Sixteen years after the fact, former state senator Abel Maldonado — now a Santa Maria agriculturalist — is ready to call it quits over the “top-two” voting system he’s responsible for passing as a well-intentioned reform to make it easier for moderates of both parties to get elected. Under Maldonado’s reform — which he jammed down the legislature’s very reluctant throat because his was the key swing vote needed to pass a budget that year — the top-two vote getters in statewide primary elections would make it to the November run-off regardless of political party. Voters statewide voted in favor of Maldonado’s changes in the form of Proposition 14 in 2010.
As reported by Los Angeles Times columnist George Skelton, Maldonado acknowledged that his handiwork has not panned out as hoped. While this year’s turnout of 61 gubernatorial candidates was every bit the “jungle primary” that the name implies, the pragmatic did not prevail. The initial prospect of two MAGA Republicans facing each other in a November runoff to be governor of perhaps the bluest state in the west did spark an avalanche of last-minute Democratic votes. As inclined as Maldonado — a moderate Republican — is to walk away from his handiwork, he thinks voters should still be allowed to vote for the candidate of their choice regardless of party registration.
