I was sitting here, reading my sample ballot for the June primary election here in California, and noticed something startling. It says here that nonpartisan voters may request a ballot for any of the following parties: Democratic Party, Republican Party, American Independent Party. This is a change. In the past, independents could only vote in the Democratic and AI primaries.
Clearly, the California Republican Party has changed the policy. I assume this happened at the last convention in San Francisco, during which my attention was focused on the platform fight.
This is disappointing to me. As things stand, conservative stalwarts in the party do the state a great service by leveraging their Constitutional prerogatives and limiting the tax-and-spend desires of the Democratic majority. If we allow ourselves to be watered down by ‘independents,’ then we could destroy that, and the Democrats would be able to run amok raising taxes, supermajority requirement or no.
I, for one, personally prefer we go back to having truly closed primaries. Even if “moderating” on spending, taxes, and culture would net us a few more seats, it could cost us what limited success we do have in Sacramento.