Californians Face Threat From Proposition 14, Open Primaries

Jon Coupal at The Orange Juice Blog sets up the problem:

Taxpayers, hang onto your wallets. The latest threat to your hard earned dollars is a ballot measure with the innocuous title of “Elections: open primaries.”

The stated intent of the authors of the “open primary” — now designated for the June ballot as Proposition 14 — is to force the election of more “moderates,” meaning those willing to “compromise” on the passing of a budget or the enactment of new state taxes. Currently, both actions require a two-third vote of each house. Proposition 14 was approved for the ballot by the Legislature as part of deal with Republican Senator Abel Maldonado to secure his vote for last year’s tax increase, which, not coincidentally, gave Californians the largest tax hike in the history of all 50 states.

In fact, Proposition 14 does not “open” a primary; instead, it eliminates the primary-general election system as we know it. The measure would close the general election to all candidates other than the top-two voter getters in the first election. This means that in many districts voters could be faced with a final choice between two Democrats or between two Republicans and candidates from smaller parties would be eliminated.

There's more at the link.

I have long opposed any sort of open primaries. I think Republicans should choose their candidates, Democrats should choose their candidates, and if a person decides to be independent and not join a particular party, he's out of luck. In recent California primaries Republicans kept their elections closed while Democrats, in an effort to be more "inclusive", allowed both Democrats and independents to vote for their candidates. If that's what they want to do, fine, but the GOP should never allow non-Republicans to choose their candidates. If someone doesn't share our values enough to join the party then they shouldn't have a say in who we nominate.

Open primaries will allow for all kinds of electoral shenanigans. You may remember during the presidential primaries there were situations in which Democrats were encouraged by the lefties to cross over and support Republicans they thought would be weaker in the general election in order to help elect Democrats. If I had my way every primary in every state would be closed to party members only, and they'd have to register with that party at least six months before the election. Open primaries gave us John McCain and we don't need that again.

I will vigorously oppose Proposition 14 in California.