The Mankato free press. [volume] (Mankato, Blue Earth County, Minn.) 1879-1924, 1909-04-23
CALIFORNIA; NEW PRIMARY LAW.

California will test the primary law
principle for the first time next Au-
gust. when a very complete primary
law will go into effect. All officers,
municipal, county, and state will be
nominated at the primaries, and there
will even be an advisory vote on the
election of United States senators,
saws The Duluth Herald.
'sThe California law has a few fea-
lures in which it departs from the
urinary laws of Minnesota and other
Middle West states, but on the whole
the law will not contribute much to
the problem of the best way to secure
the nomination of public candidates.
After the law has been tested Min
nesota will not be able to learn much
that it does not already know.
nominations as candidates for the
primary must be made by petition and
not by filing as in Minnesota. The
California law is very elaborate in this
respect and provides that the signers
must come from different parts of the
election district affected. Thus for state
officers in order to become a candidate
for the nomination one must file a
petition signed by at least one per
cent of the voters of the party of the
candidate in each of at least ten
counties in the state and in the ag-
pregate by at least one per cent of
the total number of party voters in
the state. Similar provisions apply to
smaller election districts.
''Some attempt is made to preserve
party lines by the printing of separate
ballots and by requiring all who wish
to participate in the primary to regis
ter and declare their party affilia-
ton at least twenty days before the
primary is to be held. 1t will be
interesting to observe whether the
provision for declaration of party af-
filiation will arouse such stubborn
resistance on the part of the voter as
it, did in Minnesota.
"a peculiar feature of the law is
the provision for party conventions,
state, county, district and city. The
sole business of these conventions is
to elect such delegates as may be
necessary to other conventions and to
adopt party platforms. The conven-
tions are held some time after the
primaries, so that men will become
party candidates for office before they
know what the platform is to be
upon which they are to run.
Another feature of the law which
is apt to be productive of trouble is
that delegates to the county conven-
tons must be elected at the August
primaries, and the primaries and the
conventions are so arranged that at
the August primaries in 1909 delegates
will be elected for a county conven-
ton to be held in 1910, which county
convention will elect delegates to the
state convention, which convention in
delegates to the respective national
conventions. By the operation OF this
peculiar provision, the only choice
what the people of California will have
in the nomination of candidates for
the presidency in 1912 will be the
cnOlce WHICH bHey VIII eAciciSo III
August, 1909, many months before
anybody knows what the issues will
be or the candidates.
"The California law also makes an
attempt to regulate the candidates ex-
penditures. 1t does not limit the can
didate to a certain expenditure, but
specifically provides the purposes for
which it shall be lawful for him to
spend money in his campaign for votes.
Taken as whole the law does not
seem to offer much as a contribution
to the investigation of the problem OF
nominations"