Election will test state's 'top-two' primary system (LA Times)

Election will test state's 'top-two' primary system

by Michael Finnegan

Millions of Californians will cast ballots in races for governor and hundreds of other public offices Tuesday in the first full-scale test of a new primary system aimed at curbing entrenched partisanship in state politics..

In contests for statewide office, Congress and the Legislature, candidates who finish first and second — regardless of party — will compete in a November runoff.

Modeled after nonpartisan local elections, the "top two" system was approved by voters four years ago. Exasperated by chronic gridlock in Sacramento and Washington, voters ignored pleas of the two major parties to keep California's partisan primaries intact.

For Democrats, a top election goal this year is to regain the two-thirds supermajority they lost in the state Senate when the three lawmakers were suspended, and to preserve the one they maintain in the Assembly.

It's a sign of how far Republicans have fallen out of favor in California that their No. 1 objective is to keep Democrats from achieving, once again, the full-blown lockout from state policymaking that a legislative supermajority can bring. Republicans are also fighting to keep Democrats from maintaining their hold on statewide elective offices.

http://www.latimes.com/local/la-me-pol-california-election-day-20140603-story.html