Logic for the Primaries

California is trying once again to make the state’s presidential primary election mean something. This time, it might actually happen. In fact, if Secretary of State Bill Jones has his way, California could become the catalyst for creation of a national system of regional primaries beginning in the elections of 2004. That commendable effort would bring some welcome reason and order to a crazy patchwork system.

Democrats and Republicans long smarted because California’s June primary came too late to have any effect on the parties’ presidential nomination process. For three decades, the parties’ top nominations had been cinched by the time of the California primary.

Leading up to 1996, the Legislature moved the primary to late March in hopes of getting in on the action. But a host of other states then moved their primaries to even earlier in March. Once again, California was shut out.

The Legislature now is considering SB 1999, by Sen. Jim Costa (D-Fresno) with the support of Republican Jones, to schedule the 2000 primary on the first Tuesday after the first Monday in March. The bill has passed the Senate and will be acted on in the Assembly Appropriations Committee as soon as the state budget is enacted. The Assembly should give it quick approval and send it to Gov. Pete Wilson for his signature.

Jones is also working with chief election officials in Washington state and Oregon in an attempt to create a coordinated West Coast primary on March 7, 2000. The idea is to have the 2004 nominations determined in a series of regional primaries--West, East, North and South--held the first weeks of March, April, May and June. The order would be rotated so that each region would go first every 16 years.

Finally, California voters will be faced in November with Proposition 3, labeled the “Save the Presidential Primary Act.” They may well wonder why it needs saving. It’s the result of a lapse in thinking when sponsors of California’s new open primary law drafted their initiative measure for the ballot in 1996. They apparently overlooked the fact that the national parties would not seat convention delegates selected in an open primary, in which voters could cast ballots for any candidate, regardless of party. Under national party rules, only Democrats can choose delegates to the Democratic National Convention and only Republicans to the GOP gathering.

Proposition 3 would provide a separate ballot for Democrats and Republicans to choose their delegates. This would not involve extra cost because a separate ballot already is needed for the election of party central committees. It is essential that this measure pass; otherwise, the parties might be forced to choose their convention delegates by party caucus or convention. Then all the efforts to make the California primary mean something would mean nothing.