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New Survey Shows California’s Political Parties Are Doing Their Job
By Bill Cavala
A veteran of over 30 years in Sacramento
The latest PPIC survey shows the remarkable gulf that occurs between Republican and Democratic voters in California. It extends over an ideological framework (liberal – conservative), on specific issues (immigration, gay marriage), indeed, even to geography. Democrats control the BayArea, North Coast and Los Angeles. Republicans dominate the remainder of the state except for Santa Barbara and Imperial County.
The survey writers want to focus on the 20% of the vote not affiliated with the Democrats or Republicans. Growing in numbers, should we not change the system to involve them to a greater extent? So the PPIC folk suggest. Moving from single member districts to proportional representation, for example.
When did we begin this vilification of American Political Parties?
Actually, from the outset. The founding fathers called them “factions”, and saw in them a great danger. They had constructed a government to protect us from “tyranny” by breaking federal power into pieces (legislative, executive and judicial) and checking even that broken power with the authority of the states and with the Bill of Rights. Political Parties were extra-legal organizations through which men attempted to reassemble the pieces of power – both to get things done and to advance their careers.
But Parties survived, for two good reasons. One is that they solve the problem of social intransitivity. (I prefer A to B. You prefer B to C. He prefers C to A. A vote doesn’t correctly translate the preferences of the group). Parties resolve these questions by reducing the choices to “him or me”. The second is that they provide quick cues for busy voters. I don’t have to read the “platform” of a Democratic candidate to know what she will do if elected. This latest survey shows that party candidates do, indeed, represent their party’s voters. The system works.
So what of the “independent” voters? Are not they votes of reason midst the noise of partisan passion?
Actually they are best described as young, ignorant, and indifferent. They are the least education portion of the electorate. They have little interest in politics or government. They float between the major party candidates in a frivolous fashion seeking more services and lower taxes. They constitute the difference between base GOP voters as represented by the Mountjoy vote (35%) and the base Democratic vote garnered by Angelides (39%).
We shouldn’t be looking for ways to increase their power vis-à-vis the partisans; we should be trying to make them into partisans too.
Bill Cavala was Deputy Director of the Assembly Speaker’s Office of Member Services where he worked for over 30 years.
He attended undergraduate and graduate school in the 1960’s and received a doctorate in political science at UC Berkeley. He taught political science at UC Berkeley during the 1970's while he worked part-time for the State Assembly.
Cavala left teaching at UC Berkeley and went to work for Assembly Speaker Willie Brown in 1981 until his tenure as Speaker ended in 1995, and he has worked for his five successors as Speaker up to and including Speaker Fabian Nunez.
Mr. Cavala manages election campaigns for Democratic candidates.
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