Posted on 06/22/2004 8:51:49 AM PDT by NormsRevenge
SACRAMENTO (AP) - Senate Democrats and Republicans joined forces to swiftly approve a constitutional amendment that would counter a November ballot initiative lawmakers said could lead to one-party general elections for some offices. Opponents called the amendment by Sens. Ross Johnson, R-Irvine, and Dede Alpert, D-San Diego, a "Trojan horse" designed to confuse voters by tying the debate over how to structure California's primary elections to a plan to help pay off the $15 billion in deficit bonds approved by voters last March.
"It's dishonest; it's deceitful," said Kevin Spillane, a spokesman for the initiative's supporters, Californians for an Open Primary, a group with heavy financial support from corporations and business executives.
"If they want to defeat it, let them oppose our initiative on its merits. That's not what this is about."
Under the initiative, all candidates for a particular office would appear on the same ballot and voters would be free to vote for any candidate regardless of party. The two top vote-getters would face each other in the general election, regardless of their political affiliations.
In some districts, critics say, that could mean that only two Democratic or Republican candidates for the Legislature or Congress would appear on the November ballot instead of the nominees of the seven political parties recognized by the state.
The initiative wouldn't cover presidential primaries and elections for party central committee posts.
Under the current system, most political parties allow only their members to pick their nominees, although the Democratic, Republican and American Independent parties also allow independents to vote in their primaries, said Doug Stone, a spokesman for the secretary of state's office.
The Johnson and Alpert proposal would reaffirm the current system, giving each party the right to have their nominees on the general election ballot.
"This is all about voter choice," Johnson said. "Full, free, open debate is important in a democracy. We have nothing to fear from hearing different points of view. Having candidates from the Green Party, Libertarian Party and other smaller parties as well as Democrats and Republicans on the November ballot is important."
The amendment also includes a provision that would require that the sale of surplus state property be used to help pay off the $15 billion in bonds voters approved in March to ease the state's revenue shortage.
Johnson said the state may own more than $1 billion in property it doesn't plan to use and that selling it and using the proceeds to pay off the bonds could save taxpayers "tens of millions of dollars" in interest.
Spillane said the surplus property provision was "motherhood-and-apple-pie language ... to convince voters they are voting for one thing when they're voting for something else. It's a Trojan horse to confuse the electorate."
He criticized the Senate for moving the Johnson and Alpert proposal through two committees and the full house in about an hour Monday morning to get it to the Assembly in time to beat a looming deadline for measures to qualify for the November ballot. The measure also had a hearing in a third committee last Wednesday, two days after it was proposed.
Johnson said his amendment was "getting far more attention than development of their initiative got," which he said would implement an election system used in Louisiana that stifles debate and produces low voter turnout.
"The presence of this proposal on the ballot will force them to discuss their initiative honestly, which up to this point they have been unwilling to do," he said.
The Senate's 28-3 vote sent the amendment to the Assembly, which didn't take it up Monday. If approved there it would go on the ballot.
Thursday is the deadline for initiatives to make the fall ballot, although Stone said the Legislature has some leeway in qualifying its own proposals for the ballot.
"We're in the process of looking at the calendar to see what would be the drop-dead date for the Legislature" to put a measure on the ballot, he said.
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On the Net: Read the measure, SCA18, at www.senate.ca.gov
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I support the amendment. I don't want Democrats picking our party's nominees and vice versa. Its a matter of preserving the right of a party's members to decide who will represent their philosophy best in general election contests for public office.
Totally screwed up. Just like most of California.
1) California dodges a local, Republican sponsored, poison pill.
2) The state rids itself of assets that don't generate property taxes, even if sold to Schwarzenegger's cronies at a loss.
3) The proceeds from the sale, even if used to support expanded social programs, will ultimately lessen the large, mutigenerational debt that Schwarzenegger successfully promoted.
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