‘Open’ Primary Would Shake Up Elections

All right, here’s a ballot measure that really would change things for voters, at least in primary elections. In fact, this proposal offers the most significant shake-up of California’s election system in nearly four decades.

No mere message sending, as with illegal immigration and Proposition 187. No disappointing delays, as with insurance rebates and Proposition 103. This measure truly would make a difference for voters, starting with the next elections.

Proposition 198 on the March 26 ballot would allow Californians to vote in any party’s primary, regardless of how they’re registered. What’s more, they could switch back and forth--voting, say, in the Democratic gubernatorial primary, then in the Republican Senate primary.

That’s called an “open” primary. Twenty-nine states have some form of open primary, according to U.S. Rep. Tom Campbell (R-Stanford), one of the initiative’s sponsors. Practically all those states require voters to choose one party’s ballot or the other, but they can do this at their polling place. California now is one of 20 states with “closed” primaries requiring advance party registration.

Proposition 198 is modeled after the most open of the open primaries--Washington’s and Alaska’s. There is just one ballot, and all candidates are listed for each office, with their party affiliations. Voters choose one candidate in each race. The biggest vote-getter of each party then is nominated for the November election.

It’s reminiscent of California’s old cross-filing system, but markedly different. Under cross-filing, candidates could run in another party’s primary as well as their own. Thus they could win both parties’ nominations. The system benefited well-known incumbents and helped perpetuate Republicans in power.

Democrats scuttled cross-filing and enacted the present system when they seized power in 1959.

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Neither major party wants to chuck the closed primary. And in a rare alliance, the Democratic and Republican hierarchies are mounting a campaign against Proposition 198, which is being pushed by political moderates.

The main goal of the initiative’s backers is to force the parties and candidates to pay more attention to the ideological center and stop pandering to extremists on both ends. Presumably, this would dilute the influence, say, of the religious right in the GOP and death penalty opponents within the Democratic party.

Asserts San Diego attorney Richard Ferrari, a GOP activist and Proposition 198 sponsor: “Too often, the choice in the general election boils down to a Leon Trotsky-type Democrat versus an Attila the Hun-type Republican.”

But the parties view Proposition 198 as a threat to what little power they wield in California.

“The effect of this is to blur the lines of ideology and drive all candidates toward the center, thereby giving voters less choice,” says GOP State Chairman John S. Herrington. Backers counter that the result would be a better choice.

The state is electing extremists who consider “negotiation and compromise dirty words,” says Eugene C. Lee, retired director of the Institute of Governmental Studies at UC Berkeley. Proposition 198, he contends, would produce more problem-solving pragmatists.

The parties also argue that an open primary would invite political mischief. “In this year’s presidential primary we don’t have a contest,” notes state Democratic Chairman Bill Press. “If I wanted to, I could organize a million Democrats to vote in the Republican primary for Bob Dornan and just wreak havoc. I shouldn’t be allowed to do that.”

Answers Lee: “That implies a degree of organization and sophistication nowhere present in California politics that I can see.”

Besides, virtually everyone agrees, there has been no evidence of such mischief in any open primary state.

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Backers point out that an open primary would give independents an opportunity to vote in primary races. And it would allow members of the weaker party in “safe” legislative districts a chance to vote in the election that really counts, the primary of the dominant party.

Rotarians don’t allow Lions to vote in their elections, the parties declare. Why should Republicans allow Democrats? Because these aren’t private clubs, backers respond. Often, it’s in the primary when every citizen’s representative, in effect, is elected.

San Diego political consultant Tom Shepard, the initiative’s chief strategist, says 198 is “vulnerable” because of scarce campaign money and the parties’ solid opposition.

But voters may want to think of it this way: Do they care more about supporting the best interests of political parties or making elections more interesting for themselves?