On February 6, California Assemblyman Sandre Swanson (D-Alameda), speaking at a campaign rally, criticized California’s Proposition 14, the “top-two open primary”. Swanson, who is the only black state legislator from northern California, is in his second term. He said the measure would vastly increase the cost of campaigns, because it would require major party members to run two separate election campaigns in front of the entire electorate.

The rally was in Oakland, and was a fundraiser for Proposition 15, a measure that Swanson supports. Proposition 15 provides for public funding for campaigns for Secretary of State.

Tim Rutten has this column in the February 5 issue of the Los Angeles Times, on nationwide voter discontent with both major parties, with Congress, and with the Presidency.

California Republican Assemblyman Chuck DeVore, who is running in the Republican primary this year for U.S. Senate, has come out in opposition to the “top-two open primary” measure that will be on the June 2010 ballot in California. In a letter dated January 25, he says the measure “would stifle competition in elections, as neither of the two major parties would spend much time or money in the bastions of the other party.”

As far as is known, DeVore is the first major party candidate for a California statewide office to have taken a position on the “top-two open primary.”