 |
| Parents at Miramonte Elementary School protest teacher abuse of students. |
California has enacted a number of changes — one cannot call them “reforms” with a straight face — to its electoral system of late, notable among them the creation of an “independent commission” to draw up electoral districts and the institution of a top-two primary system, in which primary elections are putatively nonpartisan and the top two vote-getters face off in the general election, regardless of party. The outcome, wholly foreseeable, has been to strengthen the position of Democrats as a whole while reducing the power of both the Democratic and Republican parties as institutions. In 29 of the electoral races decided in November 2012, one of the parties was locked out of the general election — and, to nobody’s surprise, it was the Republican party that was locked out in 20 of those 29 races.
This arrangement greatly expands the power of the non-party institutional players, most notable among them the public-sector unions, which are in effect California’s third and most powerful political party. They hardly needed to have their political clout enhanced: Over the last 30 years, they have enjoyed a 75 percent kill rate fighting ballot initiatives they opposed. The entrenchment of government-union power has had predictable economic consequences (see “Penniless in Paradise,” National Review, August 2012) but also some strange non-economic effects. The strangest of them may be the state’s decision to exempt government agencies, including public schools, from a new measure intended to enable civil measures against organizations that harbor pedophiles. (more...)
Related article...
No comments:
Post a Comment