LOS ANGELES — Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger commended California voters Wednesday for dumping the state’s partisan primary system and predicted fed-up voters would follow in other states.
California is only the third state to embrace open contests. Proposition 14 was patterned after a law in Washington state that survived a U.S. Supreme Court challenge and has been in effect since 2008. Louisiana has a similar open system for its general election.
However, there were no guarantees that California’s passage of Proposition 14, which created open primaries in the state, would end the partisan bickering that has hamstrung Congress and state legislatures.
U.S. Rep. Henry Waxman, D-Los Angeles, pointed out that California’s legislative and congressional districts are heavily gerrymandered and favor one party or the other.
Thus, the winner of the primary who is in the majority party typically coasts to victory in the general election.
In some heavily Democratic or Republican districts, the minority party may not have “somebody on the ballot in November to champion the causes” of that party, Waxman said.
Schwarzenegger, the state’s outgoing Republican governor, contends that a partisan primary system forces candidates to pander to the extreme wing of their party to win primaries.
“We in California have said we’ve got to come to the center,” Schwarzenegger said. “I think the rest of the nation eventually will find out this is exactly what the action is, not go way to the right, not go way to the left.”
Under Proposition 14, California voters can cast ballots for any candidate in a primary election, regardless of party, with the top two finishers moving on to the general election.
Approval of the measure reflected voter anger in California and across the nation at a system that critics complained has been dominated by a small coterie of political activists in each of the two major political parties.
Schwarzenegger’s campaign committee gave $2 million to support the initiative, but he did not say whether he would be willing to put his political muscle behind a national open-primary effort.
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