Mike Honda (D-CA17) is facing a primary battle against Ro Khanna, a fellow Democrat but one who is reported to be slightly more "pro-business".
Now it looks like he might be trying to help his chances of making it to the November ballot.
Mercury News report:
Democratic congressional candidate Ro Khanna recruited two last-minute Republican candidates to split the GOP vote and restore his position as the top challenger to Silicon Valley U.S. Rep. Mike Honda, an East Bay Republican official claims in a lawsuit.
The lawsuit provides no direct evidence proving Khanna helped get Joel Vanlandingham and Vinesh Singh Rathore into the race, and Khanna's campaign blasted the allegation as baseless Wednesday.
More below the twisted Cheeto:
For non-Calfornians, this has to do with California's "top two" primary system. From a UC Berkeley document explaining the process[PDF]:
A Top 2 Primary allows voters to vote for any candidate running in each contest. The two candidates who receive the most votes in the Primary Election qualify for the General Election.
Candidates for partisan office must state their political party if they are registered with a political party. The party preference is printed under their name on the official ballot and sample ballots.
In 2010, California voters passed
Proposition 14 which established the top 2 primary system. It was touted as a way to open the playing field by allowing more people to run in a primary than those christened as the standard bearers of their respective political parties. Some argue that it actually hurts third parties though because the chances of any of them making it into the top 2 finishers and thus getting on the November ballot is slim. (There is some organized
oppositionto Top Two spreading nationwide.) Indeed in 2012 most of the general election contests wound up as being between a Democrat and Republican.
However, in some strong Democratic districts especially for state legislative seats, the November ballot featured 2 Democrats. It appears that's what Khanna is counting on -- a split in the Republican vote to allow him to take the second place slot behind Honda.
More from the Mercury News:
Jeffrey Wald of Fremont, an Alameda County Republican Central Committee member, wants a Sacramento County Superior Court judge to order the Alameda and Contra Costa county registrars and Secretary of State Debra Bowen to kick Vanlandingham and Rathore off the June 3 primary election ballot.
His lawsuit claims "Khanna recruited candidates to enter the race as Republicans to split the Republican vote three ways, effectively diluting votes that would otherwise be cast in favor of (Vanila) Singh."
The Huffington Post has additional information; apparently one of the Republican candidates, Vanesh Singh Rathore, has been disqualified by a judge on the basis of not enough qualifying signatures, but the other, Joel Vanlandingham, will remain.
The curious thing about this race is that Khanna is a Democrat and a former Obama staffer whom is running against Mike Honda, who Obama has already endorsed. And while Khanna talks a good game about some of what Obama has proposed such as raising the minimum wage, he's getting a lot of financial backing from Silicon Valley executives. From an excellent diary by Anakai last Saturday (which I missed due to family duties),
Among Mr. Khanna’s ideas are lowering tax liability on corporations who offshore their work to entice them to return to America
which to me sounds a bit like paying off an extortionist. And where's the guarantee that they'll pay better wages here than they do overseas? I personally wonder if Khanna will have the courage to buck those executives when it comes time to vote for Obama proposals with which they may disagree.
Daily Kos has already endorsed Mike Honda's re-election. Howard Dean, who rarely gets involved in primary battles, has also endorsed Honda. Honda is reported to be one of the most progressive Democrats in the Congressional delegation -- the kind of "better Democrat" people around here say they want. Please do what you can to join the fight; if you have friends in his Silicon Valley district, let them know about this race and urge them to support Honda. If you have a couple of extra quarters burning a hole in your pocket, a few donations would be appreciated to counter the big money executives' checks. If you live in the area and have some free time, contact the office and see if they need people to walk a precinct or staff an information table (we're starting to get into Farmer's Market season around here; take a shift then do some shopping). Anything you can do to help the campaign would be greatly appreciated.
Cheers.
Mike Honda For Congress