Today is primary day and 3.5 million Flori

Wednesday, March 21, 2012

California Top Two Shaking Up Partisanship


CALIFORNIA TOP TWO
  • Primary debuts changes that could give voters fits -  New top-two method gives voters choices. (By John Ellis - The Fresno Bee) Voters "may be a little shocked when they see how many people are running for U.S. Senate," said Gail Pellerin, the Santa Cruz County clerk and president of the California Association of Clerks and Election Officials. "It's definitely new and something different."
  • California candidates set to battle in new political landscape - The changed primary system and new legislative and congressional districts will probably yield intraparty fights and a lack of third-party hopefuls on the fall ballot. More contested seats are possible too. (By Jean Merl, Los Angeles Times)
  • Viewpoints: 'Top two' primary: What will it really do? (By Peter Schrag, Special to The Bee) The redrawn 26th now has a narrow Democratic registration advantage, which raised the hopes of Democrats that they could capture a seat long held by the GOP. But now three Democrats are in the race against state Sen. Tony Strickland, a Republican, and a county supervisor named Linda Parks, who changed her registration from Republican to independent. If the Democrats, among them Assembly member Julia Brownley, the Democrats' anointed choice, all stay in the race, they could easily divide the Democratic majority's votes and put Parks and Strickland in the November runoff.
  • Final Brief Filed in 9th Circuit in Lawsuit on Two Particular Aspects of California Top-Two System (Ballot Access News) This reply brief, filed by opponents of Proposition 14, points out that when backers of Proposition 14 intended to place the idea on the ballot as an initiative in 2009, their draft did permit use of the ballot label “independent.”

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