Given the disgruntled mood of Californians toward Sacramento, it is no surprise that reform is in the air. Proposition 14 on the ballot in the June primary was placed there by a reluctant legislature to secure the vote of then-Senator Abel Maldonado (R-Santa Maria) for the 2009 budget deal. Maldonado’s idea would eliminate party primaries with the hope that political strife in California would decline if more moderate legislators were elected, assuming, of course, the effectiveness of a Proposition 14 election system to produce more centrist elected officials.
Will change result if Proposition 14 is approved by voters?
Certainly, voters would have more choice in a Proposition 14 primary, because any voter could cast a vote for any candidate, without regard to anyone’s party affiliation or lack thereof. And even in top two run offs between two members of the same party, candidates will have to appeal to voters beyond the party faithful, and far fewer races will have results that are preordained after the primary.
On the other hand, change might just as easily include unintended consequences like vastly increased costs for campaigns and voter dissatisfaction with limited general election choices, which could depress turnout. Looking at the results of recent primary elections in which 2 Democrats or 2 Republicans received the most votes, by the way, provides some evidence that moderates do well under the current primary system, prevailing in about 40% of such races since 2006.
We released a report on April 28 that concludes the likely outcome of the passage of Proposition 14 – at least in the near term – is that many general election run offs will feature two Democrats. Currently more than one-third of all Congressional, Assembly and State Senate districts are very lopsided in favor of Democratic registration. We call these “supermajority districts,” meaning Democrats hold a registration advantage of 25 percentage points or more in 19 of 53 Congressional districts, 28 of 80 Assembly districts and 15 of 40 State Senate districts. Republicans do not have this registration advantage in any legislative district in California. [The full 113 page report is available at www.cgs.org and is called “Open Primaries and Top Two Elections: Proposition 14 on California’s June 2010 Ballot.”]
Looking deeper at the registration numbers, we found a substantial registration advantage in 32 of 53 Congressional districts, 47 of 80 Assembly districts and 27 of 40 Senate districts, meaning one major party or the other holds an advantage over the other by 15 percentage points or more. Of such districts, just 3 Congressional districts, 3 Assembly districts and 3 Senate districts feature sizeable Republican majorities.
All of these districts could produce general election run offs between members of the same party, and voters are more likely to see two Democrats than two Republican when this occurs. Our conclusion did not change significantly when we considered that district lines will be redrawn prior to the 2012 election cycle. Democrats hold an overall advantage over Republicans of 45% to 31%; the supermajority districts are clustered in the most populous areas of the state (the Bay Area and Los Angeles). Thus, while the lines might move somewhat, the resulting districts will still contain heavy concentrations of Democrats.
One wild card we considered, more relevant after the result of the United States Senate race in Massachusetts, is the impact that Decline to State (DTS) voters might have on our conclusions. To be sure, DTS voters are a growing part of our electorate: more than 1 voter in 5 now registers that way. We looked at the data available from the Secretary of State and determined that DTS voters do not vote in large numbers in partisan primaries, even though the 3 major parties in California permit them to do so. In June 2008, for example, DTS voters who requested partisan ballots numbered about 269,000 of the 4.5 million voters who cast ballots (6% of the vote). Moreover, we found that those who participated in that election requested Democratic ballots more than 70% of the time. Even in Orange County the rate was 57%; in San Diego County, an area with rapidly increasing DTS registration, the rate was 65.6%.
There could be close races under a Proposition 14 system in which support by the other party or DTS voters could swing a run off election to a more moderate candidate. Independents, however, are still well short of the influence of major parties in California. Close races are difficult to predict, moreover, and usually depend on a number of political and individual factors that sometimes have little to do with ideology.
The Democratic Party will continue to dominate our elections notwithstanding the election system changes proposed by Proposition 14. Change might be in the air but the balance remains the same.