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Mon 6 Aug, 2007 09:02 am
A Red Play for The Golden State
By Jonathan Alter
Newsweek
13 August 2007 Issue
Our way of electing presidents has always been fer-tile ground for mischief. But there's sensible mischief - toying with existing laws and the Constitution to reflect popular will - and then there's the other kind, which tries to rig admission to the Electoral College for strictly partisan purposes. Mischief-makers in California (Republicans) and North Carolina (Democrats) are at work on changes that would subvert the system for momentary advantage and - in ways the political world is only beginning to understand - dramatically increase the odds that a Republican will be elected president in 2008.
Right now, every state except Nebraska and Maine awards all of its electoral votes to the popular-vote winner in that state. So in mammoth California, John Kerry beat George W. Bush and won all 55 electoral votes, more than one fifth of the 270 necessary for election.
Instead of laboring in vain to turn California Red, a clever lawyer for the state Republican Party thought of a gimmicky shortcut. Thomas Hiltachk, who specializes in ballot referenda that try to fool people in the titles and fine print, is sponsoring a ballot initiative for the June 3, 2008, California primary (which now falls four months after the state's presidential primary). The Presidential Election Reform Act would award the state's electoral votes based on who wins each congressional district. Had this idea been in effect in 2004, Bush would have won 22 electoral votes from California, about the same number awarded the winners of states like Illinois or Pennsylvania. In practical terms, adopting the initiative would mean that the Democratic candidate would likely have to win both Ohio and Florida in 2008 (instead of one or the other) to be elected.
Hiltachk, who is lying low for now, is a former campaign lawyer for Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger. The governor's office says Schwarzenegger has no position on the initiative and "had absolutely nothing to do with its development." But whichever way Schwarzenegger goes, several GOP presidential candidates and their financial backers have already offered to help boost the plan. Just interested in good government? They've shown a curious lack of interest in backing the same idea in Red States.
Presumably, the argument to voters in TV ads would be to "make your vote count" and bring the presidential candidates back to California, which has been so reliably Democratic in recent elections that it receives few postprimary visits from candidates in either party. The Democrats would likely counter by saying that Republicans are trying a backhanded way to corrupt the election. With the presidential nominations settled by the time the initiative would be put up to vote, expect big money to be spent on both sides trying to win over the wild cards of California politics - the millions of independents.
Congressional districts, whose lines are drawn by backroom deals, are a weak structure for picking a president. With only three or four of California's districts up for grabs (as a result of gerrymandering, which keeps them noncompetitive), the state would be visited by the candidates only slightly more often under the Hiltachk plan than under the status quo. And if the idea was somehow adopted nationally, it would mean competing for votes in only about 60 far-flung congressional districts - roughly 7 percent of the country. Everyone else's vote would not "count," if you want to look at it that way.
The monkey business underway this month in North Carolina is just as egregious - though with only three or four electoral votes at stake, probably less consequential. Democrats, who usually lose the state in presidential contests but control the legislature and the governor's mansion, make no secret of their desire to win partisan advantage by going to the congressional-district formula.
At least in North Carolina it's clearly constitutional. Article II, Section I of the U.S. Constitution stipulates that the selection of electors is up to state legislatures "in such manner as the Legislature thereof may direct." When power is delegated to the electorate in referenda, the legal authority gets fuzzy; the Constitution, of course, supersedes state law. In any event, the Hiltachk referendum will face a challenge in court.
Is there a better way to make every vote count? Yes, and it doesn't require a constitutional amendment abolishing the Electoral College. All it would take is some good mischief in state legislatures. In February, a bipartisan coalition of former senators led by Birch Bayh, Jake Garn and Dave Durenberger unveiled a campaign for a national popular vote. Under the plan, state legislatures would pass bills that pledged to award their state's electoral votes to the winner of the national popular vote. It's not clear which party this would help, but if adopted by as few as 11 states, it would guarantee that the candidate with the most votes actually won the election. Anybody got a problem with that?
California Electoral Vote Plan Won't Make June Ballot
California Electoral Vote Plan Won't Make June Ballot
By Dan Morain
The Los Angeles Times
Friday 07 December 2007
A proposed initiative that drew national attention for its potential to affect the 2008 presidential election will not appear on the June ballot, organizers said Thursday.
Republican backers of the measure, which could have titled the presidential contest toward the GOP nominee by changing how California awards electoral votes, conceded that they were unable to raise sufficient money.
Sacramento consultant Dave Gilliard, the campaign manager, said that even if a financial angel were to shower the campaign with $1 million, there is not enough time to qualify the measure for June.
"I was surprised that more people that finance these types of efforts didn't step forward," Gilliard said. "We had strong supporters and good supporters but didn't come anywhere close to making the budget."
Deadlines passed last week for submitting petitions to elections officials, who would have determined whether supporters had gathered the necessary 434,000 signatures of registered voters. Typically, gathering enough signatures costs about $2 million; organizers must overshoot their mark to allow for invalid names.
Gilliard said proponents held out hope that the measure could appear on the November ballot, with the presidential contest. But he said that was a dicey scenario: Even if it were on that ballot and won voter approval, it might not affect the 2008 election.
The initiative might not kick in until 2012, Gilliard said - adding that courts likely would decide the question.
The proposal would replace California's winner-take-all system of appropriating its 55 electoral votes, awarding them instead by which candidate wins individual congressional districts.
Republicans hold 19 congressional seats in California, suggesting the GOP presidential candidate could win at least 19 electors here -almost the equivalent of Ohio's.
Democratic National Party Chairman Howard Dean has said Democrats could not win the White House without capturing all of California's 55 electoral votes, which are more than 10 percent of the 538 electoral votes nationally.
Although confident they could have defeated it, Democrats said they were relieved that the measure would not appear in June.
"This effort to rig the presidential elections demonstrates that the Republicans ... recognize that they will be a minority party if they lose the White House and will do everything they can to hold on to power," said Democrat Chris Lehane, who helped organize the opposition.
He said Democrats plan to push alternative proposals in various states that would bypass the Electoral College altogether and elect presidents by a national popular vote.
The Electoral College measure first ran into trouble in October when the original proponent, Sacramento attorney Tom Hiltachk, abandoned the campaign. He and his team raised only $175,000. After Hiltachk dropped the measure, Gilliard took it up, vowing to raise $2 million and enlisting the support of Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Calif., a longtime client.
Issa donated $100,000, the California Republican Party gave $150,000 and Orange County Lincoln Club, an organization of Republican contributors, chipped in $75,000. Several other Republican stalwarts gave five- and four-figure checks. But donations have totaled about $1.3 million, well short of the mark.
"Raising money is proving to be a lot more difficult than was anticipated," Gilliard said.
Republican Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger had expressed skepticism about the measure. And Democrats had mounted an aggressive effort to block it, filing a complaint with the Federal Election Commission alleging that backers of Republican candidate Rudolph W. Giuliani violated federal regulations by supporting the proposal.
New York hedge fund owner Paul E. Singer, one of Giuliani's largest fundraisers, had seeded the initiative with the original $175,000 donation.
It's politics. It's a dirty game.
And in Commiefornia, anything that isn't gay, pink, and rolled in granola is considered subversive.
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