May 24, “Proposition 14 Won’t Destroy Minor Parties.” The editorial takes the tack that minor parties are useful to society and that Proposition 14 would not injure them. However, the editorial does not mention the fact that Proposition changes the requirements for ballot-qualified parties to remain ballot-qualified; ignores the problem that members of unqualified parties can’t have their party label on the June ballot; and ignores the evidence from Washington and Louisiana about the effect of “top-two” on minor party candidates chances of qualifying for the general election.
Now Fox & Hounds as carried this article by one of the editors of the California Target Book. The California Target Book is published by, and is intended for, political consultants. The 2010 Primary Edition of the California Target Book costs $1,200. The article attacks minor parties for failing to run many candidates in California. However, the article fails to point out that California’s minor parties polled record percentages of the vote in 2008 for their legislative candidates. One would think that a political data resource that costs $1,200 would have studied the election returns.
In 2008, the Libertarian Party candidates for California Assembly averaged 6.87% of the vote cast in the districts in which the party had candidates. The party had 15 Assembly candidates, out of 80 seats, and their average was the highest in the history of the California Libertarian Party. All of these races also had both Democratic and Republican nominees. The Libertarians running for State Senate averaged 5.92%, in the 5 seats (out of 20 that were up). They also were all in races with both Democratic and Republican nominees.
The Peace & Freedom Party in 2008 had three Assembly candidates, who averaged 8.29%, although one of the races had only one major party opponent. That was the best average for PFP in Assembly races since 1978. The Peace & Freedom Party also polled the best percentage of the vote for President in 2008 that it had ever received in California.
The California Target Book editor who wrote the Fox & Hounds piece also says that minor party candidates for statewide office in California are “vanity” candidates. That would be news to the 5.3% of the voters who voted for Peter Camejo for Governor in 2002, and the 5.5% of the voters who voted for Ed Clark for Governor in 1978.
The recent 9th circuit decision in McComish v Bennett upheld an Arizona public funding law. That law provides for extra public funding for candidates who have a well-funded opponent who is using only privately-raised money.
Meanwhile, everyone is waiting for the U.S. Court of Appeals, 2nd circuit, to decide Green Party of Connecticut v Garfield, the case over Connecticut’s discriminatory public funding law. State officials submitted a supplemental brief to the 2nd circuit, arguing that the 9th circuit opinion, if followed in the 2nd circuit, means that the law should be upheld. The Green Party submitted this 3-page response. The Libertarian Party is a co-plaintiff in the Connecticut case.
Ever since 1983, the Ohio petition deadline for independent presidential candidates has been 75 days before the general election. However, Ohio has just changed that deadline to 90 days before the general election. The change effectively moves the deadline from late August to early August. The change was made in Substitute HB 48, which was signed into law on April 2, 2010. Thanks to Kevin Knedler for this news.
Ohio permits stand-ins on independent presidential petitions. If a minor party that is not ballot-qualified in Ohio is using the independent presidential petition procedure, and it hasn’t chosen its presidential nominee by the time it begins circulating the independent presidential petition, it is free to use a stand-in presidential candidate, who then withdraws when the petition is submitted. The substitution committee can then tell the Secretary of State the name of the actual presidential candidate. The bill was motivated by the new federal legislation that requires states to mail their overseas absentee ballots no later than 45 days before any election.
California Progress Report has this commentary about Proposition 14, the top-two ballot measure on the June 8, 2010 California ballot. The commentary, by Calitics editor Brian Leubitz, also appears in Calitics, and itself links to Enik Rising, a blog by political scientist Seth Masket. Masket is the author of “No Middle Ground”, a 2009 book about polarization in the California legislature. Disclosure: these blogs refer back to the May 10 KQED debate between Lieutenant Governor Abel Maldonado and Richard Winger, and contain a link to that debate.
