Open Primaries

What is Terry Goddard thinking??

by

Crossposted from DemocraticDiva.com

open primaries dark money
Already trying to make them look similar. Except they’re not. Not even remotely.

Ugh. (Emphasis mine.)

“They both help each other,” [Paul] Johnson said. “The polling was very clear. If they both end up on (the ballot), even through independent efforts, they both help each other.”
More public support may be just what Open Primaries Arizona needs. When Johnson ran a top-two primary measure in 2012, it suffered a landslide defeat. Two-thirds of Arizonans rejected the plan, which garnered only 33 percent of the vote. Johnson’s group is making some changes to the top-two plan, which he said will make it more palatable to voters.

Open Primaries Arizona has commissioned several polls on the top-two primary and other election reforms, including requiring dark money to be disclosed, as other election spending is. Chuck Coughlin of HighGround, which Johnson’s group has retained (!), said polling has shown a lot of support for both ideas.

Read more

So many people with much disposable income want to spend it on behalf of white supremacists

by

Crossposted from DemocraticDiva.com

david duke

Remember how we’ve been told, lo these many years, that the reason for all the “extremism” in Congress and in state governments is that unwashed yokels wrested democracy from the capable hands of Serious Business People™ and were somehow able to put their petty culture war concerns ahead of The Very Important Things That Serious Business People™ Care About. Thus we are told we must eliminate public campaign financing (at least from states, e.g. Arizona, whose benighted voters are deemed unable to handle it by NYT columnists). We are told that primary elections must be changed because the conventional wisdom (which is never wrong) holds that yokels voting in closed primaries are ruining everything. Above all, we simply must impress upon these truculent yokels the need for civility in our public discourse! These things, surely, will lead to a glorious era of temperance where country club Republicans politely sip tea with centrist Democrats!

Sure they will.

Read more

Will the Open Primaries initiative be on the Nov 2012 ballot or not? (video)

by

by Pamela Powers Hannley

Backers of the Open Primaries initiative knew from the beginning that changing Arizona's two-party primary system to an open, "top two" primary system wouldn't be easy. They expected challenges from Democrats and Republicans, and that's what they got.

Earlier in the summer, Governor Jan Brewer and the Arizona Legislature tinkered around with ideas to change or stop it. Secretary of State Ken Bennett tried to stop it by saying that it was unconsitutionally broad, but the courts squashed his attack. 

As of mid-August, Open Primaries was back on the ballot, until this week, when Maricopa County said that there were an extraordinary number of bad signatures.

The latest news is that the Open Primaries/Open Government folks have filed a suit to get the initiative back on the ballot. Supporters claim that Maricopa County erroneously rejected.

Stay tuned for the next volley in this ping pong game.

For more background on the Open Primaries initiative– just in case you actually get to vote on it– check out the video debate between former State Rep. Dr. Ted Downing (pro) and former Mayor Tom Volgy (con). The event was sponsored by Progressive Democrats of American Tucson Chapter.

Videos after the jump.

PDA open primaries debate: Emotion vs Facts

by

 by Pamela Powers Hannley More than 60 Southern Arizonans turned out last night to hear two UA profs politely duked out the open primaries question in a debate sponsored by the Progressive Democrats of American (PDA) Tucson Chapter.  Before an attentive crowd, former State Representative (and self-proclaimed recovering politician) Ted Downing (below) argued for open primaries. … Read more