EDITORIAL WE PAY, THEY DECIDE PRESIDENTIAL PRIMARY SYSTEM DISENFRANCHISES CALIFORNIA VOTERS.

WHEN it comes to choosing the major parties' candidates for president, Californians play an odd role:

We pay the bills. Residents of other states make the decisions.

That's how campaign 2004 is shaping up, and as many have in the past.

Californians provide more than 10 percent of all the donations to the major candidates, and 20 percent of those for the Democrats. But by the time the state's March 2 primary rolls around, the race should be all but decided, assuming Massachusetts Sen. John Kerry continues to rout his opponents.

So even though California is the most populous state in the union, and even though a heavy majority of its voters are Democrats, California Democrats will have little actual say in who represents their party in the November presidential election.

When it comes to presidential primaries, California is just a cash cow, and nothing more.

After the 2000 race, the state tried to correct the injustice by putting its primary earlier in the season, but the effort failed when other states simply moved their primaries earlier still. The result is now a compressed primary season, one that moves faster, but still leaves California in the dark.

Among the more popular proposals for electoral reform is a national primary - a single day, when voters in all 50 states vote on the parties' nominees, thereby assuring everyone equal treatment. But the upshot of such a system would be to cede the nomination to the candidate with the most money, the one who could saturate the airwaves with ads in all the major markets at once.

That would be a mistake, as it would only heighten the role of money in campaigns, while denying states the individual attention from candidates that they currently enjoy. There is a logic to a spread-out campaign, it just shouldn't perpetually elevate voters in some states while disenfranchising others.

A better way to reform the system would be to rotate the states' primary schedules. Thus California's 2004 primary might come at the end of the campaign, but 2008 would come at the beginning, and states like New Hampshire and Iowa - which exert disproportionate influence today - would periodically have to wait their turns just like everyone else.

As a reform, it's fair and it's simple, which is why it would probably never happen.

Folks in New Hampshire and Iowa, among other states, have come to regard the loudest voice in choosing presidents as some kind of a birthright. And candidates routinely pledge their support for the current primary system, fearing that if they don't, they won't be able to win in those key early states.

But Californians have an ace in the hole - we give the money, remember? The state's voters should demand a fairer system, one that gives their voters a say, and withhold their contributions from candidates who refuse to support one.

If the politicians want to take our money, then they're going to have to heed our votes, too.