THE PEOPLE'S REPUBLIC OF CALIFORNIA - This site is dedicated to exposing the continuing Marxist Revolution in California and the all around massive stupidity of Socialists, Luddites, Communists, Fellow Travelers and of Liberalism in all of its ugly forms.
"It was a splendid population - for all the slow, sleepy, sluggish-brained sloths stayed at home - you never find that sort of people among pioneers - you cannot build pioneers out of that sort of material. It was that population that gave to California a name for getting up astounding enterprises and rushing them through with a magnificent dash and daring and a recklessness of cost or consequences, which she bears unto this day - and when she projects a new surprise the grave world smiles as usual and says, "Well, that is California all over."
Ranchers in Northern California shot a wild pig and ended up finding its meat surrounded by Smurf-blue fat.
A user on Imgur posted photos and a short explanation of the bizarre discovery at their in-laws' Morgan Hill ranch. The couple cut open the pig, drained most of the blood and were startled to see fluorescent blue fat peeking out of the incision.
User GlendilTEK said the ranchers are aware blue pigmentation could be caused by copper poisoning, but there are only old mercury mine shafts near the property. Other wild pigs that were shot by the couple did not have neon blue fat.
Samples of the fat were sent off to UC Davis for testing.
Let's bottom line this. So-called "educators" have no interest in education. Phony "tests" are devised to show how poorly students are doing so government bureaucrats can go to Sacramento and Washington and demand more money to save the children.
Remember that since the California Gold Rush countless generations of children somehow managed to graduate from school, and go on to live full lives, without exit exams or common core "tests".
(San Francisco Chronicle) - California schools posted standardized test scores Wednesday for the first time in two years, and the results were not stellar.
Just one-third of the state’s public-school students were tested as proficient for their grade level in math and only 44 percent in English, state education officials said. Under the old test in 2013, 51 percent of students were proficient in math and 56 percent in English.
The officials expressed some disappointment in the new numbers, but not surprise.
“We need to be patient,” said state Superintendent of Public Instruction Tom Torlakson. “We've gone to higher, tougher standards.”
This was the first time students were tested on the new Common Core standards, which require a more in-depth understanding of content rather than a memorization of facts. It was also the first time students took the state tests on a computer, clicking and dragging and typing open-ended answers or essays rather than filling in bubbles on paper with a No. 2 pencil.
Across the state, 3.2 million students in grades three through eight and 11 took the English and math test.
The new test scores showed a widening of the achievement gap, with African American and Latino students lagging behind their white and Asian American peers. The gap also widened between low-income students and the rest of the test-taking population.
Seventy-two percent of Asian American students and 61 percent of white students met or exceeded state standards in English, compared with just 28 percent of black students and 32 percent of Latinos. In math, 69 percent of Asian students and 49 percent of white students were at grade level, compared wiht 16 percent of black students and 21 percent of Latino students.
And just 31 percent of low-income students were proficient on the on English test and 21 percent proficient in math, compared with 64 percent and 53 percent, respectively, for other students.
That achievement gap has long been present in state standardized testing, but it was about 10 points wider on the Common Core tests than under the old system.
What a waste of time. A "reform" where you can track the mountains of campaign cash buying California politicians.
What is the point of tracking money when voters have no meaningful choices on their general election ballots.
The U.S. is the only "democratic" nation on earth where the same two bought and paid for parties magically win 100% of all elections.
(Los Angeles Daily News) - The state of California has launched a new campaign finance disclosure search engine, allowing users to more easily track state-level political donations to elected officials.
Called Power Search, the site is an update to Cal-Access, the Secretary of State’s existing campaign finance portal.
Power Search allows users to filter campaign donations from a particular company or organization from 2001 to the present. Search results can also be filtered by date, amount, location and other criteria.
“Both the public and the press should have quick and easy access to campaign finance information,” Secretary of State Alex Padilla said in a statement. “Power Search is the first step in modernizing and upgrading Cal-Access.”
The new capabilities weren’t available through Cal-Access, which launched in 2000. That web portal will remain up, despite the launch of Power Search, because Cal-Access offers information on lobbyists, which the new site doesn’t.
Secretary of State press secretary Sam Mahood said officials will consider adding more features to Power Search.
“We want to consistently evaluate how we can best improve transparency,” Mahood said.
Power Search was created in conjunction with MapLight, a Berkeley-based nonprofit research organization that tracks political donations, and funded with a $100,000 grant from the San Francisco-based James Irvine Foundation.
While Power Search doesn’t show donations to Los Angeles city ballot measures or local politicians, the portal links to the city’s web site that offers that information.
A The current California State Assembly with the same two corrupt parties "magically" winning 100% of all elections.
A Modest Reform - State Board of Equalization kk Shake up the corrupt power structure in Sacramento and add 40 new seats to the State Assembly with 10 new members coming from each of the four State Board of Equalization districts (above map). k Structure the elections so they are more open to the public and not financed by the Elites. k Proposal #1) The residents would elect their local district Assemblyman in the normal manner. But the resident would then have ten votes for their regional State Assemblymen. The top ten vote getters in the regional district would go to Sacramento. With a total of eleven votes available to them, voters would be able to elect independent candidates or even members of smaller opposition political parties like Green Party of California or the California Libertarian Party. k Proposal #2 Many nations use proportional representation for elections. If a party wins 20% of the vote they win 20% of the seats. That system could be applied in these regional districts. If voters knew that their vote was not "wasted" on a minor party you might 10 or 15 of these seats going to existing smaller parties or new ones that would be created. k In any case, the corrupt system needs a major shake up, and the voters have the right to real and meaningful ballot choices. l Free elections. What a concept.
Reuben Perez fills up a barrel of water at the public tank to bring to Juana Garcia's home. The water will be used to do laundry, take bucket showers, and flush the toilet. Gabrielle Lurie
Thanks to the drought, many people in East Porterville can't cook, shower, or flush the toilet at home.
Glance at a lawn in East Porterville, California, and you'll instantly know something about the people who live in the house attached to it.
If a lawn is green, the home has running water. If it's brown, or if the yard contains plastic water tanks or crates of bottled water, then the well has gone dry.
Residents of these homes rely on deliveries of bottled water, or perhaps a hose connected to a working well of a friendly neighbor. They take "showers" with water from a bucket, use paper plates to avoid washing dishes, eat sandwiches instead of spaghetti so there's no need to boil water, and collect water used for cooking and showers to pour in the toilet or on the trees outside.
East Porterville is in Tulare County, a region in the middle of California's agriculture-heavy Central Valley that's been especially hard hit by the state's historic drought. More than 7,000 people in the the county lack running water; three quarters of them live in East Porterville. The community doesn't have a public water system; instead, residents rely on private wells. But after years of drought, the nearby Tule River has diminished to a trickle and the underground water table has sunk as more and more farmers rely on groundwater. Last week, I spent a few days interviewing residents in the town, also known as "ground zero" of the drought.
Juana Garcia washes grapes with bottled water. She soaks dirty dishes in soapy water before rinsing them to minimize water use. Gabrielle Lurie
Among the first to report a dry well was Donna Johnson, a 72-year-old retired recreational therapist who lives in East Porterville with her husband, Howard, and a handful of rescue dogs. In the spring of 2014, she turned on the tap to find that it had reduced to a dribble—then no water at all. Howard tried to extend the pump further into the well, but where there should have been a splash of water, there was simply a "thud" of solid against solid. When Johnson called a well-driller and learned the company had a long waiting list, she started wondering just how many wells had gone dry. After a couple of weeks of knocking on the doors of strangers in her neighborhood, Johnson had a list of more than 100 homes.
Over the past 18 months, Johnson has become known as East Porterville's "water lady," as she spends her days collecting donations of water and paper goods and delivering them in a pickup truck to a list of homes with dry wells—a list that's expanded to hundreds of addresses. "There's always somebody calling, saying, 'I don't have water!'" she said.
East Porterville is in Tulare County
The county, in part prompted by Johnson's discovery, has also stepped in. Locals can now bathe in portable showers outside the Drought Resource Center (a trailer set up in a church parking lot) and sign up for bottled-water deliveries (half gallon per person per day). Tanks of nonpotable water sit outside the fire station; in the evenings, residents fill up barrels for things like laundry and bathing.
East Porterville residents without running water have fallen into a tedious routine. Juana Garcia, a 49-year-old mother of five, lost water two years ago—in some ways, her living conditions remind her of those she left behind in Mexico when she moved to East Porterville in 1988. The change has been particularly challenging because she suffers from Lupus and arthritis, making it difficult to haul water to her home or make the trek to the public showers.
Garcia doesn't speak much English, so her daughter, a talkative 11-year-old named Noemi, walked me through the daily routine. Dishes are washed in two buckets: one for soaking, the other for rinsing. Afterward, water is dumped into the toilet so it will flush. For showers, Garcia boils water that Johnson hauled in from the gas station (Garcia doesn't have a car), or she takes her kids to the portable shower in front of the church. Teeth are brushed with bottled water; clothes are hand washed and air-dried unless a friend has time to take the family to the laundromat.
The trees in the backyard used to yield pears, lemons, and pomegranates, but they're all dead now; any extra water is used to fuel the swamp cooler, which, Noemi explained, uses five gallons of water an hour—and it's a necessity as temperatures routinely top 100 degrees. For dinner, Garcia makes things that require minimal water and won't heat up the house—like microwave meals or sandwiches.
As an interim solution, the county is installing large plastic tanks of water connected to some dry homes. But progress has been slow. So far, 320 tanks have been installed; more than 1,300 still remain dry.
A map of East Porterville at the county's drought resource center shows homes without running water (green) and homes where large tanks have been installed as an interim solution (blue). Julia Lurie
Donna Johnson drops off water for Bill Dennis, whose well went dry last month. Gabrielle Lurie
An excellent Vice News video on farming, cities and the drought.
Sucking down water Central Valley almond trees reflected in flooded irrigation water.
Many farmers and businessmen sneer at "crazy" environmentalists who talk about sustainability. But water is truly a limited resource. There are only so many crops that can be grown in a desert.
(Grist.org) - To many people — particularly environmentalists and family-farm aficionados — the Westlands Water District, on the dusty west side of California’s San Joaquin Valley, conjures up an image of a sprawling empire of large-scale agribusiness. Roughly 600 farmers own land within the district, and grow a veritable cornucopia of tomatoes, almonds, pistachios, lettuce, cantaloupes, grapes, and other crops.
Many farms here are huge, to be sure: One family farms at least 25,000 acres. But there are plenty of smaller farmers like 42-year-old Shawn Coburn, who grows 1,200 acres of mostly almonds. And to him, Westlands is an American Eden.
“There’s a long list of haters,” says Coburn. But “we have the best dirt out there. It’s the best ground in the world.”
There’s only one problem. While the soil here may be good, there’s not much water. At least not since 2007, when a federal judge drastically cut back farmers’ water supplies to protect endangered fish in the Sacramento and San Joaquin river delta in the geographic heart of the state. A three-year drought began clobbering California that same year, making life even tougher for farmers like Coburn.
In 2009, farmers in Westlands had their annual water supply rationed to just 10 percent of what they’re entitled to under their contracts with the federal government. (More about that later.) Here and in neighboring irrigation districts, farmers were forced to idle, or “fallow,” about a quarter-million acres of cropland because of drought and pumping restrictions, which cost them somewhere around $350 million in losses.
Farms in Westlands make up a little less than one-tenth of the roughly 6.9 million acres of farmland in California, and other parts of the state are facing their own water crunch. But paradoxically, no one has been hit harder than the farmers here. Despite being widely viewed as one of the most powerful participants in California water politics, Westland’s contracts for water from the federal government are some of the most vulnerable to being shorted, thanks to the arcane hierarchy by which water is apportioned during dry times.
The water shortage is unquestionably taking its toll. “It’s changing the landscape,” says Coburn. What’s happening here is providing a sneak peek at the problems that farmers not only in California, but all over this drying world, will soon confront. Farmers are shifting to higher dollar-value crops that will cover the water price hikes — but, paradoxically, are more sensitive to drought. They’re pumping groundwater as an emergency supply of water — and burning through that safety net even as it saves them from the current dry spell. And some farmers here are beginning to think about an exit strategy from agriculture altogether.
Water shipment down
On a farm, nothing happens without water. And in California’s Central Valley, which includes the Sacramento Valley to the north and the San Joaquin Valley to the south, virtually all of the farmed acreage is irrigated. Irrigation districts like Westlands are local-government entities that hold long-term contracts for water supplied by two massive water projects: the Central Valley Project, which is operated by the federal government, and the State Water Project. The districts, in turn, sell water to individual farmers within their boundaries.
Yet as demand for water has grown throughout the state, as efforts to protect endangered species have increased, and as drought has darkened the water forecast — a problem that’s likely to become more frequent with climate change — irrigation districts, particularly those on the west side of the San Joaquin Valley, have found themselves increasingly unable to supply farmers with water. Even though Westlands, for instance, holds water contracts with the federal government, it signed those contracts relatively late, compared with other districts. As a result, when water supplies are tight, the government “shorts” Westlands’ contract to ensure that other irrigation districts with better contracts get their water.
That water crunch is spurring farmers to make a wide array of adaptive responses. Water rights are generally tied to specific pieces of land, but water can be moved — bought, sold, and swapped, just like stocks — to areas of greatest demand, and diverted to those who can pay the most for water. In drought years like 2009, farmers make extensive use of transfers to cover water-supply reductions. But the less water is in supply, the dearer prices become.
Water shortages are also changing the menu of crops grown in California. Take the case of cotton, for instance. Cotton has long a favorite whipping boy of environmentalists and agricultural reformers because it is government subsidized and relatively thirsty. In 1979, California farmers grew about 1.6 million acres of the stuff. But over the past three decades, cotton has largely shuffled off the stage in California. In 2009, the state’s farmers grew only 191,000 acres.
Many farmers say that one of the primary factors behind that decline, in recent years especially, has been water scarcity, which has driven up prices for water. Cotton has never had spectacular margins, so farmers are always vulnerable to big increases in the price of the “inputs” it takes to grow the crop. And, in the face of the water cutoffs, Westlands farmers have had to pay as much as four times what they normally do for water.
“That’s what drove cotton out of the west side,” says Marvin Meyers, a longtime Westlands farmer who now grows mostly almonds and olives. Farmers who use the water to grow higher-value crops like almonds “can afford to pay more,” Meyers says, “because the almond returns are greater than you would have gotten for cotton.”
Attorney General Kamala Harris, righ, joined by Los Angeles Police Chief Charlie Beck
"You are all Racists!"
The election for California U.S. Senator is coming and Democrat Kamala Harris whips out the Race Card implying that racism causes Blacks to be arrested more than whites.
It appears Harris wants affirmative action on crime. If the "quota" for arresting Blacks has been filled then I guess the police should stop arresting Blacks for the rest of the year so the percentages even out.
(Associated Press) — Just 6 percent of Californians are African American, yet they are involved in 17 percent of all arrests in the state and a quarter of in-custody deaths, according to what officials called a nationally unprecedented release of data Wednesday.
The data paints a clearer picture of the racial disparity in arrests and deaths across California and comes as a number of high-profile, police-involved deaths of young black men has ignited a national debate on police practices.
In addition to being arrested and dying in disproportionate numbers, black juvenile males who are arrested are booked into jail at a 25 percent higher rate than whites, according to the data, released by the California Department of Justice on a searchable, state-run website.
"It's very stark and we really have to have a dialogue about why so many African Americans are dying compared to the state population," said Justin Erlich, a special assistant attorney general who's overseeing the data collection and analysis.
Democrat California Attorney General Kamala Harris cited the deaths of young black men at the hands of police in California, Ferguson, Missouri, New York City, Texas and South Carolina.
Part of the conversation surrounding those deaths needs to be data, Harris said.
"What are the numbers?" she said. "What are the facts that we know that we can actually quantify, that can help influence public policy around how we can improve these numbers and improve the situation?"
The database is the culmination of months of work aimed at improving transparency and government accountability. More data will be released over time, including breakdowns by municipality.
The data released also includes the number of police officers who died in the line of duty: 345 between 1980 and 2014, or 10 annually. Of those, 187 were a direct result of a criminal act, while the rest were considered accidental.
If California elections had any meaning I would care more about the Legislature pandering yet again to the citizens of foreign nations.
As it stands, four of the six political parties in California are banned from the general election. The California Libertarian Party, the California Green Party, the Peace and Freedom Party and the American Independent Party are no longer on the November ballot for voters to choose from. Independent candidates are also banned and your write-in vote has been declared illegal and will not be counted. The system is rigged.
(Los Angeles Times) - Gov. Jerry Brown signed a trio of immigration-related measures Monday, including one removing the word “alien” from California’s labor code because it is seen as a disparaging term for those not born in the United States. Brown also signed into law legislation allowing noncitizens in high school to serve as election poll workers and protecting the rights of immigrant minors in civil lawsuits. Brown approved legislation allowing high school students who are legal permanent residents to serve as poll workers in California elections, in part to help with translation needs in an increasingly diverse voting population. Currently, students 16 and older may serve as poll workers, but they must be U.S. citizens. Adult poll workers only have to be lawful permanent residents.
California would be shrinking if it was not for legal and illegal immigration from foreign nations.
A shrinking population is more than fine with me. Call me a "crazy" Luddite, but adding millions new drivers to California's already bumper-to-bumper freeways does not improve anyone's quality of life.
(Sacramento Bee) - An unprecedented number of Californians left for other states during the last decade, according to new tax return data from the Internal Revenue Service.
About 5 million Californians left between 2004 and 2013. Roughly 3.9 million people came here from other states during that period, for a net population loss of more than 1 million people.
The trend resulted in a net loss of about $26 billion in annual income.
About 600,000 California residents left for Texas, which drew more Californians than any other state. Roughly 350,000 people came from California to Texas.
The recession and housing bust, which hit California harder than most states, likely played a role in the trend. Conservative analyst and Hoover Institute Fellow Carson Bruno also blamesthe state's high cost of living and tax structure.
Based on tax returns, the IRS migration data is considered the gold standard for measuring population shifts, though it lags two to three years behind the current date. The latest, separate estimates from the state Department of Finance showed net domestic migration losses slowing, but not abating, in 2014.
Despite the loss of residents to other states, California continued to grow during the last decade because of natural increase - more births than deaths - and foreign migration.
This graphic shows the number of people who came to and left California from each state during the last decade.
Read more here: http://www.sacbee.com/site-services/databases/article32679753.html#storylink=cpy
Leaving California The winning states are: , 592,802 Californians moved to Texas. 461,601 Californians moved to Arizona 407,532 Californians moved to Nevada 339,113 Californians moved to Washington 262,096 Californians moved to Oregon 220,937 Californians moved to Florida 202,488 Californians moved to Colorado
"I'm not willing to sacrifice my land for somebody
growing cotton in the desert."
Chuck Baker, Delta Farmer
(San Luis Obispo Tribune) - Federal and California agencies have filed some of the first permit applications for a proposed project involving the construction of twin 30-mile tunnels to help carry water from the northern to southern and central regions of the state, officials said Thursday.
As part of the project promoted by Gov. Jerry Brown, the state Department of Water Resources and the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation want approval to build three giant water intakes, each longer than three football fields, to draw water from the Sacramento River to feed through the tunnels.
The state Water Resources Control Board, which must approve or reject the request, expects to complete its review within two years, barring unforeseen developments, agency spokesman Timothy Moran said.
Brown and his administration have pushed for construction of the tunnels, which the state estimates will cost $17 billion, saying the current systems that carry water from the delta of the San Joaquin and Sacramento rivers are inefficient, outdated and vulnerable to earthquakes.
Southern California water agencies, which hope to obtain more water through the tunnels, have supported the project but not yet publicly submitted a financing plan.
State and federal authorities said they submitted the application to start the process but will expect an answer only after a final assessment of the project's impact on the delta, its habitats and wildlife.
Gov. Jerry Brown
(AP File Photo)
"The petition to the state water board begins a long process that includes public input," Nancy Vogel, spokeswoman for the state Department of Water Resources, said in an email.
Delta farmers, fishing groups and some environmental organizations have opposed the tunnels. They say removing water from the delta for the tunnels would destroy farms, wildlife and habitat that depend on the delta, one of the West Coast's largest estuaries.
The project currently is under public and federal review of its environmental impact.
Tunnel opponents say the state should wait for assessment of the environmental impact on the delta, and federal environmental approval of the overall project, before moving ahead.
Last week, tunnel opponents released an August 2014 plan by the state's contractor outlining plans to use eminent domain, if needed, to acquire land from delta farms for the project.
The land-acquisition plan and permit application "show these agencies consider the democratic process is just a side-show" when it comes to building the tunnels, Barbara Barrigan-Parrilla, head of the group Restore the Delta, which opposes the project, said in a statement.
Vogel, the state Department of Water Resources spokeswoman, said the permit application and the environmental report submitted earlier this year involve different issues and public processes.
"It's typical on all construction projects to start seeking permits from multiple agencies in parallel with the environmental review and its public comment process," she said in the email.
Read more here: http://www.sanluisobispo.com/2015/08/27/3780711/california-us-seek-permits-for.html#storylink=cpyRead More . . . .
Save The Delta
A rally at the State Capitol to oppose Governor Brown's proposal to build peripheral tunnels to divert water from the Sacramento/San Joaquin Delta to pump south.
Kill the Canal
A Drain the Delta Dry With one hand the liar political hacks claim they want to "save" the Sacramento Delta. Then with the other hand they plan to send the Delta's water south to use on Southern California front lawns, crops and golf courses.
Welcome to the one-party authoritarian state of the People's Republic of California where your vote has no meaning and those "elected" to office are the bought and paid for tools of Sacramento special interest groups.
The corrupt Democrats and Republicans have effectively banned all four opposition parties from the general election.
California’s existing election system for Congress and state office could be improved with the following ideas.
The problem with the status quo is that ever since it went into effect in 2011, there has been very limited choice on the November ballot. So far, no independent or minor party candidate has appeared on the November ballot for statewide office. Each statewide office in November has been between one Democrat and one Republican, with no write-in space.
In November 2014, California voters were the only voters in the nation who had to vote for either a Democrat or a Republican for statewide office, or they couldn’t vote at all. The only minor party candidates that have qualified for the November ballot under the top-two system were three in 2012 and three in 2014, all in legislative or U.S. House races in which only one major party member was running, so that it was impossible for the minor party member not to place second and thereby qualify for the general election.
On the other hand, the existing system lets any voter vote for any candidate in June.
There are several ways to improve the system, to keep the freedom of choice in the primary and yet expand choice in the general election.
Banned in California
ONE: abolish primaries, as Louisiana has done. Louisiana only has a general election, and all candidates run in that general election. 85% of the time, someone gets 50% or more in November and is elected. But when no one gets 50%, Louisiana holds a runoff in December. Louisiana uses instant runoff voting for overseas absentee ballots, which makes it possible to hold the two elections that close together.
That system keeps everybody happy. No one is excluded from campaigning and running in the general election season when voters are most engaged.
During the last few years in Louisiana, the Libertarian Party and the Constitution Party has elected some local office candidates. Libertarian registration has been growing fast in Louisiana and is now above 10,000. The Green Party and the Reform Party are also ballot-qualified and their members can run for anything in the fall campaign season, just by paying a modest filing fee.
California could improve on the Louisiana system by providing instant runoff voting, or approval voting, for all voters, so that no December runoff would be needed.
TWO: restore the blanket primary. California used a blanket primary in 1998 and 2000, and also California used a blanket primary for all special congressional and legislative elections from 1967 through 2010.
A blanket primary has a single primary ballot, and all candidates appear on the ballot. The top vote-getter from each party automatically goes on the November ballot. Independent candidates can be handled in various ways.
Banned in California The Democrats and Republicans have rigged California's elections so only their parties appear on the general election ballot. All independent candidates and smaller opposition political parties are effectively banned from the November ballot. Other nations where parties are banned: Communist China, Communist Vietnam and Communist North Korea.
In California special elections, all independent candidates ran in the primary, but they all were automatically put on the runoff ballot as well. In regularly scheduled elections, California independent candidates did not appear on the primary ballot, but petitioned onto the November ballot. The advantage of that is it permits a candidate to enter the race as late as August of an election year.
It is true that the U.S. Supreme Court invalidated California’s blanket primary in 2000, in California Democratic Party v Jones. However, the blanket primary can be made constitutional if it is voluntary. The law could provide that parties either nominate with a blanket primary, or else they are free to nominate candidates by convention at their own expense.
All Republican Party attempts to invalidate open primaries in Montana, Utah, South Carolina, and Virginia have failed, so far, because the law in those states lets the Republican Party nominate by convention at its own expense if it doesn’t like the primary system (although, for Montana, that is only true for party office, not public office).
The blanket primary was very popular in California. The initiative for a blanket primary, Prop. 198, passed with 59% in 1996. It passed in every county.
Turnout in both primaries and general elections during the blanket primary years was fairly high: In November 1998, turnout was 57.6% of registered voters; in November 2000, 70.9% of registered voters. In the 1998 primary, 42.5%; in the 2000 primary, 53.9%.
In the top-two years, the general election turnout (percentage of registered voters) was 72.4% in 2012, and 42.2% in 2014. In top-two years, primary turnout was 31.1% in 2012 and 25.2% in 2014. Turnout between November 2010 and November 2014 declined more in California than any other state.
Whereas in November 2010 California voters had six parties to choose from on their statewide ballot, in November 2014, they only had two, and that clearly motivated some people not to vote in November. Californians want lots of choices in both the primary and the general election.
America is the only democratic nation on earth where voter choices are restricted and elections basically rigged by the same two parties that "magically" win 100% of all elections. In the German state of Baden-Wurttemberg the voters had seven political parties to choose from and four parties elected to office.
