Always odd when my broke ass gets the article but no one else does, sorry about that. Here’s a copy paste as I’m on mobile for the time being, alont with a direct link to the Veto:
To paraphrase Mel Brooks, it’s good to be the governor.
More than 17 years after San Francisco approved ranked-choice voting over the objections of then-Supervisor Gavin Newsom, California’s first-year governor got a chance for some payback, vetoing a bill that would have allowed more cities, counties and school districts across the state to switch to the voting system.
The bill, SB212 by state Sen. Ben Allen, D-Santa Monica, was overwhelmingly approved by both the state Senate and the Assembly. An analysis of the bill found no opposition.
"The cure being proposed is far worse than the disease,” Newsom said as he joined a ballot argument against Proposition A in 2002, which brought ranked-choice elections to San Francisco. “We do not believe that the Board (of Supervisors) should be experimenting with San Franciscans’ hard-fought right to vote. Primaries and runoff elections have served our nation well for most of its history.”
Sixteen years after San Francisco’s first ranked-choice election, the system is hardly an unknown in California. Oakland, Berkeley and San Leandro have used it since 2010.
But all those are charter cities, which can make their own election rules, unlike general law cities, counties and school districts, which follow a set of state regulations.
The bill that Newsom vetoed would have given “local jurisdictions access to solutions that charter cities are already using in California,” Allen, its author, said in a statement. It wouldn’t have imposed ranked choice, but simply provided “communities with more options.”
That wasn’t good enough for Newsom, who said, “The state would benefit from learning more from charter cities who use ranked choice voting before broadly expanding the system.”
But would more evidence change the governor’s mind?
During a campaign bus trip to San Jose last year, a reporter asked Newsom if he planned to take San Francisco’s ranked-choice experience statewide.
And California had Newsom block it: https://www.sfchronicle.com/politics/article/Gavin-Newsom-vetoes-bill-to-allow-ranked-choice-14535193.php
I don’t think it’s Republicans, it’s just the most popular party of the state it’s in.
I got a pay wall on that story. Is there another source?
Always odd when my broke ass gets the article but no one else does, sorry about that. Here’s a copy paste as I’m on mobile for the time being, alont with a direct link to the Veto:
https://www.gov.ca.gov/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/SB-212-Veto-Message.pdf