Back in December, I announced with some caution that the CA Dirty Tricks Initiative had been "delayed." Indeed, the CA right-wing's best bet at passage, i.e. getting on the June ballot, was not going to happen, but I still was taking nothing for granted. As I wrote at the time:

...if we've learned one thing about right-wing dirty tricksters, it's that they're not to be underestimated. So chalk this up as one battle won, but not yet the war. I expect we'll see plenty of dirty tricks to come.

Well, we just won the war.

Proponents of a controversial proposed ballot measure that would have reallocated California's electoral college votes by congressional district -- instead of the current winner-take-all system -- have abandoned their effort.

"It's not going to make the ballot this year," said David Gilliard, a Republican political strategist organizing the campaign. "The money never materialized to put it on the ballot."

The deadline to get the signatures in to the Secretary of State's office was Monday and let's just say they didn't. It's sort of an anti-climactic end to what could have been a dramatic twist in this already dramatic election season but the Republicans saw the writing on the wall; with the excitement generated by the Democratic candidates, no way they'd ever pass this thing in California on the November ballot.

This is great news and a real testament to the grassroots/netroots rapid response instigated by my friends at The Courage Campaign (for whom I do part time work.) Their No Dirty Tricks campaign should really serve as a model for how local netroots working outside of the establishment party system can provide much needed pushback to the right-wing dirty trick machine that used to be so effective. Used to be. Money drying up...signature gathering falling short...it seems the Republicans are slowly realizing that, thanks to the proliferation of organizations like The Courage Campaign, these tactics are simply no longer viable.

Chalk another one up for the good guys.

This just in at Calitics:

The initiative to change how California's Electoral College votes are awarded in the race for the White House will not appear on the June statewide ballot, according to campaign officials.

In a brief statement e-mailed to reporters this afternoon, the California Counts political team said they are now shooting for the November ballot after being unable to gather enough signatures in time for this week's drop-dead June deadline.

"Due to the tight calendar we are operating under and the challenge of raising money and gathering signatures during the Holiday season," says the statement, "we understand that submitting signatures and having them counted in time to make the June ballot, is no longer a realistic goal."

This is excellent news. The reason the right-wingers pushing for this power grab wanted to get it on the June ballot (the state-wide primary with no high profile races to speak of) was that a low turnout election was widely seen as their best shot at winning; the November election will be anything but low turnout. Also, it will be more difficult for them to claim that an initiative on the November ballot can legally change the way EVs are allocated during that very same election (although they will try.)

Of course, if we've learned one thing about right-wing dirty tricksters, it's that they're not to be underestimated. So chalk this up as one battle won, but not yet the war. I expect we'll see plenty of dirty tricks to come.

Update [2007-12-6 19:24:6 by Todd Beeton]:Check out who's been giving money to the right-wing group pushing the dirty tricks initiative. The group is called California Counts and its backers include the CA Republican Party ($80,000,) recall-funder Rep. Darrell Issa (looks like a total of around $100,000) and, lookie here, Carl Karcher Enterprises, parent company of Hardee's and Carl's Jr., donated $25,000. I smell a boycott.

The right-wingers pushing the Dirty Tricks initiative here in California are desperate. They've been making a final fundraising and signature gathering push over the past month in hopes of getting the initiative, which, if passed, would deliver 20 or so of California's 55 electoral votes to the Republican candidate, onto the June 2008 ballot. But looks like it's not going quite as planned.

On Saturday, the LA Times reported that they had missed a deadline set by the Secretary of State for turning in signatures because they still lacked enough money to pay all of their signature gatherers and they didn't want to turn in fewer than 700,000 or so for fear that the final count would result in fewer than the 434,000 valid signatures required by law. The actual deadline to qualify for the ballot is January 24 but now that they've missed their submission date, as yesterday's Sacramento Bee explains (h/t calitics):

...backers of an initiative to change how California's electoral votes are counted are at risk of missing the June ballot because it will be difficult to finish counting signatures by a state deadline next month.

Of course, if they do miss the June ballot deadline, they'll still shoot for the November ballot, but in the meantime they're in desperation mode and the tricks they've been resorting to in order to qualify for June have gotten dirtier and dirtier.

As I wrote last week, my colleagues at The Courage Campaign (for whom I do part-time work) caught some Dirty Tricks signature gatherers on tape luring unsuspecting signers with a petition funding children's cancer research. As Courage's intrepid investigative blogger Erik Love reported at the time:

the petitioners said that their petition would "help children with cancer," and then proceeded to instruct well-meaning students to sign several petitions that were attached together on a single clipboard.  The petitioners clearly tried to obscure the language on the petitions, using a rubber band to make it difficult for anyone signing to read beyond the first page.  When pressed, the petitioners described some of the other issues (besides curing cancer) they were advocating, but their descriptions of the petition language on eminent domain and presidential election reform was unclear or inaccurate.

Based on the video footage Erik took, Courage Campaign has requested a formal investigation into the right-wingers' signature gathering practices and now CBS news has picked up the story using the actual footage Erik took.

Watch the report below:

This is a great example of the local netroots taking a local story and pushing it up, not only through the netroots but into traditional media and having a real world impact. This is really at the heart of the power and influence of the netroots. Too bad we weren't around to push back against the recall back in 2003. Of course, we haven't won yet. The Courage Campaign will continue to fight this right-wing power grab (is there any other kind?) and you can join the effort over at NoDirtyTricks.com or help build the CA progressive infrastructure by giving a little to them over at ActBlue.

It's starting to look like it.

Backers of a California ballot initiative that would drastically increase Republican chances of retaining the White House in 2008 have raised $1.2 million, including $316,000 in eight days this month -- and supporters say they're on pace to qualify for the vote in June.

The group, California Counts -- Make Your Vote Count, reported Tuesday it had raked in $855,000, mostly from a handful of huge contributions, according to a filing with the California secretary of state's office.

It's been estimated that the initiative's backers would need to raise $2 million to fund the gathering of the required 434,000 signatures by November 29 at a rate of $4/signature. It's not clear how they intend to reach this signature goal when they're so short of that financial benchmark, although their signature gathering by mail efforts (documented here and here) may be part of the story. Or their confidence may be a bunch of bluster. But thanks to my colleagues at The Courage Campaign, we do know that the signature gatherers are using any dirty tricks they can to maximize their signature gathering.

Courage's Erik Love makes videos.

As you can see in the video, the petitioners said that their petition would "help children with cancer," and then proceeded to instruct well-meaning students to sign several petitions that were attached together on a single clipboard.  The petitioners clearly tried to obscure the language on the petitions, using a rubber band to make it difficult for anyone signing to read beyond the first page.  When pressed, the petitioners described some of the other issues (besides curing cancer) they were advocating, but their descriptions of the petition language on eminent domain and presidential election reform was unclear or inaccurate.

You can watch the video HERE.

This suspicious (at best) activity has been reported to the Secretary of State's office, so between that and an inevitable constitutional challenge, even if backers do succeed in collecting enough valid signatures by the deadline, this initiative's placement on the ballot is not a done deal, but their continued financial viability and the confidence of the backers should be a concern. I'm confident the newly mature and organized California netroots can beat back this right-wing power grab, but it would be a shame to have to spend our time and resources doing so.

A New York Times article out yesterday fills in some of the blanks about the newly revived effort to steal 20+ of California's electoral votes for the Republican next year and if the enthusiasm of the Republicans quoted in the article is to be believed, this thing may be on track to making it on the June 2008 ballot.

Though the financing remains uncertain, the measure's leaders said Friday that they were confident they would get the signatures required by the Nov. 29 deadline to qualify the initiative for a statewide vote next June. [...]

Under state law, backers of the initiative must collect the signatures of roughly 400,000 registered voters; supporters said they intended to collect 675,000 signatures to make sure enough of them actually qualified.

"At the pace we're on, I think we'll be done mid-November," said Michael Arno, who is leading a professional signature-gathering effort.

"I have 300,000 signatures in hand and 100,000 in the pipeline," Mr. Arno said, adding that he believed another 100,000 might have been gathered by others.

The article cites the fundraising goal of $2 million to complete the signature gathering, which is based on an estimated 600,000 signatures at $3.75 per each signature gathered (gatherers may be either paid or volunteer but are required to disclose which they are if asked.) This article confirms that southern California GOP congressman and recall funder Darrell Issa donated $50,000 to the effort, a far cry from the millions he put into the recall petition campaign. The article also confirms that they're "behind" on their fundraising. Signature gathering guru Michael Arno has reportedly "agreed to take less" than $3.75/signature to "conserve cash." Gee, what a guy. So how can they be so confident that they'll have the signatures required without the money to complete the process? It's a bit mysterious but the answer may lie in a direct mail piece I received the other day from the California Republican Party; it contained the dirty trick initiative itself.

Yes, it appears that the CRP is sending the ballot initiative petition out to every person on the party's mailing list (I'm on there because I attended their convention last year as sort of a mole...) to get people to sign the petition and become volunteer circulators themselves by getting their family and friends to sign as well. While this method is bound to result in a ton of invalid signatures and raises all sorts of questions about the party working so closely in tandem with an initiative signature gathering campaign, this just might explain the backers' confidence that they'll have the signatures without having to pay  the full $3.75 per. I'm going to do more digging on this but in the meantime, the letter that accompanies the petition is certainly enlightening as to the framing the GOP is using to push this initiative:

Currently, our state has a winner-take-all process in terms of determining which presidential candidate, Republican or Democrat, receives California's 55 electoral votes.

But, this just is not fair. It's time to make California Count in Presidential elections! [...]

In 2004 5.5 million Californians voted for President Bush, and he won 22 of the 53 congressional districts in our state. But due to the way the current process is structured, these votes did not count since he did not win the overall popular vote...As a result, our concerns and issues have not always been heard by the candidates.

(emphasis theirs)

It goes on to say that the new proposed way of allocating EVs would be the fair way because it would

...give weight to the size and diversity of our great state.

Of course, a bullshit appeal to fairness isn't their only tactic:

Hillary Clinton has taken a strong lead in oposing this effort to make California count in Presidential elections. But she must not be allowed to dictate what California does. California should do what's best for California.

In reality, she has not taken a lead role, supporters of hers have, but that's beside the point. The GOP sees Hillary Clinton as a rallying cry and this issue is no different. As I said before, this strategy raises many questions, which I intend to research more fully in the next couple of days. Again, if the confidence the CA GOP is exhibiting is real, we may have a real fight on our hands to keep this off the ballot.

Please help the CA netroots effort to keep it off, led by my colleagues at the Courage Campaign in any way you can over at Act Blue and you can get more information at NoDirtyTricks.com. As I've written before, if this does get on the ballot, it will require millions of dollars to defeat, in fact the CA GOP is counting on it.

As I wrote last week, the Dirty Trick initiative to steal 20+ of California's electoral votes for the Republican candidate is back from the dead, and with just 2 weeks left to gather hundreds of thousands of signatures, they've got a funder lined up in Rep. Darrell Issa, the man behind the recall.

Lucas O'Connor provides some background over at Calitics:

Issa, who represents the 49th Congressional District, is one of the richest people in Congress, making a fortune off the Viper car alarm (step back, you are too close to the vehicle).  Issa is a veteran of throwing gobs of personal money into campaigns.  He dropped $12 million of his own money to lose the Republican Senate primary in 1998.  He was a bit more successful in 2003 when he dug into his wallet for $1.6 million in personal cash to fund the signature gathering for the Gray Davis recall which, when asked if it was worth it earlier this month, he said "Yes, of course."  Well, Rep. Issa is ponying up the big bucks again, lining up behind Dirty Tricks in its hour of need.

According to the Riverside Press Enterprise, the amount of money Issa is donating remains "fluid" but will likely be well under the $1.6 million he gave to the recall effort. But no matter how much he donates to this latest scheme, if we've learned one thing since 2003 it's not to underestimate the right-wing's capacity for dirty tricks.

So this time we're ready, because if there's one thing Issa didn't have to deal with in the recall effort it was an organized opposition; things are different now. Thanks to my colleagues at the Courage Campaign, the California netroots is mobilized against this initiative, no matter how many lives it has. We killed it once, we'll kill it again and we have Bradley Whitford on board to help us.

Check out his latest video in support of our effort:

But we are going to need some help. If this thing gets on the ballot, it's going to take millions of dollars to defeat it, money and effort that should be going to electing and re-electing California Democrats. That's why it's so important to help our early effort to keep the initiative off the ballot in the first place. If you can, contribute at the Courage Campaign's ActBlue page and as always check out NoDirtyTricks.com for ongoing updates.

Update [2007-10-31 22:11:20 by Todd Beeton]: Ahh, was just alerted to this article in The Hill, in which Issa claims his donation isn't terribly large at all.

"I have made a small contribution [to the campaign behind the proposal]," said Issa, who refused to disclose exactly how much he gave. He did say the amount was in the tens of thousands of dollars, not hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Issa also confirmed that he would additionally provide access to his own extensive fundraising network, which includes e-mails, as well as home addresses, of those who helped out in the 2003 recall.

Getting this on the ballot is going to require at least $2 million. What do they have up their sleeve?

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.

Bradley Whitford was good enough to star in this video for the Courage Campaign's No Dirty Tricks campaign to fight the GOP-driven initiative that threatens to steal 20+ electoral votes for the Republican nominee in California and potentially tip the balance in the election to the Republican.

Join us at NoDirtyTricks.com.