Rival Parties Unite Against Open Primary

Like ancient feuding neighbors forced together by a common threat, the state Republican and Democratic parties are running to douse a political wildfire: Proposition 198, the open primary initiative on Tuesday’s ballot.

To hear the parties describe it, Proposition 198 would make them almost useless by blurring their messages and diluting party affiliations.

Nothing of the kind, counter the initiative’s supporters, primarily moderate Republicans who are hoping to recapture some of their lost political clout.

The measure, they say, would bring moderate voters back into the parties’ fold at the expense of rigid ideology. That is needed, they argue, because the major parties are increasingly being dominated by their political extremes--liberal Democrats and conservative Republicans.

In a ballot pamphlet supporting Proposition 198, three chief advocates say the current system tends to reward “party hard-liners . . . and stacks the deck against more moderate problem-solvers.”

“The open primary will increase participation by giving voters a real choice and by forcing candidates to focus on issues, not just partisanship,” say the backers, former state Sen. Rebecca Morgan, a Republican from Los Altos Hills; retired UC Berkeley professor Eugene C. Lee; and Dan Stanford, former chairman of the state Fair Political Practices Commission.

But opponents--including the leaders of the two major political parties--argue that an open primary defeats the basic purpose of a primary election, which is to allow parties to choose their own nominees for the fall general elections.

“Proposition 198 is a cynical attempt by a few self-serving politicians to twist the rules of California’s electoral process to advance their own careers,” said Republican state Chairman John Herrington and his former Democratic counterpart, Bill Press, in a joint statement opposing the measure.

Under the proposed system, all voters would receive the same ballot in the primary, which is held to select party nominees to run in the November general elections.

For example, if the open primary were in effect this year, a registered Democrat could vote for Bob Dole, Patrick J. Buchanan or some other Republican for president, or for that matter, for Ralph Nader, the Green Party candidate. Or a Republican could vote for President Bill Clinton, or his one rival on the primary ballot, Lyndon H. LaRouche Jr.

In addition, voters could pick and choose among Democrats, Republicans and members of any of the six minor parties that are officially recognized by California in their selection of candidates for Congress, the state Senate and Assembly--and any other partisan office on the ballot.

Ever since California adopted primary elections as the means of nominating candidates in 1908, voters have been allowed to vote only for candidates of the party to which they belong.

Under the current system, Democrats going to the polls Tuesday will get a Democratic ballot, Republicans a Republican ballot and so on. In effect, there are eight party elections in California on primary voting day, in what is known as a closed primary.

The 1.5 million independent voters in California do not get to vote in primaries since they belong to no political party. They can cast ballots in nonpartisan races and for ballot measures. In an open primary, however, they could vote on the candidates just like party members.

When the Los Angeles Times Poll queried prospective voters on the issue, 82% said either they were not aware of Proposition 198 or did not know enough about it to say whether they supported or opposed it. After the proposition was explained to them, 55% favored it and 29% opposed it.

Proposition 198 would bring back into the system former voters who have become disenchanted with politics that are increasingly dominated by high-pitched ideological warfare, the proponents argue.

As a result, the parties themselves would become freshly energized and grow, said state Sen. Lucy Killea (I-San Diego), one of the measure’s sponsors.

“We will bring back many of the moderate voters who have thrown up their hands at the present system,” said Killea, a former Democrat who became an independent in 1992.

The presence of Proposition 198 on the ballot brought the usually warring chairmen of the Democrats and Republicans together for a series of joint appearances and statements attacking the plan.

“Party members should be allowed to choose their nominees free from outside interference,” Herrington and Press say in the ballot pamphlet statement.

“After all, clubs and organizations don’t let non-members vote in their elections and neither should California voters do that in primaries.”

Democrats are likely to challenge the initiative’s constitutionality should it pass, said Press, who recently resigned the party job to become a regular on the “Crossfire” television program on CNN.

One of the major sponsors of the initiative was Rep. Tom Campbell of Stanford, a moderate Republican who lost a bitter Republican primary battle for the U.S. Senate to conservative commentator Bruce Herschensohn in 1992. Herschensohn later lost to Barbara Boxer.

Moderates argued that Campbell would have had a better chance of winning the seat for the Republican Party because, as a moderate, he would have attracted support from independents and conservative Democrats unhappy with Boxer’s liberal record in Congress.

But since conservative Republicans often dominate GOP primaries, Campbell was denied that chance, they said. In an open primary, the sponsors argued, Campbell probably would have defeated Herschensohn.

In the aftermath, Campbell and his moderate GOP allies teamed up to qualify the open primary for the ballot through an initiative petition campaign. Financial backers included Hewlett-Packard Co., the firm’s co-founder, David Packard, and former Sen. Morgan.

Increasingly in California, conservatives have tended to dominate in GOP primaries because they are more active on behalf of their political causes and candidates, and because they tend to vote more diligently.

In some cases, liberal Democrats have dominated that party’s primaries.

Party officials argue that an open primary would tend to muddle the distinctions between the parties and dilute their meaning, thus denying voters a real choice.

“If you blur that difference, no one stands for anything,” Press said.

Party chiefs and others also argue that an open primary would escalate campaign costs just when many in both parties are seeking to reduce campaign spending.

Legislators who oppose Proposition 198 say an open primary would force them to campaign among all voters rather than just the members of their own party, significantly increasing the outlay for mailings and other means of reaching voters.