State GOP moves to boost primary candidate

ANAHEIM — Many California Republicans are frustrated that they frequently don’t have a GOP candidate to vote for in November, often feeling forced to either choose between two Democrats — or not cast a ballot at all.

So on Sunday at its convention in Anaheim, the California Republican Party tried to take a step to decrease the chances of that happening by making it easier for the party to endorse candidates.

Since California voters approved Proposition 14 in 2010, the top two finishers in the primary, regardless of political party, advance to the general election in November. It was pitched to voters as a way to elect more moderate candidates and reduce gridlock.

Republicans, however, say the opposite has happened, with the Legislature more liberal than ever and California dominated by Democrats.

Too often for many Republican voters, those top two finishers are Democrats — not surprising in a state where 45 percent of the registered voters are Democrats, 26 percent are Republicans and 25 percent of voters decline to state a party preference. Republicans haven’t won a statewide office since 2006 and are a super-minority in the Legislature.

Republicans hope that by making it easier for the party to give its seal of approval to one candidate, there would be fewer scenarios like what happened in the 2012 U.S. Senate race. More than two dozen little-known Republican candidates divided up the GOP vote in the primary, and none captured the grassroots’ full attention.

Elizabeth Emken, a Danville Republican who advocates for people with autism, emerged from that primary pack with 13 percent of the vote, while incumbent Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., had 50 percent. Feinstein soundly beat Emken that November to win re-election.

“We have to give ourselves a chance to win,” Republican National Committeewoman Harmeet Dhillon, a San Francisco attorney who proposed the change, said Sunday. “We should stop putting ourselves at a disadvantage to Democrats,” who endorse candidates in primaries.

Republicans hope that by endorsing candidates at their next convention May 4, they could give themselves an extra bit of momentum for the June primary a few weeks later.

“This is not a perfect thing,” said Tony Krvaric, chair of the San Diego Republican Party, but it is a way to “assert ourselves.”

“I’ll be darned if I sit on my hands while the Democratic Party endorses, the Chamber of Commerce endorses, the special interests endorse, all the unions endorse,” he said.

To be considered for the party’s endorsement, a candidate would have to be a registered Republican for one year, obtain the written endorsement of 200 party delegates from different parts of the state, and secure the backing of five members of the party’s board of directors. Then, at the convention, a candidate would have to receive the support of 60 percent of the delegates.

Mark Meuser, a Republican attorney from Concord who just launched his campaign for California secretary of state, said anyone who couldn’t fulfill those requirements “isn’t a serious candidate.”

But, Meuser added, the value of the party’s endorsement “depends on the resources that party puts into that endorsement. If they just announce it on their website, it doesn’t mean that much.”

Even though many at the convention grumbled about Prop. 14 — the top-two system — the party did not take action on a resolution to go on record calling for its repeal.

“It’s a sad day when anyone in the party would support a system that all but guarantees that a Republican won’t be on the November ballot for a statewide office,” said former state party Chairman Tom Del Beccaro.

“The people in the party don’t like it, but the elite want to keep it,” said Laurie Wallace, a delegate from Placer County.

Even Eric Bauman, chairman of the California Democratic Party, opposes Prop. 14 — but for different reasons.

If there wasn’t a top-two primary system, “I wouldn’t have to spend millions in Dem-on-Dem races in Democratic districts across the state,” Bauman said Sunday. Instead, he could be spending that money trying to flip Republican-held seats, he said.