The Top Two Primary System voters enacted in 2010 with Proposition 14 has flopped in the race to replace Barbara Boxer in the U.S. Senate. The official summary that year was written by then-Attorney General Jerry Brown, who supported Prop. 14, and read, “Encourages increased participation in elections for congressional, legislative, and statewide offices by reforming the procedure by which candidates are selected in primary elections.”

It was pushed onto the ballot by then-Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger during his Goetterdaemmerung year, when the budget collapsed from his overspending (up 25 percent in just two years, from 2005-2007) just before the Great Recession and he became obsessed with increasing taxes. In return for Sen. Abel Maldonado providing the crucial Republican vote for the $13 billion tax increase in 2009, Arnold tailored Prop. 14 to help Maldonado, supposedly a moderate (but he once was a conservative) get elected governor.

Maldo was like a teenage boy seeing one of the “Terminator” fantasies and believing it all. In reality, his sellout on tax increases terminated any chances he had for further elected office.

In 2016, the U.S. Senate race has coughed up two candidates of the sort who weren’t supposed to get this far. The almost certain winner is Attorney General Kamala     Harris. Her major, immoderate position is assaulting First Amendment free speech rights. The Wall Street Journal reported in April: “Kamala Harris has been a hero of the left’s campaign to use donor disclosure as a tool of political intimidation. Since 2013 the California Attorney General has been demanding that nonprofits provide unredacted donor names if they want to solicit donations in the state. On Thursday a federal court declared her disclosure requirement an unconstitutional burden on First Amendment rights.”

Then there’s Rep. Loretta Sanchez, who absurdly said President Obama backed Harris because both are black. As Joe Mathews wrote on Fox & Hounds Tuesday, “Suffice to say, a politician who would say such a thing – on top of earlier comments that went into matters of race and ethnicity – has no business representing California in the U.S. Senate.”

I’ve met Sanchez numerous times in her 20 years in Congress. She’s nice person and is to be commended for voting against the Iraq War, the repressive and misnamed USA PATRIOT Act and Bush’s 2008 TARP bailout of Wall Street by Main Street. But she’s just in way over her head running for the Senate.

The president is one of the more astute politicians we have seen, cruising (unless there’s a sudden recession) toward the end of what many will peg as the most successful presidency since Reagan’s. In the California Senate race, he’s siding with a winner of two statewide races who also has strong ties to his own donor base in Silicon Valley. As Joel Fox noted yesterday, political power resides where jobs are strong, and right now that’s with the gleaming tech companies of the Bay Area. The president also knows that, when he retires in less than half a year, lucrative positions await him on corporate boards and in front of podiums at corporate meetings. Al Gore sits on Apple’s board, among others. And Bernie Sanders decried the Clintons’ profitable ties to corporate America.

So that’s our choice. Not just no Republican made the cut, but no alternative with a different voice: No Libertarian. No Green Party. No Peace and Freedom Party. No Constitution Party.

A new PPIC poll released today clocks the damage: 50 percent of Republicans say they won’t even vote in the Senate race, with 19 percent “Don’t know.” Sanchez, the moderate who’s supposed to attract Republicans, garners just 15 percent of them, behind Harris’ 16 percent. For independents, including Decline to State and third partiers, 34 percent plan to boycott this part of the election, 10 percent “Don’t Know”; 37 percent favor Harris and 19 percent, Sanchez.

Prop. 14 won with just 54 percent of the vote, a small majority for such a large change. Perhaps voters should be given a second chance.

Longtime California commentator John Seiler’s email is: writejohnseiler@gmail.com