Reform

Harborne has already donated millions to Reform and Farage, who is currently under investigation by the parliamentary standards commissioner over whether he should have declared a £5m cash gift from Harborne ahead of the 2024 election.

Farage has argued that he was under no obligation to register the “purely private” gift, as it was unrelated to his parliamentary or political activities.

The party is also facing scrutiny over its finances after a broadcast by Channel 4 News last week showed two senior Reform aides apparently suggesting a way around electoral law to secure foreign party donations.

The Metropolitan Police has said it is investigating, while the party denies any wrongdoing.

The force is also looking into donations given to the party by Fiona Cottrell, mother of longstanding Farage ally George Cottrell, as well as a company controlled by its deputy leader Richard Tice.

Harborne wrote on Saturday that he had “already accumulated enough wealth for the rest of my life”, while Reform was a “start-up party” that lacked “the benefit of hundreds of years of patronage”.

“A start-up party needs more money than can be provided by membership fees alone, to build and sustain itself and be ready for government,” he said.

Harborne and Delo’s donations mark the largest sums received by a UK political party since they had to begin declaring them in 2001.

Delo, who also announced his donation in a Telegraph op-ed, said he was giving the money away because he wanted a “fair fight and a level playing field”. He said in April he was moving back to Britain from Hong Kong.

Addressing the recent scrutiny of Reform’s finances, he said: “My conclusion from Reform’s recent troubles is that they should spend less time trying to raise funds to compete on equal terms and more time preparing for government.”

Last year, he was given an unconditional pardon by US President Donald Trump over a breach of anti-money laundering laws at his crypto trading platform, BitMEX, to which he had pleaded guilty in 2022.

There are currently no restrictions on the amount of money UK-based donors can give to political parties.

However, the Labour government has introduced a £100,000 cap on donations from British citizens living overseas, and plans to introduce a similar one for those who have recently returned to the UK.

There were nine donations of £1m or more to political parties in 2025. The largest was £9m given to Reform UK by Harborne.

Labour had five donations of £1m or more – totalling nearly £10m – and the Conservatives had three of £1m each.

Labour said Reform and Farage still had “serious questions” to answer about their finances.

Party chairwoman Bridget Phillipson said Reform were “drowning” in “sleaze and scandal”,.

She added: “It’s time Farage and Reform came clean with the public, fully co-operated with the ongoing police investigations and prove they’re not just in it for themselves.”

Rachel Millward, deputy leader of the Green Party, told BBC News it wanted a cap on donations from individuals of £500,000.

She said the donations to Reform were “absolutely staggering amounts”, adding: “What I am very frustrated about is the influence of extreme wealth and the super rich. What I want to see is people in politics representing the needs of their communities and ordinary people.”

Liberal Democrat Cabinet Office spokeswoman Lisa Smart called for the government to introduce emergency legislation to cap donations.

She said: “These are eye-watering amounts of money. This is real emergency for our democracy. It presents a very clear and present threat.”

Duncan Hames, Director of Policy and Programmes at campaigning charity Transparency International UK, said: “This is a watershed moment, with two billionaires pledging £72m to one political party in less than 48 hours.

“This situation is now completely out of control, and makes an irrefutable case for government to bring forward an annual cap on political donations, and fast.”

LONDON: British police said Wednesday that they have opened a criminal investigation into allegations that anti-immigration party Reform UK broke rules barring foreign donations.

Last week, Channel 4 broadcast an undercover investigation in which two senior Reform UK officials appeared to discuss ways money from an American financier could be channeled through his U.K.-based son to get around the rules.

U.K. electoral law says parties can only accept donations from British voters or U.K.-registered businesses.

The Metropolitan Police said that after the broadcast, the force “received a number of reports relating to donations and polling involving a political party.

“Detectives have assessed the information provided and determined that there are potential offenses requiring investigation,” it said.

Reform UK said it “denies any wrongdoing and will fully cooperate with the investigation.”

The party suspended Dan Jukes, a longtime adviser to Reform UK leader Nigel Farage, and party policy chief James Orr, after the documentary was aired. But Farage denied that there was any breach of electoral law.

The program showed two men purporting to be a U.S. financier and his U.K.-based son discussing with Jukes, in the presence of Farage, how 500,000 pounds ($675,000) could be donated to the party through the son. The “son” was actually a reporter from investigative group Verbatim, and the “father” an actor.

In separate footage, Orr, a Cambridge University theologian, appeared to discuss getting the U.S. donor to pay for opinion polls commissioned by Reform UK.

In a speech to the party’s conference on Friday, Farage insisted Reform UK hadn’t broken any rules or accepted “dodgy money.” He accused “foreign-funded hard-left activists” of being behind what he called “entrapment.” Verbatim is an offshoot of the Center for Climate Reporting, a nonprofit investigative group that says it’s funded by grants and donations.

Reform UK was facing questions about its funding even before the broadcast. Farage is being investigated by Parliament’s standards watchdog over an undeclared 5 million-pound ($6.7 million) gift he received from a Thailand-based cryptocurrency billionaire in 2024.

Police said Wednesday that the potential offenses raised by the TV program “are similar in nature to matters already under investigation by the Met’s Special Enquiry Team relating to donations made to the same political party. As a result, these matters will form part of that ongoing investigation.”

Founded in 2018 as the Brexit Party to push for a hard break from the European Union, Reform UK has grown rapidly in membership and support since changing its name in 2021 and honing its anti-establishment, anti-immigration message.

Though it holds just eight of the 650 seats in the House of Commons, it has often led opinion polls and was the big winner in local elections in May, a result that helped spur a panicky Labour Party to replace then-leader Keir Starmer with new Prime Minister Andy Burnham.

In July, Farage quit his House of Commons seat in protest of the parliamentary standards investigation, saying he would run for reelection and let voters be his judge. He easily won the August election, which was dismissed as a stunt by his critics and boycotted by all the other main parties.

NEW YORK: The UN closed the books on the 80th session of the General Assembly on Tuesday and opened the 81st in a single day of ceremony, amid warnings from its outgoing and incoming leadership that the world body must reform itself or face erosion.

Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, who was addressing the assembly for what he noted was his final time as UN chief, painted a bleak picture of the present moment in the world: wars that carry a risk of nuclear escalation; worsening climate chaos; advances in artificial intelligence without adequate governance; and human suffering that is intensifying even as aid funding has been slashed.

“Geopolitical mistrust and suspicion continue to block the effective solutions we need — and erode people’s faith in the possibilities of global cooperation,” Guterres said.

Still, he told delegates, he has “enormous hope,” pointing in particular to the UN’s Pact for the Future and the UN80 reform initiative as “a blueprint for action, solutions and bold reforms.”

The UN80 Initiative is a reform drive launched by Guterres in March last year, the organization’s 80th anniversary. It aims to overhaul overlapping structures and outdated mandates that officials say have rendered the UN slow and bureaucratic.

The departing president of the General Assembly, Annalena Baerbock, described the initiative as unfinished business that she and her successor, Khalilur Rahman, were carrying into the 81st session.

Baerbock described the 80th session one that had found itself at “a crossroads” over whether a handful of states could effectively impose a veto on the General Assembly’s consensus. Member states, she said, had answered by refusing “to allow compromise to become compromising,” by pushing through 317 resolutions, holding 116 plenary meetings and opening a new chapter on AI governance, despite the challenges and only a few processes concluding through consensus.

“Not a single day, not a single country would be better off without the United Nations,” Baerbock told the assembly as she rejected the argument that the body had become irrelevant.

She credited Guterres with forcing the question of reform onto the agenda through the UN80 Initiative, including cuts to mandates and a merger of the UN System Staff College, which provides personnel and partners with the knowledge, skills and tools to act collaboratively and effectively, with UN Institute for Training and Research.

“If we are not capable of freeing this organization from overlapping structures and mandates, as well as a heavy bureaucratic mentality, it will erode over time,” she warned, describing the upcoming selection of a new secretary-general, a process she formally handed over to her successor, as “the credibility test of this institution for this decade.”

Rahman was then sworn in. He is from Bangladesh and told reporters he intended to run an open, media-engaged presidency built around the theme “Restoring Trust, Managing Transformation.”

During his formal address to the assembly he lamented that the UN “has often fallen short of the expectations placed upon us,” citing in particular a “widening trust deficit” that member states must work to close through the delivery of results, not rhetoric.

“Trust cannot simply be requested, it must be earned,” he added.

Rahman outlined six priorities for the coming 12-month session: peacekeeping-driven conflict prevention; acceleration of the Sustainable Development Goals, with just four years left to achieve them and only 36 percent of targets on track; climate adaptation ahead of the UN Climate Change Conference, COP31, in November, and a high-level meeting this month on rising sea levels; human rights, including the anniversaries of the Durban Declaration to combat racism and other forms of discrimination and intolerance, and the Declaration on the Right to Development, an issue he described as personal, given that Bangladesh hosts more than a million displaced Rohingya; inclusive governance of AI; and institutional solvency, as he appealed to member states to pay their assessed dues “in full, on time and without conditions.”

Rahman also inherits oversight of the selection process for the next secretary-general, under Article 97 of the UN Charter, to replace Guterres, whose term ends on Dec. 31. He pledged to run it “fairly, inclusively and transparently,” alongside the Security Council.

He said he had built his office to reflect the opening words of the Charter — “We the peoples,” not “We the states” — and noted that women make up 60 percent of his cabinet.

Guterres closed the day with a separate, more somber commemoration: a wreath-laying ceremony for Dag Hammarskjold, the second secretary-general of the UN, who was killed in the course of his duties, along with 15 others, in plane crash on Sept. 18, 1961.

Citing a new report from investigator Mohammed Chande Othman, Guterres renewed his appeal for undisclosed records relating to the crash in what is now Zambia, and said he would soon send recommendations to the General Assembly.

He also noted that UN personnel had been killed “in record numbers” over the past three years and added: “Their sacrifice reminds us of all the women and men who have lost their lives while serving the United Nations.”

The anti-immigration Reform UK party said two of its senior officials had stepped down on Friday, following allegations that they were secretly filmed appearing to discuss ways to circumvent UK electoral laws on foreign donations.

The far-right party, whose popularity has soared in the past two years, is already embroiled in several other funding scandals involving its leader Nigel Farage. On Friday, it announced an internal probe into the latest case, which was brought to light by a Channel 4 investigation.

Reform is currently holding its annual party conference in Birmingham, central England.

Here’s what we know about the foreign funding claims and how they could affect British politics.

What did the Channel 4 investigation show?

Channel 4, an independent broadcaster, aired footage of senior Reform officials Dan Jukes and James Orr meeting with undercover reporters who were posing as prospective Reform backers from the United States.

In one instance during the programme, which was broadcast on Thursday night, footage was shown of Jukes appearing to talk about a proposal for Reform to receive a 500,000-pound ($675,000) donation from one of the men, who was presenting himself as an American financier, through his son, who he said lives in the UK.

The “son” was actually another journalist from investigative group Verbatim, which recorded the exchange.

In separate footage, Orr appeared to discuss a plan for the US donor to fund opinion polls for Reform UK rather than donating the money directly.

He told the undercover reporter that “we just don’t have British-resident donors, British entities, that would support us”.

During the investigation, Verbatim reported that Reform officials arranged for the US donor to pay more than 30,000 pounds ($40,500) to fund three opinion polls, without disclosing the source of the funds.

Channel 4 said it had verified the findings from Verbatim, an offshoot of the Centre for Climate Reporting.

What are the UK’s rules against foreign funding for political parties?

Under UK electoral law, political parties may only accept donations from British voters or UK-registered businesses. Donations from individuals or organisations based overseas are strictly forbidden.

In a statement on Friday, a UK Electoral Commission spokesperson said political parties must report all “permissible donations” they accept exceeding 11,180 pounds ($15,120) and all “impermissible donations” exceeding 500 pounds ($676).

“Parties are responsible for ensuring their internal processes and controls are fit for purpose,” the spokesperson said. “Information about any potential attempt to evade the controls on donations is for the police to consider.”

How has Reform responded to the allegations?

Following the programme’s broadcast, Reform initially issued a statement denying any wrongdoing and claiming the allegations were a hoax.

In a later statement, however, the party said it was conducting an internal probe and that Orr and Jukes had stepped down pending its outcome.

Orr, the party’s policy head, said he had agreed to step down temporarily and would “cooperate fully” with the investigation.

Jukes, Farage’s long-term aide, denied any wrongdoing but said he had “stepped back from politics in order to clear my name”.

Farage accused the undercover journalists of “entrapment” and told broadcaster LBC, “they got a couple of our contractors to say things that perhaps should not have been said”.

“And as a result of that, you know, they have been removed this morning. And yeah, you know, I’m not happy about it,” Farage said.

“The party has broken no laws, the party has not taken any dodgy money or anything like that whatsoever,” Farage insisted.

Will Reform face legal consequences?

It remains to be seen. The UK’s ruling Labour Party has written to the police asking them to investigate possible criminal offences.

The Metropolitan Police said it was aware of the allegations in the broadcast and would assess any information provided to them.

This does not amount to the formal launch of an investigation.

Why does this matter?

The latest donation scandal is another blow for Reform, which has seen its place as the UK’s most popular party slip in opinion polls in recent months.

Last year, polling by YouGov suggested that Reform had become the most popular political party, and would likely win a UK general election if one had been held then. At that point, Labour was trailing far behind in the polls – projected to win just 27.3 percent of parliamentary seats, compared with Reform’s 41.7 percent. The former ruling Conservative Party stood at just 7 percent.

But a poll this week by YouGov showed Reform now tied with the UK’s left-wing Labour Party with 23 percent support each. The Conservatives have caught up with 20 percent.

This is not the first funding scandal Reform has grappled with, either. In July, Farage dramatically stepped down as Member of Parliament for Clacton amid allegations, also revealed in the UK media, that convicted fraudster George Cottrell, 32, recruited and paid three staff to work on Farage’s social media before the 2024 general election and has continued to allow Farage to use a five-storey Georgian townhouse he rented near Buckingham Palace.

Farage ultimately re-won his seat in Clacton at a by-election but still faces the prospect of a parliamentary inquiry into undeclared funding of 5 million pounds ($6.7m) from Thailand-based billionaire and crypto investor Christopher Harborne, who paid for Farage’s personal security before he announced his candidacy in the 2024 general election. So far, Farage denies all wrongdoing.

This week, Farage told the BBC that the parliamentary inquiry was unfair. He said there was a “wilful attempt, and it’s gone on now for months, to say that everything to do with Reform, that every individual involved with Reform is somehow a crook”.

This is evidence of “the establishment in a very coordinated way fighting back”, he claimed.

However, Justin Fisher, professor of political science at Brunel University of London, told Al Jazeera Reform’s latest donation scandal would further hurt Farage’s standing both within and outside his party, and could cost Reform votes in the next elections.

“If this was an isolated incident, then Reform would probably be able to brush it off,” said Fisher. “But it comes on top of serious questions about a donation to Nigel Farage, and a donation to Reform which allegedly had overseas links. This all contributes to a narrative which Reform is having great difficulty avoiding.”

Resignations come after documentary alleges party arranged for overseas company to fund polling.

Two officials from Britain’s Reform UK have stepped down amid the latest in a series of funding scandals for the far-right political party.

Party officials James Orr and Dan Jukes announced on Friday that they would step down, following the broadcast of an investigative television documentary. The party, which has seen support slide amid numerous reports regarding infringement of party donation rules, said it would launch a probe into the latest allegations.

The undercover investigation by Channel 4 News alleged that the Reform UK officials breached political donation rules by arranging to have polling paid for by an overseas company.

In the documentary, Jukes is seen suggesting to an undercover reporter how to evade electoral law to make donations to the party from abroad.

Sitting at the table, Party leader Nigel Farage says all is “above board” as the reporter tells him that he has been in talks with Orr for some time.

The resignation of long-term Farage aide Jukes, and Reform’s head of policy Orr, comes on the eve of the party’s annual conference.

Farage – who has been dogged by questions over money received on a personal basis as well as by Reform in recent months – insisted on Friday in a radio interview that the party has “broken no laws”.

However, he added, “entrapped conversations don’t look good, and that’s why we’ve [launched the party investigation]”.

A spokesperson for London’s Met Police said it was “aware of media reporting … involving political party donations and an alleged breach of the Political Parties, Elections and Referendums Act 2000 relating to polling”.

The ruling Labour Party, as well as the opposition Liberal Democrats, said they had reported Reform to the police following the revelations, which the anti-immigration party initially dismissed as a “hoax”.

Farage sought to hit back by accusing other political parties of “selling peerages”.

“In the world of political funding, all sorts of things have been done over decades that are wrong,” he asserted. “We as a party have done nothing wrong. A couple of our contractors have said things that shouldn’t have been said.”

Amid the series of funding scandals to have hit Reform in recent months, the disclosure of an undeclared personal gift of 5 million pounds ($6.7m) to Farage by cryptocurrency billionaire Christopher Harborne has done the most damage so far.

Both criminal and parliamentary investigations into Harborne’s donations – he has also given Reform more than 25 million pounds ($33.6m) – are continuing.

Scrutiny is focused on Tether, Harborne’s cryptocurrency, which has been widely linked to drug cartels, fraud and human trafficking.

Amid the storm, Farage made international headlines by resigning his parliamentary seat to prompt a by-election, in which he cast himself as taking on “the establishment”.

With other major parties dismissing the move as a stunt and refusing to put up candidates, the populist leader won comfortably, although the nearly 10,000 votes achieved by his closest rival, “intergalactic space warrior” Count Binface, illustrated significant opposition.

Sept. 2 (UPI) — Nicaragua’s National Assembly gave initial approval to a constitutional reform that would bar opposition parties from participating in elections and extend presidential terms from six to seven years.

The measure formally suspends elections scheduled for November, extending the terms of co-Presidents Daniel Ortega and Rosario Murillo and pushing the country’s next elections to 2028.

Nicaraguan law requires constitutional amendments to be approved by two separate legislative sessions before taking effect.

The reform cleared its first vote in the National Assembly but faces a second round of approval in January, according to Murillo, local news outlet Divergentes reported.

If approved, the reform would consolidate a political system without electoral competition by giving the state the authority to exclude opposition groups under broad and discretionary criteria related to the defense of sovereignty and national security.

The reform also extends the terms of the co-presidents and other elected officials, as well as the heads of the military and police, from six to seven years, HCH reported.

Following the reform’s approval, Secretary of State Marco Rubio on Wednesday called on international partners to immediately end business as usual with Nicaragua’s government, warning that repressive regimes should not enjoy the commercial and political benefits afforded to democracies in the region.

In a statement, the State Department condemned the constitutional reform, accusing the Ortega-Murillo-controlled National Assembly of “gutting what was left of Nicaragua’s democracy.”

Washington said it would pursue multilateral action at the next foreign ministers’ meeting of the Organization of American States, or OAS, and reaffirmed its commitment to coordinating and implementing a new round of economic and financial sanctions aimed at curbing abuses by the Sandinista government.

The approved reform builds on constitutional changes enacted in February 2025, when Nicaragua’s National Assembly extended the presidential term from five to six years, created the position of co-president for Murillo, who had previously served as vice president, and reorganized the structure of the state, Infobae reported.

Ortega, 80, has governed Nicaragua since 2006 and publicly declared in July that the country would no longer hold elections in order to prevent the opposition from returning to power.

Aug. 17 (UPI) — Britain’s Reform U.K. party said Monday that it would slash almost $68B from welfare, were it to win power at the next election.

The largest single ticket-items, saving $58.3 billion, would come from halting welfare payments to non-citizens and a shake up of disability and ill-health benefits.

Cutting off nationals of other countries, including those with settled status and resident EU nationals would save $28.5 billion by year five, according to Reform, but would breach the country’s 2019 Brexit deal with Brussels and would therefore require it to be renegotiated.

Foreign nationals would become ineligible for six main benefits from the state including “universal credit,” housing payments, free childcare and unemployment, child and disability checks.

All families whose children were born in Britain would continue to receive payments for each child under 16 [under 20 if in non-higher education or training] and free school meals for those with after-tax household incomes of $10,000 or less.

Danny Kruger, Reform’s work and pensions spokesman, told BBC’s Breakfast program it was fair that people requiring welfare should have it paid by the country of which they are a citizen.

“I’d understand if the Europeans decided to apply the same principle that we are and to deny our nationals access to their welfare system and we will pay for that ourselves.”

Kruger acknowledged that many settled overseas nationals living in Britain would simply apply for — and would likely be granted — British citizenship, insisting that the savings calculated took account of that scenario.

He said the plan had also taken into account that the EU would likely take reciprocal action, halting welfare payments to Britons who had not become citizens of the EU country where they were living.

The other biggest area of savings — $29.8 billion — would come from reforming disability benefits, including scrapping so-called personal independence payments for disabled people and replacing them with another cash benefit available only to those deemed “gravely ill and severely challenged.”

Kruger stressed that Reform accepted some people were unable to ever work, saying that those people would continue to be properly supported and would no longer be required to repeatedly be assessed to see if they were still eligible.

The pro-EU Best For Britain group criticized Reform’s plan, in particular the potential negative impact on relations with the EU.

“Our polling shows that people do want to renegotiate our relationship with Europe, but by moving closer, not by damaging ties with vital allies and punishing our neighbours, colleagues and friends who have settled status here,” said policy executive director Tom Brufatto.

Labour MP Rachael Maskell was critical of the targeting of disability benefits.

“When Pip helps people go to work, play a role in our society and simply live, threatening to remove Pip demonstrates that Reform do not want disabled people to play a full role in our society,” said Maskell who previously led a rebellion by Labour backbenchers against efforts by former Prime Minister Keir Starmer to cut welfare.

In April, the Office for Budget Responsibility said it expected Britain’s welfare bill for 2025-2026 to hit $452.4 billion, equivalent to 10.6% of GDP, and accounting around 24% of all government spending.

However, more than half of all welfare spending goes on pensioners, nearly all of it on the State Pension, an inflation-protected pension which people pay into until they retire and is topped up by the government.

Tired of budget stalemates, deficits and continuous acrimony in the state Capitol, California voters in 2010 started taking action to temper political gridlock and loosen the grip of entrenched special interests.

They approved statewide ballot measures to create an independent congressional redistricting commission, taking that power away from self-interested Sacramento lawmakers, as well as a new “top-two” primary system intended to stifle the power of the major political parties and provide more representative, less hyperpartisan candidates with a greater chance of victory.

Now, in an era of even more bitter divisions in the state and nation, those reforms face severe threats.

Last month, supporters of a proposal to repeal the state’s current primary system, in which the two candidates in state and congressional elections who receive the most votes move on to the general election regardless of party affiliation, received permission to gather voter signatures to place the measure on the 2028 ballot.

In November, Californians voted to temporarily scrap the congressional districts that were crafted by a voter-approved independent commission and instead replace them by ones approved by Democratic lawmakers in Sacramento. The move, aimed at giving Democrats an edge in the November midterm election, was in response to President Trump urging GOP state leaders, notably in Texas, to alter their districts to boost Republican numbers in the closely divided U.S. House of Representatives after the 2026 election.

“In the olden times, California liked to see itself as the epicenter of good-government reform,” said Jessica Levinson, an election law professor at Loyola Marymount University.

But the sense of optimism when voters approved these reforms has faded, she said, because of the divisiveness cultivated by Trump but also because of polarization that predates him.

“There’s no world in which you can look at California or any other state in 2026 and say it looks like 2010,” Levinson said. “We, the public, speak to each other in different ways. Politicians talk to each other in different ways. … It feels to me like we talk a lot more about triage than we do about building a shining city on a hill. It’s a different universe.”

But others question the effectiveness of the California’s good-government reforms and merits of the self-glorification that followed.

“It’s not clear that any of these reforms helped elect more moderates or limit polarization,” said Rick Hasen, a professor of law and political science at UCLA. “Reformers may have over-promised in the early 2010s what election reform could actually do to improve the lives of Californians. And Californians did not fully appreciate the unintended consequences of reforms enacted with even the best of intentions.”

The efforts to claw back the 2010 reforms occurs at a time of declining trust in institutions and during a fragile moment in the nation’s democracy. Trump continues to push debunked claims that the 2020 election was rigged, as well as other voting misconduct conspiracies that often focus on California.

In a prime-time speech last month, the president again raised concerns about the length of time it took California elections officials to count ballots in the June 2 primary.

“It took a month to count the votes,” he said. “I wonder what they were doing.”

Lauded by civic groups, the good-government reforms were championed by then-Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and funded by major GOP donor Charles Munger Jr.

Both of the state’s major political parties as well as prominent politicians and several labor unions opposed the efforts when they were placed on the 2010 ballot.

Jessica Millan Patterson, a former state GOP chairwoman, is among those who believe the temporary pause in independent redistricting that voters approved in November will not be temporary. And she said the top-two primary is a failed experiment.

“Speaking as a Republican, I just don’t feel that it has served us well at all,” she said. “Not only has it locked us out of many general election ballots, but it has also not moderated Sacramento at all.”

California Democratic Party Chairman Rusty Hicks, who supported the suspension of independent redistricting, agreed with Millan Patterson about the top-two primary.

“The current top-two system has failed to deliver on what its supporters promised,” he said. “It’s well past time to review, revise and maybe even repeal it.”

Hicks expressed fears earlier this year that the top-two primary would result in two Republican gubernatorial candidates advancing to the November ballot in a strongly Democratic state because of a sprawling and splintered Democratic field.

Hicks’ rare public move urging low-polling Democratic candidates, which included every minority candidate of color in the race, to consider their viability sparked widespread controversy during the primary.

The tension was heightened by a controversial USC debate selection process that would have resulted in no candidates of color taking the stage. (The debate was canceled less than 24 hours before it was scheduled to take place.)

Ultimately, the June primary resulted in the same outcome Californians have seen since the top-two primary was approved — a gubernatorial general election contest between a Democrat and a Republican. Xavier Becerra, a former Biden Cabinet member, and Steve Hilton, a GOP strategist and television commentator, will face off in November.

Still, a bipartisan coalition is striving to rescind the top-two primary system, which has created many noteworthy intraparty races, such as U.S. Senate contests between Atty. Gen. Kamala Harris and Rep. Loretta Sanchez of Orange in 2016, and incumbent Sen. Dianne Feinstein and state Sen. Kevin de León of Los Angeles in 2018, all Democrats.

In Congress, independent redistricting and the top-two primary created a brutal 2012 contest between veteran Democratic Reps. Brad Sherman and Howard Berman in the San Fernando Valley. Four years later, veteran Bay Area Rep. Mike Honda was toppled by fellow Democrat Ro Khanna, now viewed as a potential 2028 presidential candidate.

This year, a combination of the redrawing of the state’s congressional districts and the top-two primary means Republican Rep. Ken Calvert of Corona is battling with Republican Rep. Young Kim of Anaheim Hills.

On July 14, Secretary of State Shirley Weber announced that the proposal by veteran Democratic strategist Steve Maviglio — also backed by Republicans such as former state GOP Chair Ron Nehring — has 180 days to gather the signatures of nearly 875,000 registered voters to qualify the effort for the November 2028 ballot. If approved by voters, the top-two primary would be repealed and the system would revert to its prior version, insuring every qualified political party could have a candidate advance in the primary to the general election.

Maviglio argued that the top-two primary has failed to deliver on its promises to reduce partisanship and budget deficits in Sacramento.

“It’s gotten worse, not better,” he said. “I find it’s hard to make that argument if you look at what’s coming out of the Legislature the last 10 years.”

Supporters of the top-two primary repudiated these arguments and vowed to challenge the title of the proposed 2028 ballot measure about the state’s primary, arguing it would disenfranchise 5.4 million Californians who are not registered with either major political party.

“Voters passed Proposition 14 [which created the top-two primary] to take control away from party insiders and put it in the hands of the people,” said Cara McCormick, campaign manager of More Choice California, a group opposing the top-two primary being rescinded. “This initiative does the opposite. It takes away the rights of millions of California voters and gives them back to political parties. The least voters deserve is a ballot title that says so.”

Abel Maldonado, who served as lieutenant governor under Schwarzenegger and backed both 2010 reforms, staunchly supported the top-two primary as a response to a historic state government shutdown because of the failure of lawmakers to approve a balanced budget.

“Some of us thought that a complete open primary top two would create a system [that elects] people who were open-minded, pragmatic and had common sense,” he said. “It has happened in some races, but in other areas it has not.”

Maldonado said that he disagrees with returning to the prior system, in which political parties could opt to allow only voters affiliated with them to cast ballots in their primaries. But he said the current system ought to be tweaked, allowing voters to cast ballots for a candidate of any political party in a primary, with a candidate from each party moving onto the general election.

Schwarzenegger did not respond to a request for comment. But his prior comments, as well his efforts to end gerrymandering across the nation since leaving office, have made clear that his views have not changed.

“Of course the politicians want to undo reform that is good for the people and not for the politicians,” Schwarzenegger said in a statement earlier this year after the “Undo the Top Two” ballot measure was proposed. “They will always choose to move the goal posts instead of performing better.”

After California Democrats sought to redraw the state’s congressional districts last year, Schwarzenegger posted a picture of himself on X working out wearing a T-shirt that said “Terminate Gerrymandering,” a reference to one of his hit films.

Munger said he hoped groups he worked with to pass these reforms such as Common Cause and the California League of Women Voters would stay “true to their principles” and defend them when they “are under assault.”

“It was disappointing they stayed on the sidelines during last year’s fight over independent redistricting, and they should not do so going forward,” said Munger, who spent more than $30 million opposing the November ballot measure to suspend independent redistricting. “In order for the citizens to trust their government, they must have confidence that our elections are fair and free.”

Maldonado, who lauded the work of California’s independent redistricting commission, said he believes California Democrats will make the temporary pause of independent drawing of district boundaries permanent.

“We as Republicans have zero say in redistricting, and as much as I like to say this is what I like to have, the Democrats control supermajorities in both houses, and they get to choose whatever the hell they want,” he said. “The only way they’ll return it is by an initiative process with the will of the voters.”

He said he supports a national effort to create independent redistricting in every state, but believes it has no chance of passage.

“That would be great. It would be a step in the right direction. I think voters would have more confidence in politicians,” Maldonado said. “But, I mean, in this polarized era, this notion — think about it. The fox is building the henhouse for the chickens.”