As I wrote HERE, there's a rightwing movement afoot to alter the way California allocates its 55 Electoral Votes, from winner take all to a proportional system that would allocate 2 EVs to the statewide winner and the remaining 53 to the winner of each congressional district in the state. A group benignly called Californians for Equal Representation (headed up by Thomas Hiltachk, who according to CNN, is "a Sacramento election lawyer who is also general counsel for Republican Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger") has submitted a ballot initiative (pdf w/ text here) to the CA Attorney General's office for inclusion on the June 2008 ballot. To get it on the ballot, supporters will have to collect 434,000 or so signatures from registered CA voters by November 13. Fundraising for the effort is to begin this week.
The goal is to raise $300,000 to $500,000 for polling and other preliminary organizing before gathering signatures. It could cost $2 million to collect the needed 434,000 signatures, says Kevin Eckery, spokesman for the initiative.
If the initiative were to get on the ballot and pass, it would go into effect for the 2008 presidential election and, since Republicans currently represent 19 of California's seats in congress, would likely hand the Republican candidate 20 or so EVs (essentially the equivalent of Ohio) AND the election. But to listen to the measure's backers, this has nothing to do with the motives behind the initiative -- it's about fairness and getting the candidates to not take California for granted.
"This is California saying we are tired of being the national ATM for every candidate coming out to raise funds in the spring and then disappearing by Labor Day when [candidates] go to other states when the real campaigning starts," says Mr. Eckery. He says backers want to create a better form of democracy.
It's worth noting that this is the same language used by backers of moving the primary up to Feb. 5th, many prominent Democrats among them. The problem with this defense is that, as currently written, the initiative is inherently unfair.
The new plan, which amounts to a winner-take-all system in each congressional district, means that a vote in a lower voter-turnout district is worth more than a vote in a high-turnout district. A fairer system, Mr. Stern and others say, would give whichever candidate won a given percentage of votes, the same percentage of electoral votes.
Not to mention that, as Democratic strategist Darry Sragow says:
"This is very fair if it's universal around the country," Sragow said. "It is patently absurd it if only takes place in certain states."
A similar measure that seemed destined for passage in North Carolina went down once state legislators started hearing from their constituents about it (an alternate version has it that Howard Dean quashed it.) My sense is that anything like this will be seen by voters as changing the rules in the middle of the game and hence will most likely be defeated. What it will do though is force Democrats to spend millions of dollars as an insurance policy to defeat it, dollars that could be spent going after vulnerable sitting Republicans like John Doolittle and David Dreier. Which, in the end, is likely the primary motive behind the measure in the first place. The rightwing's candidates and ballot initiatives go down every election in California so all they can hope to do is force Democrats to spend money to defeat them and thus minimize their net losses.
Update [2007-8-14 21:21:24 by Todd Beeton]: This is the exact language contained within the ballot initiative on the topic of enticing more candidates to campaign in California.
If California eliminated its "winner-take-all" system of awarding its electoral votes, Presidential candidates would have an incentive to campaign in California and to address the unique problems faced by Californians. Many geographic areas of the State would be as important to a candidate's chance for victory as many of the smaller states.Would it really? I suspect, were this to pass, the Democratic candidate would prefer to focus time and resources on large winner take all swing states, such as Ohio (20 EVs) and Florida (27 EVs) rather than fight over a few swing districts in California. Let's look at a possible EV scenario. If the Democratic nominee wins all Kerry states (252) + likely pickups Iowa (7) and New Mexico (5) - 19 red California EVs, that leaves him or her with 245 EVs and the Republican with 293. Add to this Ohio (20) and Florida (27) and the Democrat wins 292-246. Hence, the net effect is to make OH and FL must-wins for the Democrat, which was and is currently the case for the Republican. But I don't see the Democrat spending terribly more time in California. It should be noted, even with the advantage this measure would give Republicans, it's not outside the realm of possibility for Democrats to still prevail. It's just that they know the only way they have a chance is to change the rules.
Also, I've read the speculation that only the state legislature has the power to switch how the states EVs are apportioned. I'll believe that when I hear Attny General Jerry Brown tell me so. As rfahey22 says in the comments, it may actually be more complex. For example, take a look at the language of the initiative itself:
(g) Therefore, the people, exercising their reserved legislative power guaranteed by Article II of the California Constitution, hereby enact the Presidential Election Reform Act.But again, I'll wait for Jerry Brown to clear that one up.
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