(Photo by Art Cummings/Flickr)

Everyone likes a good deal.

And for that reason, most of us have flocked to clothing stores like H&M and Old Navy for the unbelievably cheap and expansive selection they offer.

T-shirts for five bucks; jeans and dresses for under $20. It’s almost like you can’t afford to not buy it.

Clothing is cheaper now than it’s ever been: today average Americans spend less than four percent of their total income on their wardrobes, about half what was spent 50 years ago, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

It’s almost cheaper today to buy a whole new wardrobe than to pay to wash your old one (a bit of an exaggeration, yes, but really not all that far off).

But you know the saying that there’s no such thing as a free lunch? Same thing goes with your $5 t-shirt – it comes with some steep hidden costs. There’s no possible way retailers like H&M could be making billions in profits selling clothing at such low prices without there being some catch.

So what are we, the consumers, not seeing?

Out of Sight, Out of Mind

The answer became painfully clear last month when an eight-story factory building in Bangladesh collapsed, killing more than 1,100 garment workers who were manufacturing clothing for American and European retailers.

Bangladeshi garment workers, the majority of whom are women, receive among the world’s lowest wages – as little as $37 a month. They often work 15-hour shifts in unsafe, sweatshop conditions. Workers rights are few, and labor activism is commonly – and sometimes violently  - squashed. More than a few major factory owners are either government officials or have close political ties, allowing the industry to commonly ignore safety and labor standards.

The collapsed Rana Plaza in Bangladesh, which killed more than 1,100 garment workers last month. (Wikimedia Commons)

Rana Plaza, the building outside of the capital Dhaka that collapsed on April 24, was owned by a local politician who illegally built three additional floors onto the structure and installed heavy textile machinery (he’s currently being detained).  The building housed five different garment factories and more than 3,500 workers. Even after large cracks were found in the walls the day before the disaster, factory supervisors – under pressure to fill orders – ignored warnings to vacate the building, and ordered workers to continue production.

This was the deadliest industrial disaster in Bangladesh’s history, but certainly not the only one in recent memory. Just last November, 112 garment workers were killed in a factory fire near Dhaka, when supervisors ignored fire alarms and prevented workers from leaving their sewing machines. Roughly 500 Bangladeshis have died in similar disasters over the past decade. And even since the Rana Plaza collapse, a factory fire on May 8 killed at least eight more workers.

Why Bangladesh?

Simple: labor and production costs are dirt cheap. Making clothes in Bangladesh costs less than just about anywhere else in the world. Check out the graphic below to see just of just how dramatic the contrast is.

If you take a quick look at the tags on the clothes in your wardrobe, chances are good that at least some of them were made in Bangladesh.  Since the 1990s, Bangladesh’s ready made garment industry has exploded: it now generates close to $20 billion a year in exports.  More than 25% of these garments go to stores in the U.S. and close to 60% are shipped to to Europe, according to a report by the International Labor Right Forum (ILRF) Major retailers that look to Bangladesh for much of their clothing manufacturing include H&M, The Gap, Walmart, Benetton, J.C. Penney and Zara.

Bangladesh’s textile factories have popped up like gangbusters in the last decade. There are now about 5,000 of them, employing nearly four million people, according to the ILRF. It’s become one of the largest clothing exporters in the world. In fact, it’s second only to China, which has actually lost a good deal of textile manufacturing contracts because it’s no longer the cheapest place to do business.

The Dark Side of Fast Fashion

It used to be that most clothing stores had seasonal fashion lines that would remain on the shelves for at least few months. But go into an H&M store today and then go back again a week or two later, and you’ll likely find a completely changed inventory. This is the concept behind fast fashion, pioneered over the last 15 years by European brands like H&M and Zana, and to a lesser extent, The Gap, Benetton, Urban Outfitters and Forever 21. The idea is to capture the latest design trends and whisk them from the catwalk to the store, quickly producing trendy but generally low quality garments in the fastest, most cost-effective manner possible.

This business formula has proven remarkably successful, with many of the big brands posting record profits (the founders of H&M and Zana are both among the richest people on the planet). And they’ve done it by providing a nearly unlimited selection of super cheap, fashionable clothing that consumers reliably devour.

In a recent interview with NPR, Elizabeth Cline, author of Overdressed: The Shockingly High Price of Fast Fashion, explained that stores like H&M produce hundreds of millions of garments per year. “They put a small markup on the clothes and earn their profit out of selling an ocean of clothing,” she says. H&M has about 2,800 stores in 48 markets and it’s growing fast, especially in China and the United States.

But if these companies are making billions and consumers are getting great deals, the cost has to be absorbed somewhere. And that’s where developing countries like Bangladesh come into the picture. Because there’s no way the fast fashion model could exist without an army of extremely low-paid workers to quickly turn massive orders around.

Digital First Media

Unfortunately, the insatiable demand of the fashion model has also encouraged harsh working conditions: garment workers toil around the clock to quickly meet ever changing orders, while factory owners pay paltry wages and often avoid necessary safety improvements in order to keep production costs low. If conditions were improved and workers paid even a few cents per hour more, production costs would rise, and the retailers would likely look to cheaper suppliers.

See a NY Times slideshow on Bangladeshi factory workers

This, of course, is not unique to the fashion industry. A slew of other Western industries – food included – also rely on global supply chains. One prime example is electronics companies, which depend heavily on cheap production lines in developing countries. The issue came to light last year after worker abuses were reported at a Chinese factory that made products for Apple.

So who’s to blame?

There’s no simple answer. It’s easy to blame the big clothing companies, many of whom reap enormous profits, fully aware of the decrepit conditions where their products are made.  After the huge factory fire last November, a number of major clothing brands and retailers rejected a union-sponsored proposal to improve safety throughout Bangladesh’s garment industry, the Associated Press reported. Instead, companies expanded a patchwork system of private audits and training, which labor groups allege do little and lack any real enforcement mechanism.

The textile factories are almost all locally owned and managed, allowing Western retailers to maintain a distance from them and turn a blind eye to factory floor conditions.   And blame, of course, can also be directed at the factory owners and Bangladeshi government officials who knowingly exploit and endanger the workforce.

In the wake of this recent tragedy, a number of European designers including H&M, Zana and Benetton, signed a new legally binding agreement to pay for major safety improvements. But very few American brands have gotten on board: as of May 17, only two companies – PVH, parent to Calvin Klein and Tommy Hilfiger and Abercrombie & Fitch signed.  The Gap, Walmart, Sears and Target are among the major American clothing retailers that have refused to sign despite relying heavily on Bangledeshi suppliers. Some of these companies counter that they have their own safety improvement measures in place, while others, like Disney, have announced that they will leave Bangladesh altogether.

Western companies are often quick to argue that although working conditions in Bangladesh are far from ideal, they’re a whole lot better than they would be if the garment industry wasn’t there at all. Western demand has created jobs and training for millions of people, particularly women, offering a greater degree of independence and economic security. Since the arrival of textile manufacturing in the late 1970s, Bangladesh’s poverty rate has fallen from about 70 percent to less than 40 percent. And even though about half the country still lives on less than a dollar a day, income has risen markedly for large swaths of the population. Health and education have improved incrementally as well.

NPR’s Planet Money show is documenting how t-shirts around the world are made.

What role do you play?

And then there’s us – the consumers. Because the reality is that none of this would be happening if the demand wasn’t there to fuel it. Consumers in Western nations now buy more clothes than ever before, according to Cline, particularly cheap clothes that aren’t  made to last.  Factory conditions would likely improve if consumers were to demand it, especially if we were willing to pay more for our clothes and absorb some of the costs .

But doing so is a lot easier said than done. It’s one thing to be horrified by Bangladesh’s recent tragedy and to hope conditions improve. It’s quite another thing, though. to voluntarily pay more for your clothes at the register. With the exception of the worst tragedies that grab our attention, most of the inequities in this system are out of sight, out mind. It’s really easy to just pretend they don’t exist.

Which begs the question: how much more would you be willing to pay to know your clothes were being produced in an ethical manner?

Resources to help further explore this issue

Lesson plan suggestions for using this issue in the classroom

• NY Times Learning Network
• PBS Newshour Extra

International labor rights advocacy groups

• International Labor Rights Fund
• Fair Labor Association
• IndustriAll Global Union
• International Labour Organization (a United Nations organzation)

Sites that help track product origins in the global supply chain

• SourceMap
• ImportGenius 
• Piers

Corporate responsibility statements from some major clothing retailers

• H&M
• Gap
• Walmart
• Target

The Background

In 1992, 18-year-old Kimber Reynolds was attacked by two men who attempted to steal her purse outside a restaurant in Fresno. One of the men shot her in the head. She died 26 hours later. The  25-year-old shooter – who was killed shortly thereafter in a police standoff – was described by police as a hardcore drug user who had been repeatably jailed on gun and drug charges, and who just two months earlier had been released from state prison where he served a sentence for auto theft.

After his daughter’s death, Mike Reynolds began fighting for a statewide tough-on-crime policy to keep potentially violent criminals off the streets. His effort gained widespread support following the kidnapping, rape and murder of 12-year-old Polly Klaas just eighteen months later.

In 1994, voters overwhelmingly approved Proposition 184, known as the “Three Strikes and You’re Out Law,” which Reynolds helped author. In effect ever since, the law has significantly increased the length of prison sentences for second and third time offenders who had a serious or violent original conviction  Even if repeat convictions are minor – such as petty theft or drug possession – a second strike offense now results in double the normal prison term. A third strike gets a mandatory sentence of 25 years to life. Of the roughly 24 states with a three strikes type  law, California’s is widely considered the harshest.

Californians remain sharply divided over three strikes. Advocates like Mike Reynolds are quick to note the dramatic decrease in crime statewide since it was enacted: by 2004, the statewide violent crime rate had gone down by half.

But opponents argue that the law unfairly imprisons scores of low-level offenders for excessive periods at a huge expense to taxpayers. In the decade after the law’s passage, the state prison population increased by roughly thirty percent, and the prison budget skyrocketed. Today, of the more than 41,000 second and third strike inmates in California’s prisons, more than half are serving elongated sentences for non-violent crimes. Of these, more than 6,000 are for drug-related offenses.

All attempts to reform three strikes, including a ballot proposition in 2004 have failed. But on Nov. 6, California will again reconsider the issue, and vote on Proposition 36, a measure that which would significantly revise the three strikes law, resulting in shorter sentences for many non-violent, non-serious offenders.

The California Legislative Analyst’s Office estimates that if Prop 36 passes, it will save California roughly $70 to $90 million annually. Opponents of the proposition, however, warn that doing so will severely compromise public safety.

Additional Multimedia Resources

three-part series, and interactive timeline on California’s three strikes law.

More resources on the two tax propositions

So, what issues do young people care about? What are their ideas about government and the role it should play in our lives?

Well, rather than blindly hypothesizing, KQED decided to (gasp) actually ask them. Directly.

In partnership with three other public media organizations on the West Coast, we launched a series called “Voices of Young Voters”. This fall, we spent a bunch of time on college campuses around the Bay Area, asking young voters to weigh in on the issues they care most about in this election. Listen to to some of the responses below, and find many more here.

California has had a really tough time making up its mind about the death penalty. In 1872, the state authorized capital punishment in its penal code (until then, executions were generally conducted by county sheriffs). 23 years later, a guy named Jose Gabriel, convicted of murdering an elderly couple, was hung inside San Quentin Prison. That marked California’s first official execution at the hands of the state.

For the next 75-odd years, California executed nearly 500 inmates, four of them women.

And then things got really confusing.

In early 1972, the California Supreme Court ruled that the state’s death penalty law constituted cruel and unusual punishment, in violation of the state’s constitution. But just nine months later, California voters approved a ballot initiative that amended the constitution to make capital punishment permissible.  A year later, the state passed legislation that actually made the death penalty mandatory for certain crimes. But once again, the state Supreme Court struck back, ruling that law unconstitutional as well.

Fast forward six years. In 1978, California voters approved Proposition 7 by a whopping 70 percent. The initiative not only reinstated the state’s death penalty, but also broadened the list of circumstances under which a convicted prisoner could receive a death sentence. It also increased prison terms for first and second degree murder.

And its this law that currently stands in California.

Over the last 34 years, the state has executed 13 prisoners (a 14th was convicted in California but executed in Missouri). The last execution – of Clarence Ray Allen – was back in January 2006. Currently 725 prisoners live on California’s death row .

Interestingly, many of Prop 34′s strongest advocates – including Jeanne Woodford, the former warden of San Quentin Prison, and Ron Briggs, the son of the state senator who led the effort to get the death penalty reinstated in 1978  – argue for repealing the death penalty largely on economic – not moral -  grounds.They contend that the current system is horribly inefficient and a financial burden to the already cash-strapped state. Due to the number of legal appeals and required long-term special supervision for death row inmates, the financial costs of executing a prisoner far outweigh that of life imprisonment.  Repealing the death penalty would save the state an estimated $100 million a year, according to the Legislative Analyst’s Office.

But supporters of the death penalty – those in opposition to Prop 34 – argue that criminals convicted of the most heinous crimes deserve to be put to death. The death penalty deters future crime, many argue, and for the families and friends of victims, it is the only way that justice is truly served.

For more perspectives on this issue, listen to the following KQED and NPR radio stories. Also, read a list of strong arguments for and against the death penalty at procon.org.

About the filmmaker

John Moore/Getty Images

The message was short but – for a lot of young people – pretty sweet:

“Effective immediately, up to 800,000 young people living in the U.S. illegally will no longer be subject to automatic deportation.”

And with that executive order, announced June 15, President Obama shook up in America’s immigration policy.

At least a little bit.

It’s no DREAM Act, but the Department of Homeland Security’s shift in policy – which bypassed Congress and went into effect immediately – will definitely effect the lives of a whole lot of young people. And no where will the impact be felt as widely as in California, where roughly a quarter of the nation’s young undocumented immigrants live, according the Migration Policy Institute.

The administration’s order – considered by many a political tactic to woo Hispanic voters – allows eligible undocumented residents to receive what’s called “deferred action,” which delays deportation proceedings and offers them a green light to apply for two-year work visas (that can be renewed indefinitely).

How many are eligible?

The Obama administration said that its new policy would benefit about 800,000 undocumented immigrants. Some, however, put that figure higher: the non-partisan Pew Hispanic Center estimated the change to affect as many as 1.4 million young people, more than 10 percent of the total population of undocumented immigrants in the U.S.  About 70 percent of potential beneficiaries will be Mexican, the Center predicts. And of the 1.4 million eligibly people, about 350,000 live in California,  the Migration Policy Institute estimates.

What are the criteria for eligibility?

• Be 30 years old or younger
• Have come to the United States before the age of 16 and lived here continuously for at least five years
• Be currently enrolled in school; or have a high school diploma/GED; or be an honorably discharged veteran of the U.S. Coast Guard or Armed Forces

• Have no criminal record and pose no threat to national security or public safety

Does this policy offer amnesty or a path to citizenship?

Nope. And it doesn’t offer the possibility of a green card either. In this respect, the new policy doesn’t shake things up nearly as much as would the DREAM Act, which would offer a path to citizenship and expand educational opportunity for roughly the same group of immigrants – often labeled DREAMers. That act, though, while supported by the administration, has been has been repeatedly stalled by Congress for upwards of a decade.

In his announcement, Obama called the new plan a temporary measure put in place until he and Congress could pass long-term comprehensive immigration reform.

“Let’s be clear,” Obama said.  “This is not amnesty. This is not immunity. This is not a path to citizenship. It’s not a permanent fix. This is a temporary stopgap measure that lets us focus our resources wisely while giving a degree of relief and hope to talented, driven, patriotic young people.”

Can undocumented immigrants now apply for drivers licenses and college financial aid?

The administration’s policy change hasn’t changed anything in this arena. For now, each state still has digression to permit or prevent undocumented residents from applying for licenses, financial aid, and even whether they can attend public universities. Currently, only New Mexico and Washington State allow undocumented immigrants to get drivers licenses. And Utah offers a driving privilege card. California does not allow undocumented residents to apply for licenses, and the state’s Department of Motor Vehicles hasn’t commented yet on whether it plans to make any changes to the status quo. The state, however, will implement it’s own version of the Dream Act next year, allowing undocumented immigrants who fit certain criteria to apply for and receive state-funded financial aid for public universities.

Say Obama loses the election … then what happens?

It’s unclear. If Mitt Romney wins, he could technically reverse the policy, although he hasn’t specified if he would do so.

How do you apply for a deferral?

Government immigration agencies are still working out the specifics. Individuals who qualify will have to submit a request for review and provide supporting evidence to the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services. And eligible individuals currently in the middle of deportation proceedings will soon be able to request a review.

Government Resources

• United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (hotline: 800-375-5283)
• Immigration and Customs Enforcement (hotline: 888-351-4024)
• Department of Homeland Security

And then, of course, there’s Stephen Colbert’s take on it all ….

Dr. Jaus/Flickr

That’s the underlying question that Proposition 29 poses to California voters, who go to the polls in June to decide if smokers should pay an extra buck in taxes for a pack of cigarettes.

What would Prop 29 do?

If passed, the measure – called the California Cancer Research Act – would add an additional dollar to a pack of cigs and other tobacco products sold in California (amounting to five more cents/cigarette). It would more than double the current tobacco tax rate – the most dramatic increase in the state’s history.

The estimated $735 million (annually) in new revenue (adjusted for tax revenue lost from the projected decrease in sales) would go toward a special fund administered by an appointed committee to support research on cancer and other tobacco-related diseases, as well as prevention and enforcement initiatives. None of it would be used for medical treatment.

If the measure passes, tobacco sales in California are predicted to decrease by as much as $1 billion a year. If the measure does NOT pass, the current cigarette tax of 87 cents would remain as is.

Who likes it?

Californians for a Cure is the group behind Prop 29. Co-chaired by former State Senate Pro Tem Don Perata and cycling legend Lance Armstrong, both cancer survivors, the group consists of a host of large health foundations, namely the American Cancer Society, the American Lung Association and the American Heart Association. The campaign argues that the new tax will save lives in California by significantly reducing smoking rates, especially among youth, and by funding cancer research. As of mid-May, it had raised about $8.5 million.

Who doesn’t?

Californians Against Out-of-Control Taxes and Spending is the campaign trying to defeat Prop 29. Supported by a number of anti-tax groups, it is funded primarily by major tobacco companies to the tune of nearly $40 million (as of mid-May). The campaign, it’s worth noting, is not trying to argue that cigarettes aren’t bad for you or that there shouldn’t be government prevention programs and cancer research efforts. Rather, it argues that the measure is fundamentally flawed – especially in the midst of the state’s budget crisis -  because it doesn’t guarantee the additional revenue would stay in California, and creates a wasteful, unnecessary and unaccountable government bureaucracy.

The campaign to defeat the measure, and the strategy of spending millions on a statewide advertising blitz against it, seems to be effective. Since March, the measure’s approval rating among likely voters has dropped 14 points, according to a new statewide survey conducted by the nonpartisan Public Policy Institute of California.  As of late-May, 53 percent say they will vote yes, 42 percent say they will vote no, and 5 percent are undecided, the survey found. But back in March, before active campaigning around the measure began—67 percent supported it, 30 percent opposed it, and 3 percent were undecided.

Interestingly, though, when likely voters were asked the more general question about increasing taxes on cigarette purchases, 63 percent still said they were in favor and 33 percent were opposed. Responses to this question were similar in March (63% favor, 34% oppose).

“The large drop in support for Proposition 29 speaks loudly about how a well-funded opposition is able to raise voters’ doubts and distrust in state government, even when a tax increase is viewed favorably,” says Mark Baldassare, PPIC president and CEO.

Bring on the ad wars

Just a sample of the many ads recently aired by the opposing campaigns:

How does California’s tobacco tax compare to rates in other states?

California’s current cigarette excise tax (an excise, by the way, means a tax levied on specific commodities) is pretty low compared to most other states (18th lowest, to be precise): right now the tax here is 87 cents/pack, almost 60 cents lower than the national average and a whopping $3.50 less than in New York, whose tobacco tax is $4.35, the nation’s highest. (New York City has an additional $1.50 tax, so an average pack of smokes there costs more than $11!). Taxes on tobacco products in California haven’t increased in 14 years. We join Missouri and North Dakota as the only three states in the country that haven’t increased them since 2000.

Smokers throughout the U.S. also pay a federal excise tax of about $1/pack on top of state taxes.

How does California’s smoking rate measure up to other states?

Despite its low taxes, California actually has the second lowest smoking rate in the country: just over 12 percent of adults. Compare that to the national rate of nearly 20 percent or one in five (the smoking rate among California’s youth is slightly higher than it is among adults, but still far below the national average). The state’s adult smoking rate has declined consistently over the last two decades, sparing more than 1 million lives and $86 billion, according to state health officials. In 2010, California’s smoking rate reached a record low of 11.9 percent (it’s risen slightly since), down from almost 26 percent in 1984. The most significant decrease occurred among adults ages 25 to 44. But while California’s current smoking rate is significantly lower than many other parts of the country, there still are roughly 4.5 million adult smokers statewide.

U.S. smoking rates by state

Click on any state to see the percentage of adult smokers (2010 data) and the tobacco tax rate. The darker the shade of red, the higher the smoking rate.

Data sources: Centers for Disease Control; Tax Foundation

Why is California’s smoking rate so low?

There’s obviously no single answer, but a number of policy measures have received a lot of credit. California has long been a trendsetter in local and state government smoking reduction efforts. In 1995 it placed a statewide ban on smoking in restaurants and workplaces, the first state to do so. Three years later, the ban was extended to bars. California has also spearheaded significant smoking prevention and education efforts, particularly geared towards youth. A 25-cent cigarette tax in 1998 created the California Tobacco Control Program, the first of its kind in the nation, charged with leading aggressive anti-smoking campaigns.

What’s the history of tobacco taxes in California?

• 1959: the state’s first tobacco tax was passed by the legislature. It added 10 cents to the cost of a pack of cigarettes. The revenue went straight into the General Fund.
• 1988: voters approved Prop 99, which added an additional 25-cent tax to fund tobacco prevention, education, and research programs.
• 1993: a 2-cent tax enacted by the legislature created a fund for breast cancer research.
• 1998: voters approved Prop 10, adding a 50-cent tax to fund early child development programs.

Last year, total state revenues from taxes on tobacco products were just over $900 million. California’s last tobacco tax measure – Proposition 86 – appeared on the ballot in 2006, but was narrowly defeated. The opposing campaign spent nearly $67 million. The measure would have imposed an additional $2.60 per pack, giving California one of the highest tobacco tax rates in the country.

Does raising taxes on tobacco products actually reduce smoking?

Source: California Department of Public Health

Yes, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. “Increasing the price of cigarettes is one of the most reliable and effective ways to reduce smoking and prevent youth initiation,” the agency reported in it Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report on March 29, 2012. The report added: “The evidence indicates that further increases in cigarette excise taxes would continue to reduce the demand for cigarettes, thereby preventing youth initiation, reducing cigarette consumption, and decreasing the prevalence of smoking, particularly among youth and young adults. States can reduce cigarette use even further by investing excise tax revenue in tobacco prevention and control.”

Some economists, however, argue that high cigarette taxes can do more harm than good,  drawing smokers to buy cigarettes in nearby states with significantly lower taxes and resulting in lost tax revenue for California. High costs, it’s been noted, could also encourage a black market in cigarette sales, as has become common practice in New York City.

What are the economic and social costs of smoking in California?

Even with California’s relatively low smoking rate, the economic and social costs here are still pretty steep. In 2004 (when the adult smoking rate was14.6 percent), roughly 35 thousand deaths in California among adults aged 35 and older were attributed to smoking, according to the California Department of Public Health. That’s eight times the number of deaths from all infectious diseases combined. The department estimates that the total adult health-related cost of smoking that same year was more than $18 billion. That includes $9.6 billion in direct health care costs associated with smoking and $8.5 billion in productivity losses dues to smoking-attributed early death or illness. The department estimates that if smokers were to pay for these related costs, a pack of cigarettes would need to be increased by $9.70.

Additional non-partisan resources on Prop 29 and tobacco use

• CA Legislative Analyst’s Office 
• MapLight Voter Guide
• CA Secretary of State Voter Guide
• California Department of Public Health
• U.S. Centers for Disease Control

acgov.org

If California’s thorny elections process already had you in a bit of a tizzy, this year’s primary could be a bit of a doozy.

On top of sorting through the inevitably hefty batch of candidates and confounding propositions, voters will now have the added challenge of deciphering a brand new set of rules.

The new system, dubbed the “top-two or “open” primary, makes its debut in California’s statewide primary on June 5. It’s the result of Proposition 14 – the California Top Two Primaries Act – a measure approved by voters in 2010.

And as almost always happens when the rules of the game change, the new format is nearly guaranteed to cause a whole mess of confusion.

So let’s get right down to the nitty gritty:

Out with the old …

Until now, California’s statewide primary elections were considered “closed,” meaning you could only vote for candidates in your own political party (with the exception of non-partisan offices like county and education officials). So, for instance, if you were a Democrat, your ballot would only list Democratic candidates for national offices, or state senate, or governor or whatever other political races were happening in that particular election. Independent voters who declined to state a party preference were allowed vote in the general election, but could only participate in the presidential primary elections of the  Democratic and American Independent Parties (not the other four “qualified” political parties).

California’s six “qualified” political parties include:

• DEM = Democratic Party
• REP = Republican Party
• AI = American Independent Party
• AE = Americans Elect Party
• GRN = Green Party
• LIB = Libertarian Party
• PF = Peace & Freedom Party

The candidate with the most votes from each party then advanced to the general election, where he/she would face top candidates from all the other parties. For each political contest, every party participating in the primary election would be guaranteed a spot in the November general election.

For any given race, the process would generally look something like this:

acgov.org

And in with the new …

CA Legislative Analyst's Office

With California’s new “top two primary” system, political party affiliation is no longer a factor in choosing candidates. That’s because every candidate from every party is lumped together in one big political crock pot. And for most state races, any voter registered with any party can vote for any candidate from any party. Even if you’re not a registered party member, you can still vote for anyone you want.

The two candidates – from any party – with the most votes in the primary face then each other in a runoff in the November general election.

Part of a sample ballot (California Legislative Analyst's Office)

These new rules apply to all legislative and state races (see the list above). They DO NOT, however, apply to the race for president (if you’re a Dem, for instance, Barack Obama will still be your only choice).

So, for some primary races this year, you may notice a surprisingly long list of candidates on your ballot. And that’s because you’re going to see the names of everyone from every party who’s running for that particular office.

For instance:

Let’s say, hypothetically that two Republicans, two Democrats, and one Libertarian are all running in the primary election for an open U.S. House of Representatives seat in your district. It used to be that you could only choose the primary candidates in your own party. But no longer! Now you can choose anyone you want. So, if you’re a Democrat, you can choose to cross party lines and vote for one of the Republican candidates or for the Libertarian. And no matter how many different candidates from different parties are in the primary race, there will only be two candidates in the general election. Guaranteed.

The process for any given race will generally look something like this:

acgov.org

One of the interesting potential outcomes of this new system is that some primary races could result in two candidates from the same party facing each other in the general election (if they respectively get the first and second most votes in the primary). So for any given race in the November election, there could conceivably be a Democrat facing another Democrat; a Republican facing another Republican; a Green facing another Green; yadda, yadda … you get the point.

That also means that candidates cannot participate in the general election unless they are among the top two vote-getters in the primary. Unlike the old system, this new rule eliminates the possibility of adding on write-in candidates in the general election. The exception is U.S. President election: write-ins for that position are still allowed during the general election.

For more on how the process works, Alameda County’s government site provides a really good explanation with visuals.

What’s the point, and who’s for/against it?

First passed by the legislature, Prop 14 was later trumpeted in 2010 by Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger as a means of reforming California’s bitterly divided political system and breaking the gridlock in the state capitol. With a war chest of nearly $5 million, proponents of the measure made the case that an open primary process would force candidates to appeal to voters across party lines and to reach a larger swath of the public, resulting in a more moderate, less partisan set of elected officials. Backers also argued that increasing the number of choices on the ballot would boost voter turnout and give more political voice to California’s growing contingent of independent voters (about 20 percent of the electorate).

On the other side of the debate, both the state’s Republican and Democratic party leaders, as well as a number of smaller parties and big labor unions, strongly denounced the measure on the grounds that it would make primary campaigns significantly more expensive (because of the need to appeal to more people) and thus benefit the richest candidates with the most name recognition. Opponents also argued that it would decimate the authority of individual political parties and nearly eliminate opportunities for third party candidates to advance to the general election (remember that in the old system, candidates from each of those parties were guaranteed spots in November).

In the end, though, nearly 54 percent of voters approved the measure, an indication of the public’s growing discontent with California’s political establishment. Some political analysts, however, suggested that many of the voters supporting the measure may not of really understood what they were voting for. And interestingly, San Francisco and Orange County, on opposite ends of California’s political spectrum, were among the only counties that opposed the measure.

The new law, which survived an initial legal challenge, went into effect last year.

What’ll be the impact?

It obviously remains to be seen, but a report by the Center for Governmental Studies predicts that the new system will have the most effect on state senate races, which often include well established candidates who have termed out of other offices. The report identified a handful of past legislative and congressional races in California in which a top-two system (had it been in place then) would have resulted in two candidates from the same party facing each other in the general election. The report also predicted that the new system’s biggest impact would be felt in “supermajority districts” where 25 percent or more voters belonged to either party (these make up about a third of the state’s legislative districts).

Is it just déjà vu, or have we gone through something like this before?

We have indeed (never a dull moment with California politics)!

In 1996, voters approved Proposition 198, which instituted the “blanket primary.” The system was similar to our new open primary, in that voters could choose any candidate they wanted regardless of party affiliation. The one crucial difference, however, was that rather than a top-two tier system, the blanket primary resulted in the candidate from each party with the most votes (regardless of where those votes came from) to advance to the general election.

The system was challenged in federal court and ultimately struck down by the U.S. Supreme Court in a 7-2 decision, on the basis that it violated a political party’s First Amendment right of association.

And more recently, yet another attempt to institute open primaries in California, which appeared on the ballot in 2004 (Prop 62), was rejected.