And now a word about the lesser known March Madness: California’s stupid decision to move our primary election from June to March.
I hate to say I told you so….but….moving our primary back four months every four years is almost as stupid as moving our clocks forward an hour every March.
In the pages of this publication in September of 2023, I wrote a piece arguing, “California’s primary should be in June, not March.”
In that piece, I explained that in September of 2017, then California Governor Jerry Brown signed legislation that moved California’s presidential primary elections to the beginning of March, three months ahead of when they were held in 2016.
The motivation behind the move was to increase the state’s influence in deciding who would be the Democratic and Republican presidential nominees.
At the time, then California Secretary of State Alex Padilla celebrated the move by saying in a statement, ”Candidates will not be able to ignore the largest, most diverse state in the nation as they seek our country’s highest office…California has been a leader time and time again on the most important issues facing our country—including immigration, education, and the environment. The Prime Time Primary Act will help ensure that issues important to Californians are prioritized by presidential candidates from all political parties.”
My conclusion, on the other hand, was that “moving up the primary was a pretty dumb idea, even by Governor Moonbeam standards…because now we get the worst of all worlds: our voice in the presidential race is meaningless and everyone appearing in down-ballot races has to speed everything up – including qualifying for the ballot, fundraising, and securing endorsements.”
Lo and behold, I was right.
Let’s review what happened in Tuesday’s election.
-The presidential primaries for both major U.S. political parties were effectively over before Californians cast their ballots.
-And worse, turnout was very low. The last reported tally from the California Secretary of State’s office said that 4.8 million ballots have been counted, with 2.5 million still to go.
According to reporting from Cal Matters, the total of nearly 7.3 million votes means a turnout of about 33 percent, well below the norm for presidential primaries.
There was no enthusiasm in this election.
In fact, the only way it could have generated less enthusiasm would be if they had called it “The 2024 Grammy Awards.”
Rhetorical side note: How pathetic is it that it takes this long to count ballots?
The fact that there aren’t overnight results of the voting makes Californians even less excited to vote. Remember, this is an electorate that becomes enraged when the DoorDash guy takes longer than 15 minutes to bring their shrimp tikka masala.
-Members of Congress decided to retire from office based on their own timetable, and didn’t seem to take the sped up primary into account. This created massive headaches and administrative barriers for the candidates seeking to replace them.
Just look at the mess in Kern County. Former House Speaker McCarthy announced his retirement from his Bakersfield-based congressional seat on December 6th, two months after becoming the first House Speaker to be dumped in U.S. history, and two days before the state’s December 8th filing deadline.
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This unexpected and last-minute vacancy caused a scramble among Central Valley politicians, including Assemblyman Vince Fong, who had already filed to run for re-election to the California state legislature. Ultimately, a judge had to decide that Fong could appear on the ballot.
-And finally, there were uncorrected errors on the ballot. These errors were due to either the incompetence of the Secretary of State Shirley N. Weber or were otherwise her fault. So really, same blame, regardless…
For example, instead of describing U.S. Senate candidate Christina Pascucci as, “Local Television Journalist,” the ballot incorrectly described her as “No Ballot Designation.” This error clearly damaged Pascucci’s chances with voters.
If we’re serious about boosting voter turn-out, we’re going to have to tell Californians that voting is non-GMO and gluten-free. That’s the only way it’s going to happen.
And while we’re at it, it’s time to stop voting in March, and go back to voting in June. Voting in June certainly won’t fix all of our problems, but it’s far superior to what we have now.
John Phillips can be heard weekdays from noon to 3 p.m. on “The John Phillips Show” on KABC/AM 790