Mike Bloomberg comes to Arizona

The grand opening of Former New York Mayors Mike Bloomberg’s Phoenix office at 801 East Washington did not happen? Why is that? Because the 300 people they expected to show up did not. 1600 people (including virtually the same press corp that attended the Warren rally last summer) came instead and the Bloomberg team had … Read more

Diligent voters are now the “angriest mob”, per Paul Johnson

Crossposted from DemocraticDiva.com

johnson top two
Paul Johnson, Open and Honest Coalition

It used to be, not long ago, that voters who never missed any election were known as “good citizens”. But as the country has become more polarized and increasingly ungovernable, thanks entirely to one party (the GOP) being overtaken completely by rabid reactionaries, there is an increasing tendency by the Serious People to blame the voters for what they sat back and allowed to happen for decades*. This has certainly been the strategy of the people behind the Open “Primary”** initiative (AKA Top Two) in Arizona, which is currently getting signatures for the 2016 ballot.

The Arizona Republic has relentlessly promoted Top Two for years now, running numerous favorable articles and editorials on it since the first version (which failed) was introduced in 2012. Last Saturday, there was this softball interview with former Phoenix Mayor Paul Johnson, a main backer of the initiative.

Why did the Open and Honest Coalition form?

The existing system discriminates against the 1.2 million voters who choose to not affiliate with a party, the largest group in Arizona. All taxpayers pay for primary elections, but independents are barred as candidates from those ballots and forced to choose a party ballot which they have already chosen to reject. Arizona had a 30-year record-low voter turnout in 2014 because voters aren’t given the freedom of choice.

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Robert Robb is correct, but also mistaken, in his analysis of Top Two Primary.

Crossposted from DemocraticDiva.com

johnson top two
Photo: Arizona Republic

Robert Robb makes a logically consistent, persuasive, and correct argument (sort of) in favor of the 2016 Top Two Primary initiative in Arizona:

The principal objective of the top-two primary initiative shouldn’t be sugarcoated.

It isn’t to increase voter turnout or eliminate discriminatory barriers to independent candidates. Those might be desired byproducts. But they are not the main event.

The principal objective, the main event, is to reduce the influence of conservative Republicans in state government and politics. Those who don’t like the outcomes of Arizona elections want to change those outcomes by changing the rules.

It’s really about reducing conservative power

Plainly stating the principal objective shouldn’t settle the argument, even for conservative Republicans. For there is something else that should be plainly stated: The current system of partisan primaries doesn’t fit today’s political demography in Arizona.

Under the current system, state law establishes conditions for having a political party recognized. Taxpayers pay for recognized parties to hold primary elections to select their general election candidates. Parties get other advantages, such as preferential access to the voter roll.

Robb is correct that claims of Top Two increasing turnout or helping “independent” candidates get elected are howlers to people who pay anything resembling close attention to Arizona elections but possibly plausible to those who don’t, hence such claims being at the forefront of selling the initiative to the general public and certain gullible pundits.

And Robb is on point with his assertion that the traditional primary system does not reflect current registration figures (a third of the state’s voters are not officially affiliated with any party) and the case he makes for removing taxpayer funding of partisan primaries is a solid one. It is objectively the best argument for changing to an open primary system.

So far, so good, but here’s where even Robb, who has thus far evaluated the initiative in the most clear-headed manner of anyone in the news media, gets it wrong:

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Meet the highly shady out-of-state characters influencing, and bankrolling, Top Two Primary in AZ

Crossposted from DemocraticDiva.com

John Arnold and Jackie Salit
John Arnold and Jackie Salit

It’s no secret that “centrist” business leaders in the Central Phoenix corridor and their friends at the Arizona Republic are strongly backing the Top Two Primary initiative, which now has ballot language and is getting signatures gathered for it. Even political reporter Mary Jo Pitzl couldn’t help but make her lede look like a press release for it:

Unlikely allies want to shake up Arizona elections with proposals outlawing anonymous corporate political donations and replacing a primary system they say favors the extremes of both major political parties.

The proposed ballot measures are being spearheaded by two former Phoenix mayors who ran as Democrats for governor and the Republican political consultant who most recently backed Gov. Jan Brewer.

But Terry Goddard, Paul Johnson and Chuck Coughlin say they’ve found common ground in a quest that Coughlin describes as an effort “to reinvent the architecture of Arizona politics.”

Supporters cite the fact independents have become the largest voting block in Arizona and could propel both measures to success in November.

“A political system has to accurately represent the true picture of the electorate,” said Jackie Salit, president of IndependentVoting.org. And that’s not happening now, she said.

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The Top Two blackmailing of AZ Democrats begins!

Crossposted from DemocraticDiva.com

Open and Honest Elections filing

From the AZ Capitol Times comes this teaser for their January 12th edition of the Yellow Sheet:

Top two and anti-dark money rolled into one

By: Yellow Sheet Report January 12, 2016 , 4:18 pm

The campaigns for dark money disclosure and a “top-two” style primary election system have officially joined forces under the aegis of Open and Honest Coalition. In a news release today, the coalition announced the filing of “separate, but aligned” proposals to amend the Arizona Constitution.

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