Experts Expound: The top two primary

Regardless of what happens in the June primary, will there be an effort to overturn the Top Two primary system after this election?

“More likely there will be a recall effort if the general is a top two GOP race.”

“If there isn’t there should be. Terrible system.”

“Not sure, but the top-two primary has actually served Democrats well. Since its inception in 2012, there have only been three Democrat-on-Democrat run-offs in statewide races, one for lieutenant governor, two for Senate. When a Democrat ends up in a run-off with Republican after the primary, they can basically take the rest of the year off.”

“Unless the catastrophe – from the perspective of the Democrats – happens in which two Republicans advance to the general election, I doubt that among all of the other things in the world that we need to be concerned about related to democracy whether the top two system will draw a significant enough of a challenge to be repealed.  In terms of democratic innovation, the threats to Ranked Choice Voting at the local level seem more organized at this point.

To add to my answer … and the irony is that if we were using a ranked choice voting system at the state level for this election, the Democrats wouldn’t have this problem …”

“I believe this election year is an anomaly. Heaven help us if Democrats begin considering ranked-choice voting.”

“Sweet Jesus I hope so!  It’s almost as bad as the goofy “ranked” process SF uses.”

“Yeah, I think we can expect it, but it just may be that people who do not eat and breathe politics actually like it!”

“100% this is coming. The dominant political party would never want to leave that in place.”

“If by some miracle California ends up with two Republicans in the general election for governor, you can expect a political earthquake the next morning. There will be immediate calls for a recall, demands to “protect democracy,” and a sudden push from Democrats, unions, and their political allies to scrap the Top Two primary system. The irony, of course, is that this system was never considered a threat when it regularly produced some general legislative elections with two Democrats.”

“It all depends on the results of the June election. If it’s D v R, then even those that hate it won’t be energized to repeal it. Remember it will take a significant campaign to go back and undo it, with no real monetary return for those proponents. On the other hand, the big business interests behind it in the first place will oppose any repeal effort. Plus many in the consultant class are making too much money off manipulating the existing system, and those elected thru it will be reluctant to gamble on being returned to office under the old system.”

“No, I don’t think they will change anything.”

Our panel of experts: Elizabeth Ashford, Hector Barajas, A.G. Block, Barry Brokaw, Samantha Corbin, Jon Costantino, Richard Costigan, Gregg Fishman, Tim Foster, Rex Frazier, John Howard, Fiona Hutton, Gale Kaufman, Steven Maviglio, Mike MeCey, Paul Mitchell, Barbara O’Connor, Jack Ohman, Kassy Perry, Matt Rexroad, Garry South, Paula Treat, Micah Weinberg, Bill Wong, Daniel Zingale.