By Wayne Lusvardi

Most people are familiar with the term “fusion” as a type of restaurant that combines Hawaiian, Asian and American types of food. But with the recent top-two primary election on June 5, California is gradually moving to a system of electoral fusion.  It could be called a de facto Fusion Party, where the party exercises power without being officially established.

Political fusion is an arrangement where two parties on a ballot list the same candidate.  Fusion has been outlawed in many states.

A version of fusionism emerging in California is this under the new Top Two system, which voters approved under Proposition 14 back in 2010. The majority party floods election ballots with at least two of its candidates. Then it only allows the minority party to influence election results by endorsing one of the major party’s candidates.  Another name for political fusion is cross-endorsement.

Voters Fooled Again

Prop. 10 and Top Two were promoted as advancing moderate candidates, supposedly ending the ultra-partisan bickering that has characterized state politics in recent years.

But few moderate candidates advanced to the runoff election on June 5.  In State Assembly District 41 in Pasadena, for example, pro-business Democratic candidate Victoria Rusnak could not overcome union-backed city councilman Chris Holden, a Democrat, or Tea Party candidate Donna Lowe, a Republican, despite Rusnak putting $200,000 of her own money into the campaign.

And in one case, a Republican challenger for State Assembly District 27 in Ventura with more than 50 percent of the vote, Todd Zink, has been forced into a runoff election with  Democrat environmental extremist Fran Pavley, a termed-out state senator. She was a major backer of Assembly Bill 32, the Global Warming Solutions Act of 2006.

California primary elections are becoming like the Pacific 12 Football Conference playoffs.  If a team wins the Southern Division and beat the Northern Division champion during the regular season, they still may have to beat them a second time in a playoff game to determine the conference champion.

How the Fusion Party Emerged from Political Extortion

The top-two primary was touted as a way to reduce political extremism.  What it’s turning into is as a way to compel Republicans to vote for either of two Democrats.

Prop. 14 eliminated third parties, banned write-in candidates, created false competitive districts and erased Republicans from general elections. Voters should have recognized something was rotten when Prop. 14 was oddly supported by the California Chamber of Commerce Political Advisory Committee and opposed by the American Civil Liberties Union and the California League of Conservation voters.  Normally, voters would think this would have been the other way around.

No Checks on Power — No Democracy

So what California will eventually end up with from a Top Two Primary system and redistricting is no more check on power by the opposing Republican Party. There will be no check on the plundering of the middle class and small business by a trifecta of government, unions and big corporations.   As Steven Greenhut perceptively explains in his article, “California Ushers in a New Era of Bipartisan Plunder,” redistricting and the Top-Two Primary will lead to:

(1) Democrats gaining a solid two-thirds majority is both houses of the Legislature, where they will have the power to tax at will;
(2) Control of the power of taxation will be by unions ,not moderate legislators;
(3) Corporate support for higher taxation for large infrastructure projects such as the California High-Speed Rail Authority and the Peripheral Canal.

The few will be enriched mainly at the expense of private middle-class taxpayers.  Government and schools may be again “fully funded,” pensions may not be reformed or could eventually be restored to lucrative levels and big engineering companies would reap windfalls.   But public electric utilities, large private industries, small businesses and homeowners will get clobbered from higher taxation, mandated higher green power rates and California’s Cap and Trade emissions tax.   The overall economy will get worse, while those politically connected will do better.

Usurping Democracy

It is never easy to overthrow a democracy; and harder to replace it even with a fusion form of government sold to the public as a way to reduce political dysfunction.  Social institutions possess a massive amount of bureaucratic inertia that takes years to change. Election reform has been bouncing around since the 1990’s.

In a democratic republic, the three branches of the state — legislative, executive and judicial — are separate.  They may even at times work at cross-purposes to balance each other.  In a politically fused form of government, these organs must be deprived of their relative independence and reorganized with a clear chain of command directly to the fusers in power.

Californian Ambrose Bierce once wrote his “The Devil’s Dictionary”:

“GNOSTICS, n. A sect of philosophers who tried to engineer a fusion between the early Christians and the Platonists. The former would not go into the caucus and the combination failed, greatly to the chagrin of the fusion managers.”

The culture of these organizations must also be reformed and reorganized so the primary loyalty is to the new political fusion or coalition hiding behind the Legislature than to those in the institutions they serve.  Progressive era organizational independence and professionalism must be subtly supplanted. Fusion leaders do not want to be loved or feared, but paid.

If coercing existing bureaucracies fails, then parallel institutions must gradually take over the functions of the state.  Hence we have the Delta Stewardship Council and a number of entities created by ballot initiatives to benefit government bond entrepreneurs: the Institute for Regenerative Medicine for stem cell research, the California High-Speed Rail Authority and the independent state lottery system.  Who knows how many more parallel unaccountable entities are to come with new redistricting and Top Two primaries?

A democratic republic is being undermined not only by a coalition of unions with big banks, big engineering corporations and bond entrepreneurs but also by duped voters. “The people, when deceived by a false notion of the good, often desires its own ruin,” wrote Machiavelli 500 years ago.

Voters must either be disenfranchised or their votes channeled for candidates chosen by power elites. Democracy means “the rule of the people.”  Hence, it follows that it is the people who have the most to lose.

In a hybrid fusion form of government, candidates do not need as much a broad base of popularity to win office.  Voting must subtly shift from “consent of the taxed and the governed” to a “consensus” of the beneficiaries.

Machiavelli again: “All laws made in favor of freedom arise from the disunion — or de-fusing — between the People and the Elites.”

By John Hrabe

Anti-tax groups face a tall order this November. There’s priority one: defeating the competing multi-billion-dollar tax-increase plans of Gov. Jerry Brown and liberal activist Molly Munger. Both propositions will receive tens of millions of dollars in campaign contributions from unions and special interest groups.

Even if both measures fail, Democrats have a backup plan to push tax increases through the state Legislature. State tax increases require two-thirds approval of both houses. Democrats are expected to be within just a handful of seats in the state Assembly. In past years, when Republicans held only a notch above one third of the seats, legislative Democrats have successfully picked off a few moderate Republican votes for tax increases.

Thanks to redistricting gains and a chronically underfunded opposition, Democrats are a lock to reach two-thirds control of the state Senate. “A candidate’s view on taxation will be the central issue in swing senate districts,” wrote Joel Fox, editor of Fox & Hounds and president of the Small Business Action Committee.  “A newly Democratic controlled Senate will vote for taxes from time to time. Especially if taxes are perceived to fall on someone else — that famous man behind the tree in the ditty, ‘don’t tax me, don’t tax thee’ tax the man behind the tree’.”

But, before you send a bigger check to Sacramento, consider an ironic scenario that could be taxpayers’ saving grace in 2013. Two even-numbered state senators running in two different congressional races could set off a chain reaction of events that would effectively block tax increases for most of the year.

State Senators Gloria Negrete McLeod and Juan Vargas, both of whom have records of supporting tax increases, have made their respective runoffs for the House of Representatives. If both pro-tax Democrats win their congressional races, their state Senate seats would remain vacant until they could be filled by special elections. The pair’s victories would reduce the Democratic caucus by two members and effectively erase Democrats’ two-thirds’ advantage.

“The vacancies do not change the threshold for the two-thirds requirement, which is 27 seats in the Senate,” confirmed Bernadette McNulty, chief assistant secretary of the Senate. In other words, taxpayers would be temporarily protected with the career advancement of the two pro-tax Democrats.

Vacancies Filled by Special Elections

Prior to being sworn into Congress, the pair would need to resign from the state Senate. Depending on how quickly Gov. Brown called a special election, it could take up to 120 days from the date of their resignation to fill the vacant seats. During that period, Democrats would need to pick up additional Republican votes for tax increases. In 2011, it took approximately 16 weeks for then-Assemblyman Ted Gaines to fill a vacant state Senate seat.

Both Negrete McLeod and Vargas hold safe Democratic seats, so it would be only be a matter of time until Democrats regained their supermajority control of the state Senate. However, it would likely be a zero-sum game for legislative Democrats. Every seat picked up by Senate President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg, D-Sacramento, could be a direct loss for Assembly Speaker John Perez, D-Los Angeles.

After all, the strongest contenders in an abbreviated campaigns would be members of the state’s lower house, who have built-in name identification and a proven fundraising network. In the process of filling Senate seats, there could be vacancies in the state Assembly. More importantly, every member of the Assembly to move up to the Senate would trigger another special election process and potential four-month delay.

Howard Jarvis Taxpayers: ‘Appreciate Any No Vote’

The Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association, the state’s leading anti-tax group, says that when it comes to tax increases, any no vote is a good vote.

“While our first choice is a responsible Legislature that recognizes that taxes are too high, not too low, in the real world we appreciate any ‘N0’ vote, even if that vote is the result of a vacancy,” explained Kris Vosburgh, executive director of the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association. “California already ranks at or near the top in tax burden, and taxpayers are grateful for any advantage that helps level the playing field.”

He added that the goal of Proposition 13 “was not to make tax increases impossible, but to create a system that required taxes to be approved with a strong consensus based on clear, demonstrable need.”

An Empty Seat: The Best Representative?   

Not all Republican leaders see the vacancies as a positive development for California, conservative philosophy or the Republican Party.

“If one’s over-riding interest is a narrow definition of tax policy, then, yes, I suppose an empty seat might be preferable to one filled by a hard-line anti-tax conservative who might question the narrow edict of The Pledge in the interest of pursuing the larger strategic priorities,” said former Republican Assemblyman Roger Niello, who broke ranks with his caucus in 2009 to support Republican Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s $13 billion dollar tax hike. “But with the tax pledge (and this could apply to others, too), the rigid dogma attached to it has elevated a no tax policy to an over-arching strategy.  That is true dysfunction.”

Niello added that conservative philosophy involves more than just taxes and includes “such things as personal responsibility, free market economy, limited government, effective and efficiently focused government responsibilities and local control.”

Top Two Primary Turns Senators into Strong Challengers

So how likely is it that 2013 turns into another year of special elections? For starters, the pair of Democratic state senators must win their congressional races. Both are plausible candidates; one is almost guaranteed.

Vargas, who is running for the open 51st House seat, faces only token opposition from Republican challenger Michael Crimmins. In the June primary, Vargas’ vote share was more than double that of Crimmins. Altogether the Democratic field combined for more than 70 percent of the vote.

Meanwhile, Negrete McLeod’s road to Washington is more difficult. She is challenging fellow Democrat Rep. Joe Baca in the 35th House district. In the June primary, Baca finished first with 45 percent of the vote. Negrete McLeod wasn’t far behind, trailing by only 2,500 votes or 8.5 percentage points. The only other candidate, the Green Party’s Anthony Vieyra, pulled in nearly 19 percent of the vote.

The Top Two primary system could also bolster Negrete McLeod’s chances. There’s likely to be little difference between the Democrats’ voting records in Congress. Republican voters without a Republican on the ballot might be encouraged to support Negrete McLeod, if for no other reason than to temporarily block state tax increases.

State Senate Campaigns: Central Issue Taxes

Of course, this unexpected turn of events also relies on Democrats first taking a supermajority of the state Senate. Most Capitol insiders believe the State Senate is a lost cause for California Republicans, who spent more than $1.2 million on a futile attempt to advance a referendum on the Citizen Redistricting Commission’s Senate maps. Ultimately, that money could have been spent to bolster the campaigns of the party’s three swing candidates in the 5th, 27th and 31st districts.

Democrats need to win just one of three swing state Senate races this cycle in order to reach the all-important two-thirds threshold. Those three seats are the 5th Senate race between Bill Berryhill and Cathleen Galgiani; the 27th Senate race between Todd Zink and Fran Pavley; and the 31st race between Jeff Miller and Richard Roth. 

In addition to the two Democrats, another state senator, Republican Doug LaMalfa of Oroville, has a free shot at Congress. He holds a safe Republican seat and has signed Americans for Tax Reform’s Taxpayer Protection Pledge.