January 24, 2007

"Earlier primary could cost $90 million"

"California will have to spend as much as $90 million to move its 2008 presidential primary to early February, and registrars across the state are hoping they won't get stuck with the bill.

"There are lots of concerns being expressed,'' said Steve Weir, Contra Costa County's top elections official and president of the state's county clerk's association. "No one has money in the budget for an extra election.''

Republican Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and the legislative leaders of both parties support a bill that would move the state's presidential primary to Feb. 5 and leave the rest of the state's legislative and congressional races on the traditional June ballot. The earlier election, they argue, would make California a player in the presidential nomination races and force both Republican and Democratic candidates for president to campaign in California and address issues important to the state.

"The state Democratic Party has always been supportive of having the primary earlier so we can have more influence on the presidential race,'' said Roger Salazar, a party spokesman.

It was a different story less than two years ago, when Democratic Party leaders and many other interest groups complained bitterly that the November 2005 special election proposed by Schwarzenegger was both too expensive and completely unnecessary because of the primary already scheduled for June 2006.

An election in February 2008 would be much tougher to pay for than the special election was, said Secretary of State Debra Bowen, who has yet to take a position on whether the presidential primary should be moved.

Although the total price tag would be about the same, many California counties already had money budgeted for the local elections scheduled for November 2005, so the state only had to come up with about $35 million in new money, she said.

But since February is typically an election-free month in California, "in this situation you would expect that the total $85 (million) to $90 million would be an additional cost,'' Bowen said.

While most of those costs would be paid by the counties, which would do the work of running the new statewide election, "I would expect the counties would demand to be compensated for their costs, as they did in the November 2005 special,'' she added."

The story is here.

Posted by Randy Riddle at January 24, 2007 09:30 AM