Thursday, October 07, 2004
Propositions 60 and 62
Wooo! Interesting ones! Props 60 and 62 look towards our primary election process. Currently, each party has a primary, and the winner of each primary goes on to the general election. Prop 60 wants to make this procedure a part of the constitution, and was specifically introduced to combat prop 62. Prop 62 wants to take partisanship out of the primary process, and make it so that the general election is between the two top vote-getters of a non-partisan primary election.
If both propositions pass, the one with the most yes votes becomes part of the constitution.
Beetle the Ideological Voter feels that partisanship should have no official place in the election process. The primaries were originally internal elections for individual parties to determine their candidates, but now that the primaries are official state elections, continuing to apply partisanship to them is inappropriate. Ideally, we would de-officialize the primary process, but that is not an option at the moment. YES on 62, NO on 60.
Beetle the Pragmatic Voter recognizes that the outcomes of the elections are unlikely to change greatly under 62. If a Democrat would win under the current scheme, it seems highly unlikely for a Republican to win under the new scheme, and vice versa. However, making the primary nonpartisan means that parties will have to act on their own to decide which of their candidates they'll back. This could easily mean yet another election at an even earlier date to fill the role that the primary used to fill. Elections are costly. NO on 62. Passage of prop 60 will make it harder to change things in the future, and change is almost always bad and/or costly. YES on 60.
Beetle the Entertainer again sees a short-term and long-term issue. Current strategical shenanigannery can be humorous, but the fun would be multiplied hugely in a non-partisan primary, where you'll see various vote-dividing schemes, attempts to block out the other party by getting two of your own party in the top two slots (which takes careful coordination), and liberal use of "spoiler" complaints. This may, however, put a damper on the general election fun, as we will no longer see the green party candidate for governor used as a bargaining chip by the Republicans like we did last time. However, the entertainment value of seeing Californians show their idiotic cheerleading for the porposition process and pass two competing propositions is too much to pass up. Therefore, YES on 60, YES on 62.
Beetle the Bitter Foe of All Humanity also sees the prospects of strategical shenanigannery and recognizes that hateful bickering will emerge between members of the same party. As the stakes become lower, the dirty tricks will become more vicious. YES on 62, NO on 60.
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