San Francisco Chronicle - (Sunday)
State doesn’t need to hold an election in November
Question: What would Californians have lost if we canceled this November’s election? Answer: Nothing.
Our fall elections have become unnecessary at best. No exaggeration — this California election offers less suspense than the recent Chinese vote for a new Politburo Standing Committee, overseen by dictator Xi Jinping.
We all know that Democrats will win the governorship, legislative super majorities in Sacramento and most Congressional seats. We know because the people on the ballot already ran against each other back in June. November is not a real general election, but a rerun of earlier contests pared down to the top two vote-getters.
The rest of this election consists of stuff about which we don’t know much.
We aren’t familiar with the lawyers running to obtain or retain judicial seats. We don’t care enough to read the actual texts of the ballot measures we’re asked to enact. And even when ballot measures touch on high-profile issues we care about and follow closely, it’s unclear whether our votes will make any difference.
Californians do care about the right to choose, but Proposition 1 would enshrine a right to abortion that we already possess under our state Constitution, state law and judicial precedent. Californians will vote down two sports betting measures, but the power of gaming interests means that the state will soon have sports wagering anyway.
Some Californians care about local races, including in counties that may replace sheriffs who have abused their power. But solving the real problem — the excessive power of sheriff ’s offices — will require state constitutional reform.
The Los Angeles mayor’s race is fiercely contested. But how much real difference is there between the contenders? Both are Democrats in their 60s with remarkably similar center-left agendas.
Going forward, it wouldn’t be hard to cancel November elections. Or at least make November ballots shorter.
We could stop voting to confirm or retain judges’ appointments. There’s no evidence that elected judges are better than appointed ones.
We could turn various state-elected
offices, too — from attorney general to treasurer — into appointed jobs. Races for these so-called “down ballot” positions enable corruption — because ambitious younger politicians use them to build fundraising bases by soliciting the corporate entities they regulate.
We also could implement structural changes. Instead of running two redundant sets of elections under the state’s top-two system, we could use ranked-choice voting with instant runoffs in June and determine winners in just one round.
Or Californians could accept the reality that we live in partisan times and stop pretending that our elections are nonpartisan. Most voters are party animals. Instead of wading through ballots full of political candidates about whom we know very little, we could choose party lists. That’s how it’s done in much of the rest of the democratic world.
In Sweden, whose elections I covered in September, you don’t select individuals — you just choose the party you prefer and submit its list of candidates. You actually choose three lists: one for your local government, one for your state government and one for the national government.
And when it comes to ballot measures, we ought to follow the example of advanced democracies that separate votes on issues from votes on representatives. We shouldn’t have to choose both at the same time.
I recently was in Switzerland, the world’s most successful direct democracy. Its citizens vote for elected representatives every two years like
we do. But votes on local, state-level and national ballot measures operate on a separate calendar, spread out over four dates every year.
That means the Swiss vote on only a handful of measures at a time. Each referendum and each initiative gets plenty of media attention and public scrutiny.
If we tried to do something similar, every three months Californians would receive, by mail or over the internet, a ballot asking for their votes on just a couple of measures. That would be a much more responsible approach than the current, eye-glazing practice of throwing long lists of measures on ballots that also include votes on dozens of elected positions.
The state could do even more to help us out. When Californians vote on measures, we are acting as legislators. So why not schedule ballot measure votes to fit the legislative calendar? Let’s vote on ballot initiatives and referenda in January (when new ideas come forward in Sacramento and in local governments), April (when we see our tax receipts and can better predict what the state can afford), July (after the budget has been signed) and October (once we’ve seen what laws the governor has signed or vetoed).
Let’s keep November free for November stuff — raking leaves, baking pies and gathering with our families and friends.