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minutes 04-12-00Page 11 of 26
<br />then ‘other’, and some people did talk to us about overall philosophy – what were we trying to do. And I thought it was good
<br />to think about that because I’ve, sort of, come to the conclusion that I’ve put in an awful lot of time on this, and we’ve come
<br />up with a lot of ideas, but unless they’re really going to change something significantly, I don’t think we should clutter up our
<br />ballot for the voters, because I think it’s going to get confusing, and just plain turn people off if we have anything that’s more
<br />than necessary on the ballot.
<br />RAY: So, do you want to go through your list? How about if I go through -
<br />HERKES: How about if you just start at 1 and ask for comments?
<br />IRVINE: Start at number 1 and let’s see.
<br />RAY: Yes, why don’t we do that. Okay. Good idea. And then we’ll do ‘others’ after we go through the 19.
<br />So, on non-partisan elections. In my mind, the comments have been generally favorable, generally in support of, and
<br />generally non-controversial in terms of people being able to understand and then relate to this issue.
<br />IRVINE: I guess I’d have to differ with that somewhat. I mean, obviously, the Green Party is violently opposed to this
<br />because they feel that it is destroying the attempts of third parties to get started. I was interested in what Roger Evans,
<br />Republican, said up in Volcano, and that was that if it’s truly non-partisan, we’d have to outlaw parties from contributing to
<br />these people because otherwise, the one party in our State which has been in power for many years, would finance the two
<br />top candidates that would be on the ballot. I wondered if Chris had any comment. Is it possible to say a party cannot give
<br />money, or something, to a candidate?
<br />RAY: I would just look to the fact that close to 80% of all municipal governments in the whole United States are non-
<br />partisan. Every other jurisdiction in the State has voted non-partisan elections, so I don’t think that’s a particularly
<br />controversial issue. I couldn’t even understand what Roger was talking about.
<br />IRVINE: You didn’t understand what he - He said that if parties can give to candidates, then the one party that runs our State
<br />- he is a Republican. I think he always runs as a Republican - will provide money to two of their members to be the top
<br />candidates in the General Election, and I don’t know whether other jurisdictions have, or whether it’s even legal or anything,
<br />to say -
<br />RAY: Well, it’s not. The amount of money that the parties can give is limited.
<br />IRVINE: Okay.
<br />RAY: And that was upheld in the last Governor’s election, if you’ll recall, when the Lingle campaign was talking about
<br />bringing in outside party money, so I don’t think there’s a way that the party can overly influence in terms of their
<br />contributions. It’s my understanding that the Republican Party can only give the same limits as the individual. Isn’t that right,
<br />Roland?
<br />HIGASHI: Right.
<br />IRVINE: Okay.
<br />HIGASHI: Well, I’m not sure, but as a practical matter, on the County elections, the parties don’t give monies to the
<br />candidates. They support them in other ways, rallies and stuff like that. But if it’s a non-partisan, they still can belong to a
<br />party but run as a non-partisan. They don’t have a label. But, as far as giving money, it’s not a common thing, that they give
<br />money to candidates.
<br />YUEN: If I could just make, along the same lines, one more comment. If there’s more than one Democrat running, I don’t
<br />know how the Democratic Party would decide which person to give the money to in the first go around, which is the -
<br />HERKES: They would give to neither. They wouldn’t do it.
<br />MARTIN: They wouldn’t.
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