Thursday, June 10, 2010

California Prop 14 - Top Two Primary Stupidity

Maybe it figures that an :Austrian would celebrate Prop 14 but you would think citizenship and governorship might clue him in. Prop 14 doesn't require partisan identification and allows for same party general elections.

What isn't generally known is that a State has no control over a Party's primary, what they have control over is what they will finance. The gerrymandering of districts in CA (no they're not alone) means that the outcome in some districts may well be two people from the same party running in the General and it also means small parties are cut out entirely. If the State Parties go along with this crap they deserve to be held up to mockery.

Parties are free to finance their own Primary process and the State is not free to interfere with that process if it follows what is set out as a due process. I may be a Democrat and in favor of Democrats winning, generally speaking, but I do not approve in any manner of the dilution of the voter's will.

What upsets me particularly is that my state, Oregon, has an unfortunate tendency to ape the idiocy that California comes up with.

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