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TESTIMONY
Testimony by Jen Gaboury, Vice President of Professional Staff Congress, opposing open primaries
0:25:41
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174 sec
Jen Gaboury, Vice President of the Professional Staff Congress and a political scientist at Hunter College, testifies against changing to an open primary system.
She argues that California's experience with open primaries has not been positive, leading to a highly polarized system and disincentivizing voting.
Gaboury emphasizes the importance of political parties for organization, mobilization, ideology, and identity, and suggests that open primaries favor money over grassroots organization.
- She expresses concern that the current discussion about primary reform is not sufficiently robust or well-publicized, even among political scientists.
- She contends that political science data does not support the claim that open primaries would increase turnout.
Jen Gaboury
0:25:41
Hi.
0:25:41
My name is Jen Gabori.
0:25:42
I've come here today to speak to you with three different hats on.
0:25:46
I'm the vice president of the Professional Staff Congress, the union that represents 30,000 workers of CUNY.
0:25:52
I'm here as a political scientist who teaches at Hunter College, and I'm also here well, I have lived here in New York City, since 1994.
0:26:00
My family is from California, and California has made changes to its primary system.
0:26:05
And part of what I'm here to tell you is that that has not gone well.
0:26:09
And I say that both as someone with, like, family who is politically engaged in California and as someone who has studied politics for a very long time as my profession.
0:26:18
I'm also speaking then as a unionist who is looking to organize people and looking to organize people at CUNY.
0:26:24
Parties matter.
0:26:25
They matter as histories of ideas.
0:26:28
They matter as ideology.
0:26:29
They matter as organizing.
0:26:31
They matter as forms of identification.
0:26:33
And it's a little frustrating to be here on the eve of the primary election when I would rather be handing out and talking to people about getting out the vote.
0:26:42
But I made an effort to come here because I think this is a really significant issue.
0:26:46
I am a political scientist, and I did not know that there was a hearing that happened at Medgar Evers College, on this same subject, like, a month ago.
0:26:54
And when I asked about 70 other political scientists in the CUNY system whether or not they knew about this, only one person said yes.
0:27:01
And we're political scientists in the city.
0:27:04
Part of what that tells me is that this is not a process that is getting, like, a rich and full discussion about changing the primary system, which would be a massive change in how we're organized and how we vote, and that really robs people.
0:27:21
Parties, at best, matter because they are forms of organization and mobilization.
0:27:25
And what the California system and other open primary reforms have showed or reforms have showed us is that it is a process that favors money over grassroots organization.
0:27:36
And that is partly why I believe, many of us believe, that this charter revision has been, in fact, proposed in the first place.
0:27:44
The data in political science does not show you, and some of this is cited in the very report that is circulating about this charter revision that, in fact, organized that, in fact, this change would produce the the thing that it it purports to do, which is more turnout.
0:28:01
In the California system, what it has shown is in that system is a highly polarized, highly polarized system where people are disincentivized from coming out to vote because, in fact, the system is very, very lopsided depending on whatever is the dominant party within a particular region.
0:28:19
And that then depresses engagement, and people do not then come to engage.
0:28:24
If we were to make this change, I would implore you to to have more time for real study and political education on this issue so we can have an actual debate.
0:28:34
Thank you very much.