Christina Tobin on the Top-Two Primary
Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger is already campaigning for the “Top-Two Open Primary” ballot measure that will be on our June 2010 ballots. It provides that all candidates for Congress and state office would run on a single primary ballot. Only the top two vote-getters would appear on the November ballot.
Only two states have ever tried the “top-two open primary” system, Washington and Louisiana. From their experience, we know what would happen if this system were implemented in California: for virtually every Congressional election, and every election for state office, there would be one Democrat and one Republican on the November ballot, and no one else. The evidence shows that in such an election, the incumbent almost always wins.
In Washington, which tried this system for the first time in 2008, not a single minor party or independent candidate for Congress or for statewide state office was on the November ballot. This was the first time since statehood that there had been no minor party or independent candidates for Congress or statewide state office on the November ballot in Washington.
In general elections with only two candidates, and in which the incumbent is running for re-election, the incumbent almost always wins. The 2008 Washington experience illustrates this. In the statewide and Congressional races, no incumbents were defeated for re-election. In the 123 legislative races, the vast majority had one Republican running against one Democrat. Only five incumbents were defeated. By comparison, in 2006, when Washington had used a normal primary in which each party has its own primary ballot and its own nominees, seven incumbents were defeated.
The “top-two open primary” system makes it possible for two members of the same party to be the only two choices in November, but in practice this doesn’t happen very often, and when it does, that type of election is no threat to incumbents. In 2008 in Washington, there were five legislative races in November in which two Democrats were running against each other, and three in which two Republicans were running against each other, but in all those cases, if an incumbent was running for re-election, he or she was easily re-elected.
Louisiana used a “top-two open primary” for Congressional elections between 1978 and 2006. In all those years, only one incumbent for either house of Congress was ever defeated for re-election (this doesn’t include the two instances in 1992 at which two incumbents had to run against each other, due to redistricting). However, when Louisiana switched to a normal election system in 2008, in which each party had its own primary and its own nominee, two incumbent members of Congress were defeated. One of them, William Jefferson, only lost in 2008 because an energetic Green candidate had “spoiled” Jefferson’s chances. Republican Joseph Cao won with a plurality, but under “top-two open primary”, the Green nominee would not have been allowed on the ballot and Jefferson would almost certainly have won.
So, in practice, the “top-two open primary” does not shake things up. All it does it make it easier for incumbents to get re-elected, while at the same time depriving minor party and independent candidates from running and campaigning in the general election campaign season.
Proponents of the “top-two” primary say their system will produce more moderate legislators. However, California used a somewhat similar system in 1998 and 2000, called the blanket primary. Political Scientist Seth Masket studied the California Assembly and found that partisanship and polarization was just as extreme in the 2001-2002 session of the legislature, when all legislators had been elected under that system. He documented these results in his article in the Fall, 2007 issue of the American Journal of Political Science.
Proponents of the “top-two” system like to pretend that their idea is new, but California voters already rejected this idea in 2004, when it was Proposition 62. Also the voters of Oregon defeated it in November 2008.
Proponents ignore the fact that ever since 2001, independent voters have been allowed to vote in all Republican and Democratic primaries for Congress and state office. All voters are already included in the primary process. Many liberal Republicans are still unhappy that Tom Campbell lost the 1992 Republican primary for U.S. Senate to Bruce Herschensohn. They feel that Campbell, if nominated, would have defeated Barbara Boxer. However, they forget that in 1992, independents couldn’t vote in the Republican primary, but now they can.
At a time when both the two major parties agree on certain issues, like whether to send more troops to Afghanistan, it is vital to democracy that other types of candidates be allowed into the general election campaign season and the November ballot. Don’t let the Governor and the legislature fool you into giving up your right to a full range of choices on the November ballot.
for Liberty,
Christina Tobin
