Vote NO on Proposition 14, Open Primary Initiative

NOTE: I'm rerunning this item to remind California voters that we need to kill Proposition 14 in tomorrow's primary election.

Say Anything Blog discusses one of the California ballot propositions:

I got my sample ballot for the June California primary today, and while I was reading through the ballot propositions, I came across this gem:

Prop 14 Elections. Increases Right to Participate in Primary Elections.

Excuse me! Right??? Democrats Independents and fringe party whackos have the right to vote in my party primary???

Changes the primary election process for congressional, statewide, and legislative races. Allows all voters to choose any candidate regardless of the candidate’s or voter’s political party preference. Ensures that the two candidates receiving the greatest number of votes will appear on the general election ballot regardless of party preference.
Fiscal impact: No significant net change in state and local government costs to administer elections.

This initiative was a political payback to Abel Maldonado, who is now our Lt. Governor, in order to buy his vote in 2009 for a huge tax increase. He wants to eventually run for governor and knows his moderate views will not play will with many Republicans making it difficult for him to survive a primary restricted only to Republicans. Consequently, the Democrats threw him this ballot initiative to buy his vote.

I hate open primaries. If I was in charge they'd be banned nationwide. It's open primaries that give us candidates like John McCain, candidates who are rejected by the conservatives but win the primaries thanks to independents and Democrats crossing over to screw up our primaries. We end up with candidates who can't inspire the conservatives and they end up losing when those independents and Democrats go back to their liberal candidates and the conservatives stay home.  This effort only guarantees that candidates who don't believe in party principles will end up being nominated.

It also opens the door for all kinds of election shenanigans.  Democrat activists can cross over and vote for Republicans they feel would be weaker general election candidates.  And, of course, it can work the other way but the GOP doesn't tend to play those games with the same energy Democrats do.

No voter should have the right to determine a party's candidate unless that voter is a member of the party and has been for a minimum amount of time.  I'd put a six month minimum on voter registrations before a primary election to weed out the problem children.

Kill Proposition 14.