California votes to change primary election system

With all of the attention poured on California’s primaries for Senate and governor, you may have missed an even bigger vote that passed in the Sunshine State: 54 percent of California voters passed Proposition 14. Known as “the open-primary initiative,” Prop 14 will essentially do away with party-specific primaries, starting with the 2012 elections. All political candidates will run in a single primary; the two who receive the most votes will run against each other in the general election.

For more on what this radical measure could mean for the state’s primary calculus, and for politics on the national stage, we’re joined by Bruce Cain, Professor of Political Science at University of California, Berkeley.