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by John W. Dean
Soon we will learn whether a few desperate but very well-funded Republicans have succeeded in collecting the necessary 434,000 valid signatures to go directly to California voters on a ballot initiative to change the election laws. If the initiative were to succeed, it could significantly help elect a GOP presidential candidate in 2008.
With a tone of considerable loathing, The American Conservative magazine - a very Republican magazine -- describes this "California Schemin'" as a gimmick, arising out of a loser mentality, "to change California from a state that awards its electoral votes on a winner-take-all basis to one that hands them out proportionately." Simply stated, the magazine notes, the goal of this effort is "to scrape up another 20 electoral votes" for the next Republican presidential candidate.
Most of the media attention has focused on the money behind this effort, which has been laundered through a dummy corporation in Missouri - and believed to come from Rudy Giuliani backers - along with the failed early efforts toward the same goal. But by late October 2007, more money and more professional help had arrived to rescue the effort. According to reports in the Los Angeles Times, it appears that they will reach their goal, and today, November 30, 2007, they will meet their deadline.
I expect the initiative organizers to announce their success soon. Of course, official confirmation of the signatures will take a bit longer, but we should all fully expect this to be on California's ballot this coming summer. The organizers, according to the New York Times, are suggesting June as "a realistic goal for a statewide vote" on their proposal.
Will this measure succeed? Maybe, but either way, it appears this nasty drill is a no-lose undertaking for Republicans. Let me explain why, and what Democrats and others might do about it.
The Republican money that is behind this effort to break up California's block of 55 electoral votes is not unlike the money that supported the recall drive against former Democratic Governor Gray Davis. In fact, wealthy GOP California Congressman Darrell Issa, who was a principal mover in the Davis recall that put Republican Arnold Schwarzenegger in the governor's chair, is among those backing this latest effort to game the processes. No one believed the recall would succeed.
Without descending too deeply into the weird world of California initiative politics, suffice it to say that California ranks close to the bottom for voter registration in the nation, but more importantly, it ranks almost as poorly for voter turnout. When an issue is hot and there is a general election, you may get 45% of the voters voting. But for a statewide vote outside the normal election cycle - as this would be, as a June 2008 election - not even 30% of registered Californians may take part, and those who do will likely be the activists with an agenda who are supporting the measure.
This initiative, innocuously and misleadingly known as the Presidential Election Reform Act, will be sold to California voters as the rebirth of American democracy, with deep-voiced narrators reminding Californians that they are "fair-minded" people, and nothing is fair about the elections where the winner takes all. Of course, the winner-take-all rule is the norm in 48 states, with only Maine and Nebraska apportioning electoral votes by the popular tallies within congressional districts. However, Californians will be told that they should follow the efforts of Maine and Nebraska.
Most will yawn, ignore it all, and pay no attention. This, of course, is what the proponents of the Presidential Reform Act are banking on: the hope that with the assistance of allied groups ranging from the religious right to white supremacists, their activists can do the impossible and make a bit of history. It is a long shot, but it is a shot.
To date, California's sometimes centrist Republican Governor Schwarzenegger is not supporting this effort. His own earlier efforts to get around the Democratic-controlled California Legislature by using the initiative process failed miserably. Meanwhile Democratic opposition to the Presidential Reform Act will be no-holds-barred. When the proposal first appeared, the California Schemin' story reports, "Squeals could be heard ranging from Howard Dean to every California Democrat [sic] elected official, crying everything from disenfranchisement to 'stealing' elections."
For good reason, the California Democratic Party chairman, Senator Art Torres, has said he will fight such a law in the Courts. As Doug Kendall reported for Slate, the so-called Presidential Reform Act is loaded with legal problems.
California political analyst Tony Quinn told NPR that Democrats were overreacting: "The likelihood of this ever passing is
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