State Panel OKs Bill to Move Up Date of Presidential Primaries

A legislative committee voted Wednesday to make California a major player in the national election sweepstakes by advancing the presidential primary from June to March.

The Senate Elections and Reapportionment Committee, on a bipartisan 5-1 vote, approved an Assembly-passed bill supported by Gov. George Deukmejian and sent it to the Senate Appropriations Committee.

The committee also agreed to a major amendment by the author, Assemblyman Jim Costa (D-Fresno), that would require the regular statewide primary--traditionally held in June--to be conducted simultaneously with the presidential primary during presidential election years. The date, starting in 1992, would be the last Tuesday of March. During other years, the state primary would be held as it has been, on the Tuesday after the first Monday in June.

Critics earlier voiced fear that in presidential election years, California would have three elections--the presidential primary in March, the statewide primary in June and the general election in November.

By consolidating the statewide primary and the presidential primary in March, upwards of $40 million in election costs would be saved, Costa told the committee.

Costa, who has carried three such bills over the last decade, noted that because so many other states hold their presidential primary elections and nominating caucuses before June, the party nominations often are wrapped up weeks before Californians go to the polls.

“It has made us over the recent course of history a sort of perennial bridesmaid when it comes to presidential elections,” he told the committee, noting that candidates historically descend on California a year before the election to scoop up big campaign money and spend it on earlier primaries elsewhere in the nation.

He noted that the last time California played a pivotal role in a presidential nomination was in 1972 when George McGovern beat Hubert H. Humphrey. On the Republican side, he said, California has not been an important player since Barry Goldwater beat Nelson Rockefeller in 1964.

The Costa measure had called for a California presidential primary on the first Tuesday of March. However, the author amended it to move the election to the last Tuesday of March, indicating that the date may be changed again before the bill reaches Deukmejian.

A Costa aide, Terry Reardon, said the bill now puts California in the middle of the tentative 1992 election calendar between two other major states, Illinois in mid-March and New York in April.

California would also follow the “Super Tuesday” election contests on the second Tuesday of March, 1992. Reardon said the Democratic National Committee now anticipates that 18 states may participate in the next Super Tuesday, although some states are considering switching to other dates.

Deukmejian long opposed advancing the California presidential primary, contending that such an election would be too costly and that it would unnecessarily stretch out the year’s campaigning period.

He changed his mind in the wake of the 1988 primary elections, in which California was basically a bystander. In January, he said he supported advancing the primary election to give California more political clout, a position advocated by many Democrats and Republicans.

He implied, however, that he would support legislation to advance the primary in exchange for the Legislature approving a proposal that would enable the candidates of the same party for governor and lieutenant governor to run as a team on the same ticket. Those proposals were killed last spring.

Last week, Deukmejian indicated that if it reached him he was “not inclined to veto” the Costa measure, even though the team ticket plan had failed. He voiced hope that the ticket legislation could be revived but told reporters that “I’m not going to hold the presidential primary legislation hostage for it.”