Doug Johnson on Open Primaries on New York Times Blog

Doug Johnson was featured today in a recently created New York Times website blog named, “Room for Debate” that follows and comments on the news as it happens. Today the blog is focusing on the recently passed California Budget. Doug comments on one of the last minute compromises in budget negotiations that led holdout Republican State Senator Abel Maldonado to vote for the budget: open primaries.

Senator Maldonado’s proposal is not law yet. It will appear, for the third time, on California’s June 2010 primary election ballot. Voters approved an earlier version in 1996, but that version was rejected by the U.S. Supreme Court in 2000. In 2004, voters rejected Proposition 62 after a joint campaign by the Democratic and Republican parties to defeat it. The parties are already mobilizing against this measure. But Governor Schwarzenegger pushed legislative redistricting reform to victory last November, outspending opponents four to one. This open primary could again win with the governor’s backing, helped along by popular revulsion at the state’s current situation.

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