Posted by James V. Lacy at 12:00 am on Jun 09, 2010 Comments Off on Prop. 14 legal flaws should lead to invalidation in courts
The "California Top Two Primary Act," known as Proposition 14,
passed with surprising margins in counties across the state
yesterday. The campaign for the proposition should be
congratulating itself; many political observers did not see this
big win coming for Prop. 14.
Under Prop. 14, voters can vote in the
primary election for what used to be referred to as "partisan
elections" for any candidate regardless of party affiliation of
either the candidate or the voter. Candidates can even chose
to not disclose their party affiliation on the ballot. For
example, and admittedly at the extreme, if the Communist Party
qualified as a political party in California and had a candidate
running for Congress in say, Congressional District #9 (Berkeley),
the candidate could chose to not disclose that significant
political affiliation on the ballot.
Lawyers for both political parties will
now be focusing on a legal challenge to Prop. 14. I think the
fact that candidates can chose to remove information from the
ballot about their party affiliation is a significant line of legal
attack. It emasculates the political parties. Prop.… Read More