Remember the initiative a GOP lawyer was trying to get onto California's June 2008 ballot in order to change the way California divies up its electoral votes? The goal of this right-wing power grab was to deliver 20 or so of California's 55 electoral votes to the Republican candidate in the name of electoral college reform and, oh yeah, democracy!

Well, we thought we'd killed it. Looks like we may have spoken too soon.

From The LA Times:

Political strategist David Gilliard said he was taking over the ballot initiative campaign, along with strategist Ed Rollins and fund raiser Anne Dunsmore. Consultant Mike Arno will oversee the signature gathering effort.

"Our budget is going to be whatever it takes to make the June ballot," said Gilliard, who played a key role in placing the 2003 recall of California Gov. Gray Davis onto the ballot.

Word is they began gathering signatures this past weekend on their way to the additional 600,000 they'll need by around November 13 in order to qualify it for the June ballot. The good news is, three weeks is not a lot of time and they're going to need to raise around $2 million to fund this effort to get this on the ballot. The bad news is they may have just the funder: Rep. Darrell Issa, who, surprise! surprise!, bankrolled the recall campaign in 2003.

From The Sacramento Bee:

Neither Gilliard nor fundraiser Anne Dunsmore named their donors, but Gilliard confirmed they hope to get support from Issa. [...]

"He's one of the people being talked to, but I can't confirm that he's involved yet," Gilliard said.

In 2003, Issa spent $1.7 million to finance signature-gathering efforts that qualified the gubernatorial recall for the ballot.

Interestingly, the new dirty trick consultants have indicated that if they don't make the June ballot, they'll try for the November 2008 ballot instead. The turnout in November is going to be huge so the likelihood of its passing then would drop considerably, but this certainly shows us these folks are not going to give up without a fight.

It's a good thing we're organized and ready to take them on. For updates and for what you can do to help fight this dirty trick, go to NoDirtyTricks.com.