If Politicians Admit a Mistake, It’s Time to Listen

Can we go back home now? Back to a comfortable June primary. This visit has been really depressing.

Secretary of State Kevin Shelley is ready. “I think it’s time,” he says.

“This whole notion of moving up to March to make us relevant in the presidential sweepstakes hasn’t panned out.”

Shuck the so-called “early” presidential primary, asserts California’s chief election officer. Let lesser states play that illogical, losing game, searching for clout and recognition.

California should bundle up all its primary election contests -- presidential and state -- and return them to June, where they resided quite contently for 52 years.

State Sen. Ross Johnson (R-Irvine) recently introduced a bill to do just that.

“I would think anybody would have to face the reality that this experiment has just been a great big flop,” says Johnson, who for many years pushed hard for an early primary. “Politicians don’t like to do this, but I just have to concede I was wrong.”

Shelley, as a state assemblyman, also voted for the early primary.

“It was a mistake,” he admits. “History has proven me wrong.”

The sad tale: California once had a sensible two-primary system -- one for president in May and another for state offices in August. But in 1944, concerned about getting ballots mailed to troops overseas, California consolidated its two primaries into one in June. That lasted five decades.

Then we got envious of other states, like pampered peewees Iowa and New Hampshire, that were choosing presidential nominees for the rest of America.

We longed for the golden years -- 1972, 1964, 1956 -- when California’s primary was decisive, or at least wasn’t a meaningless yawner. So we moved it up to late March in 1996, then to early March in 2000.

It was futile. Other states leapfrogged ahead of us, many of them pipsqueaks. By the time California voted Tuesday, 20 previous contests had been held. Nine other states voted the same day we did, further diluting our influence.

This year’s primary process was particularly ridiculous for California.

Sen. John F. Kerry of Massachusetts effectively sewed up the Democratic nomination by winning New Hampshire. California merely served as the venue for a TV debate, the continuing vice presidential audition of North Carolina Sen. John Edwards and the mining of many millions in campaign money.

“We’re consistently being used as a donor state, yet the money we give never comes back here,” says California Democratic Party Chairman Art Torres. “The candidates didn’t spend a dime in this state. And voters responded in kind.”

By not bothering to show up. Shelley projects the final voter turnout at around 41% after all the ballots are tallied. The record low for a presidential primary was 41.88% in 1996.

There are too many elections, Shelley contends. There was the recall election in October. Then in November, half the state’s political jurisdictions held elections. There’ll be more local elections in June and the general election in November.

“There’s voter fatigue,” the Democrat says. “It’s like, ‘Oh my God, I’m in a democracy, but didn’t I just vote last week?’ ”

The March primary also creates other problems:

* Potential state candidates must decide by Halloween of the previous year whether to run. If they’re already in office, the political scrambling distracts from their public duties.

* There’s little time between the holidays and the primary to grab the voters’ attention. It’s dreary winter. Kids are restless. Politicians get ignored. This helps incumbents and hurts little-known challengers.

* Once a candidate is nominated in the primary, there’s a ludicrously long eight-month runoff campaign until November. This numbs voters and costs more special-interest money.

* There are many nominees who, in effect, won their legislative or congressional seats Tuesday, but can’t take office until December.

The best remedy would be to split the primary. Hold a presidential contest one week after New Hampshire. Shake up the parties, the pooh-bahs and the process. Then hold a state primary in comfy June.

That would be Johnson’s preference. His split-primary bill passed the Senate last year, but got hung up in the Assembly when others tried to leverage it to extend term limits.

Some complain about the extra cost of holding a presidential primary. The tab is roughly $40 million. But that’s only once every four years.

Notes Johnson, a fiscal conservative: “Democracy is not free. Democracy is not necessarily cheap. We could save a whole lot of money if we didn’t have elections at all.”

Many hope the national parties will realize it’s their loss if big-state voters don’t engage in the presidential primaries -- and if they do finally grasp this, reform the exclusive system by creating a series of rotating regional contests. Or something. Go in alphabetical order.

If not, Johnson and many favor moving it all back to June. That’s what Shelley wants regardless. Concede the blunder.

California can exercise its clout in November. We’ve been to that early function and it’s a real drag.

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George Skelton writes Mondays and Thursdays. Reach him at george.skelton@latimes.com.