Top Two Defeated
The "Top Two" primary was defeated in a preliminary injunction last week. HA!
The decision says that, "In all constitutionally relevant respects, Initiative 872 is identical to the blanket primary invalidated in Reed."
I previously argued that it was not severable, because this is an initiative where the parts are all essential to the whole: without being able to restrict the party affiliations on the ballot, you can't presume the rest makes any sense to the voters. That is also what the court found.
Oh, happy day. No Top Two primary this year.
The next step may be for attempts to make all elections nonpartisan. I don't know the law on that, but it's a bad idea. The question remains: what is your real goal, and do you accept cutting off your nose to spite your face?
If your goal is simply to have primaries open to everyone, then you lost. You can't have it, and you should stop trying. The people who put a candidate on the ballot get to choose who that candidate is, period. The previous blanket primary forced parties to abide by the will of the people, illegally. So they instead tried to take the parties out by allowing their names to be illegally appropriated.
So next, they will try to remove parties altogether. So who puts up the resources to get candidates on the ballot, then? To campaign for them? To get out the information, to get out the vote? And get rid of all that just so you can have a say in who those candidates are, when you *already* have that right? It's ludicrous.
The decision says that, "In all constitutionally relevant respects, Initiative 872 is identical to the blanket primary invalidated in Reed."
I previously argued that it was not severable, because this is an initiative where the parts are all essential to the whole: without being able to restrict the party affiliations on the ballot, you can't presume the rest makes any sense to the voters. That is also what the court found.
Oh, happy day. No Top Two primary this year.
The next step may be for attempts to make all elections nonpartisan. I don't know the law on that, but it's a bad idea. The question remains: what is your real goal, and do you accept cutting off your nose to spite your face?
If your goal is simply to have primaries open to everyone, then you lost. You can't have it, and you should stop trying. The people who put a candidate on the ballot get to choose who that candidate is, period. The previous blanket primary forced parties to abide by the will of the people, illegally. So they instead tried to take the parties out by allowing their names to be illegally appropriated.
So next, they will try to remove parties altogether. So who puts up the resources to get candidates on the ballot, then? To campaign for them? To get out the information, to get out the vote? And get rid of all that just so you can have a say in who those candidates are, when you *already* have that right? It's ludicrous.
"It is the common fate of the indolent to see their rights become a prey to the active. The condition upon which God hath given liberty to man is eternal vigilance; which condition if he break, servitude is at once the consequence of his crime and the punishment of his guilt."
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