Parties and voting

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Parties and voting
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Hiram Johnson and the Progressives of early 1900s

• Middle class reform movement against
• Control over government by elite special
  interests (SPR)
• Strong (corrupt) party machines, based on
  favors and patronage
• So favored
• Accountable government
• direct democracypeople power
• Weak party organizations

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Partisan versus non-partisan elections

• local elections and state judges are virtually
  all non-partisan

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State elections--More Progressive legacy

• special elections
• Called by governor or by petition
• recall
• Initiatives and referenda
• (As opposed to usual way law is made--majority in
  one house, then other, conference, then signed
  (or vetoed) by governor)
• The voice of the people or special interests?
• Constraining the role of the legislature?

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Primaries and General Elections

• Primary Choosing the candidates to compete in
  the General Election
• General Election choosing among the candidates
  to hold office

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Partisan primaries

• Federal and state offices are partisan
• 1996 CA voters passed proposition for open
  primarythrown out by USSC
• Now we have semi-closed primary

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Redistricting

• Every 10 years, after census CA legislature
  redraws district boundaries for themselves and CA
  Representatives to the House in DC
• Gerrymandering

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Example 60 Rep and 40 Dem
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Version A--three safe Rep districts

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Version B--two safe Rep, one safe Dem district
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Gerrymandering, contd

• Current trend
• Computers exacerbate gerrymandering
• Types
• Partisan
• Racial
• Incumbent

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Incumbency Advantage

• Of the 101 CA incumbents who ran for reelection
  in 2002 and 2004, all were reelected, and 99 of
  these 101 incumbents won by landslides.
• Why?
• Self-fulfilling prophecy
• term limits?
• at state level, not federal
• CA6 ys Assembly 8 ys Senate, lifetime banmost
  stringent in the nation

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Results of Term Limits

• More diverse20 Latinos
• Citizen legislators?not really
• Of 40 Senators, 36 are former assemblymembers
• Less experience and knowledge
• From 1960s-1990s, CA often described as model
  professional legislature
• Shorter time horizon
• Increased power of lobbyists and advocacy groups
• Increased power of Governor

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Who votes?

• The old
• The educated
• The wealthy
• The white

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Who Cant

• In CA the convicted, while they are in prison
  lose the right to vote

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Campaign finance

• Campaigns increasingly expensive--mostly for TV
  ads
• Especially in CA

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Attempts to fix the problem

• 1976 USSC throws out mandatory spending limits
• 2002 Campaign finance--McCain Feingold
• but campaign spending continues to grow

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Election Reform

• Money--public funding for candidates--clean
  elections--including funds to match opponents
  private funding
• AB 583
• More competition--redistricting reform
• More choices--instead of single member district
  winner take all
• party lists, cumulative voting, choice or instant
  run-offs, etc.
• see http//msnbc.com/modules/mockracy/

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Political Dividerecall election
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Method of voting

• Growth of electronic voting
• But big storygrowth of voting by mail
• Increased convenience resulting in greater
  turnout?