‘No party preference’ gains again

California Democrats are enjoying the decline of the Republican Party. But they shouldn’t party hearty too quickly. Because their party also is not finding satisfaction with voters.

Secretary of State Debra Bowen reported:

Updated voter registration numbers released by Secretary of State Debra Bowen today show 23.1 percent of California voters registered without a political party preference – an all-time high. A total of 17,634,876 Californians are registered to vote.

That’s 4.1 million not registered with any party.

Democrats have 7.7 million registered voters, or 43.4 percent.

Republicans have 5 million registered voters, or 28.2 percent.

That means Republican registration is in third place, behind those with no party. On the other hand, Democratic registration is way below half and dropping.

People obviously are dissatisfied with the current system, which is so unresponsive to voter needs. Republicans obviously are having problems connecting with voters. Their current crop of candidates seems to be trying to change, but is unlikely to do better this Nov. 4. Any potential strong improvement is years off.

But Democrats are frozen into subservience to the powerful public-employee unions that write the campaign checks. That’s why pension reform is so halting, and comprehensive changes likely won’t occur until more municipal, and perhaps school district, bankruptcies shake the system during a future recession.

It also doesn’t help that voting seems to be meaningless. In 2008, voters approved Proposition 1A, $9 billion in bonds for a high-speed rail project. But the current project being built by Democratic Gov. Jerry Brown and the Democratic-led Legislature doesn’t resemble what the voters were promised, as lawsuits against the project have charged.

In 2003, voters recalled Gov. Gray Davis and elected Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, who promised not to raise taxes and to “blow up the boxes” of bureaucratic waste. Instead, he went on a spending binge and to pay for it raised taxes a record $13 billion.

Might as well stay home and watch reruns of “Breaking Bad.”

Note: The registration numbers were changed from the original, which used the Secretary of State’s 2010 numbers instead of those for 2014.