California's Top-Two Primary

So California is going to try the Louisiana-style primary.  I can't say I'm thrilled that Californians voted for Prop. 14.  For one thing, it means that this blog doesn't have nearly the political impact I thought it did.  For another, I just don't think it's a particularly good law.  As I've mentioned before, the research on this subject suggests that this won't do a whole lot to reduce partisanship in California's legislature, and even if it did, weak partisanship isn't necessarily something to aspire to.  Beyond that, this new law will reduce the number of minority party candidates appearing on the general election ballot.  If you like to vote Peace & Freedom or Libertarian or Green, or if you're a San Francisco Republican or an Orange County Democrat, you're not going to find many candidates from your party on the general election ballot anymore.

It's not terribly surprising that this initiative won, of course, as it was prominently opposed by leaders of both major parties in the state at a time when they're historically unpopular.  I imagine the calculation many voters made was, The parties hate 14, I hate the parties, ergo I like 14.  Indeed, it's fitting that the initiative passed in every county save two -- Orange County and San Francisco, probably the two most openly partisan counties in the state and the hearts of the state's Republican and Democratic establishments, respectively. 

All this said, I'm actually curious what will happen, assuming the lawsuits against Prop. 14 fall flat.  We actually don't have very many cases of states trying this sort of primary system.  Maybe it will measurably reduce legislative partisanship.  And while California's own history shows weak partisanship to be dangerous, the state currently has partisanship to spare.  Of course, partisanship is far from the state's major problem right now, but at least from a research perspective, I'll be watching to see what we can learn.