Recounts Clinch GOP Suspicions

Assembly candidates Jim Righeimer and Bruce Matthias would have won their primary contests last month if the only votes counted had been from Republican voters, according to recounts of the races completed Monday.

The two candidates asked for the special ballot counts amid hopes that the U.S. Supreme Court will overturn California’s blanket primary later this month. If the law is overturned, the candidates said, they are considering asking a judge to place them on the November ballot as the Republican nominees.

So far, however, the new counts do not affect the outcome of the primary. Republican Tom Harman, a Huntington Beach councilman, beat Righeimer by nearly 10,000 votes; Republican Lynn Daucher, a Brea councilwoman, bested Matthias by nearly 5,000 votes.

On April 24, the Supreme Court has agreed to hear an appeal by four California political parties challenging Proposition 198, which voters passed in 1996 allowing primary nominees to be chosen by all voters. The high court is expected to issue a ruling by July.

Righeimer said he would await the decision of the justices before deciding whether to challenge his primary loss.

“As far as I’m concerned, I was the choice of Republicans,” Righeimer said Monday.

Among registered GOP voters only, Righeimer prevailed by 2,837 votes in the 67th Assembly District over Harman, a GOP moderate and longtime city official. Harman couldn’t be reached late Monday for comment.

In a separate recount, Matthias, a conservative, gathered 1,330 more GOP votes than Daucher, a city leader who campaigned on a more moderate platform. Daucher also was unavailable late Monday.

Party lawyers sued in 1997 to overturn the blanket primary system. They said the nominating process “defines a party’s ideology” and therefore should be protected by the 1st Amendment. But a federal judge in Sacramento rejected their claim, as did the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals.