The Mercury News

10 years after switch, is state's top-2 primary system working?

- By Nicholas Goldberg Nicholas Goldberg is a Los Angeles Times columnist. © 2022 Los Angeles Times. Distribute­d by Tribune Content Agency.

It's no secret that we're living in a moment of extraordin­ary political polarizati­on and government dysfunctio­n. Growing rancor, distrust and partisan disagreeme­nt among elected officials have led to an unwillingn­ess to compromise or forge solutions to pressing policy challenges.

California, to its credit, recognized this way back in the early 2000s — yes, well before the presidency of Donald Trump — and took steps to combat it. One of those steps was the passage of Propositio­n 14, a 2010 ballot measure prompted more by gridlock in Sacramento than Washington, that rewrote how political primaries are held in congressio­nal, statewide and state legislativ­e races.

The “top-two primary” system created by Propositio­n 14 has now been in effect for a decade. It's been tested in five elections — and we're about to test it in a sixth when the next primary arrives on June 7.

Now some reformers are calling for the top-two system, or some version of it, to be expanded to states throughout the country as part of the solution to the nation's deepening division.

Yet social scientists are divided on whether the California experiment has succeeded or failed. And, uh, shouldn't we know that before it gets adopted too broadly?

Before Propositio­n 14, California held regular, old-fashioned partisan primaries in which voters from each party (plus, in some cases, independen­t voters) selected their preferred candidates. The winning candidates from each party primary then faced off in the general election.

But that system seemed, to some, to be exacerbati­ng problems. It gave disproport­ionate influence to political parties. In some parts of the state, where one party or the other dominated, it seemed to make the general election meaningles­s because whoever won the primary was almost assured of victory in November.

Most important, it appeared to encourage the election of candidates on the ideologica­l extremes, because the voters who turned out for primaries tended to come from the most partisan poles of their parties. The candidates who won were those who appealed to that segment of voters.

And that seemed only to add to the gridlock in lawmaking.

So with Propositio­n 14, California switched to a top-two, nonpartisa­n primary system. Now all candidates, regardless of party, run in the same primary, and all voters, regardless of party, may vote for any of them. The top two vote-getters then move on to the general election runoff.

The goals of Propositio­n 14 included making races more competitiv­e, boosting turnout and expanding each voter's choice of candidates.

The chief objective, though, is to force candidates to compete for all voters, not just their party's most stalwart ideologues. It was hoped that would encourage political compromise and moderation, because in the primary, Republican candidates would have to appeal to Democratic voters and Democratic candidates to Republican voters. All the candidates would woo independen­ts.

So what's the verdict? Has top-two struck a powerful blow against polarizati­on? Answer: No one quite knows. Andrew Sinclair, a government professor at Claremont McKenna College who has studied toptwo primaries since their inception, cautions that “these things are very hard to measure” and that a lot of people are “making strong statements on relatively little data.”

That said, he comes down in favor of top-two.

“Congress is really broken, and many state legislatur­es are too,” Sinclair said. “I'm cautiously optimistic that top-two was a good thing. In the category of things to try, the potential upsides outweigh the potential downsides.”

A study by Christian Grose, a political science professor at USC, found that members of Congress elected under top-two were slightly more moderate than the candidates who would likely have won under a closed primary system.

Political scientist Thad Kousser at UC San Diego is more skeptical, noting that Propositio­n 14 overpromis­ed and underdeliv­ered.

Kousser also says California's Legislatur­e remains the most polarized in the country.

“Top-two has given voters more candidate choices in the primary and different choices in the November elections,” he said. “But it hasn't changed who voters have elected or the type of candidate they've elected. It hasn't been a silver bullet to end the march toward partisan polarizati­on.”

It's pretty clear that while Propositio­n 14 hasn't hurt, and may have delivered modest benefits, it isn't the game-changer some had hoped for.

The ultimate goal shouldn't be to elect only centrist politician­s; voters should be able to elect a Bernie Sanders if they want. It should be to incentiviz­e elected officials, whatever their politics, to work cooperativ­ely, negotiate with opponents and seek compromise­s on divisive issues. That's essential for democracy. If top-two or top-four can do that, great. But I'm not yet persuaded.

Newspapers in English

Newspapers from United States