As you know, Republican Senator Abel Maldonado forced the legislature to pass an open-primary ballot measure in order to secure his vote for the state budget. His backroom deal is an attack on the right of Democrats to select our nominee in legislative races. It opens the process to game-playing by Republicans who want to crossover vote to elect weaker candidates or stop progressive candidates from getting to the General Election.

The basic presumption of the open primary is that it would create more “moderate” candidates. If two Democrats are on the General Election ballot, the less progressive candidate (who could not win in a normal primary) would be carried to victory by Republican votes in the General Election. In other words – the candidate selected by the most Democrats to be our nominee would be defeated!

Even more dismaying is the version of the Open Primary that will be on the ballot. It is similar to the Louisiana Jungle Primary which puts the top two vote getters on the ballot – regardless of Party. If this had been in place in 2008 we would have had 10 Democrat-On-Democrat General Election battles – keeping us locked in intra-party battles while Republicans could have put all of their resources into the competitive elections in AD 10, 15, 30, 78 and 80.

Our Party needs to continue to win legislative seats so we can obtain the 2/3 majority necessary to pass a budget and implement real reforms. The Open Primary would be a step backwards.

In short, this ballot measure has four great flaws: 1) it would open our primaries to game-playing by Republicans, 2) it has been devised to defeat the candidates that receive the most vote Democratic votes in the Primary, 3) it would force us to spend our General Election money on intra-party fights, and 4) it would hamper our efforts to turn Red districts Blue.

This ballot measure will be on the June 2010 ballot. We have little time to raise money and organize against it. I am extremely happy to hear that our next Party Chair, John Burton, will be leading the charge to defeat this measure and I will be a partner in this effort.

As your First Vice Chair I will be working to pass a resolution at our next Executive Board meeting to officially oppose the measure and call on the Party Leadership to do everything it can to fund the campaign against it. I also personally commit to use my office to raise additional funds and organize across the state to defeat the measure.

In Unity,