CARTOON BY RANDY MILLER (Utah League of Independent Voters)
California will hold its first open “top two” primary on Feb. 15. Voters, including decline-to-state independents, will choose among all candidates in two races being held to fill vacancies for 2 Los Angeles-area state Senate seats.
California voters approved Proposition 14 (brought forth through the efforts of former Lt. Gov Abel Maldonado) in June of last year by 54%, which gave 3.4 million independents in the state the right to vote in the primaries. Prop 14 was opposed by all parties, major and minor, in California.
Provocateur/ pundit/ organizer Nancy Hanks is a long-time activist in the independent political movement who’s done it all: petitioning to put independent candidates on the ballot from New York to Texas and points east, west, north and south; fundraising for the independent think tank, the Committee for a Unified Independent Party (CUIP), and its online counterpart, IndependentVoting.org; running as an independent for New York City Council from Queens, New York City’s most diverse borough; serving as the current Treasurer of the Queens County Committee of the Independence Party of New York (of the IP NYC Organizations); conducting research for the Neo-Independent, a magazine that addresses the concerns of independent voters.