California Electoral Votes Imperiled Again?

If you can't beat 'em then sneak in referendum so that you can...

From the AP:

Effort to apportion California's electoral votes raises $540,000
SACRAMENTO—Republican donors have given about $540,000 to help qualify a ballot measure that could give the 2008 GOP presidential candidate a bounty of electoral votes from California.

The group needs to gather about 650,000 valid signatures by the end of the month to qualify the measure for the June ballot. That effort will take at least $2 million, according to David Gilliard, who is managing the campaign.

Gilliard said the campaign has less because it has been raising money for just 10 days.

"A lot of the people on there are capable of contributing quite a bit more," he said. "They're also the types that are able to attract others."

Darrell Issa, a wealthy Republican congressman from the San Diego area, gave $50,000, according to the fundraising report filed Tuesday with the secretary of state's office.

Floyd Kvamme, a Silicon Valley venture capitalist who is supporting Rudy Giuliani for president, also gave $50,000. Jerrold Perenchio, the former head of Univision, gave the same amount.

Currently, California gives all 55 of its Electoral College votes to the statewide winner in the presidential race.

The proposal would change that so the statewide winner received two electoral votes and the rest were apportioned to the winner of each of the state's 53 congressional districts.

Odds are they'll shoot to get this on the ballot by primary day so that low voter turnout will play a huge factor in its passing, Then all they have to do is whip the GOP core in the state into a frenzy and presto the Dems are screwed. Its already been tried and shot down a few mos ago. So the odds are it'll fail again. Speaking as someone that lives in a die hard red state I'd love to see all states adopt this system as I'd actually like for my vote to count on the years I vote for Dem. Presidential candidates. Plus there's the fact that such a system would allow for the creation of viable third parties. And thats a win win situation for us all.

h/t to TMV

CA Electoral Votes to Be Split?

From The New Yorker:

Two weeks ago, one of the most important Republican lawyers in Sacramento quietly filed a ballot initiative that would end the practice of granting all fifty-five of California’s electoral votes to the statewide winner. Instead, it would award two of them to the statewide winner and the rest, one by one, to the winner in each congressional district. Nineteen of the fifty-three districts are represented by Republicans, but Bush carried twenty-two districts in 2004. The bottom line is that the initiative, if passed, would spot the Republican ticket something in the neighborhood of twenty electoral votes—votes that it wouldn’t get under the rules prevailing in every other sizable state in the Union.

The Tuesday after the first Monday in June is California’s traditional Primary Day. But it’s not the one that everybody will be paying attention to. Five months ago, the legislature hastily moved the Presidential part up to February 5th, joining a stampede of states hoping to claim a piece of the early-state action previously reserved for Iowa and New Hampshire. June 3rd will be an altogether sleepier, low-turnout affair. There may be a few scattered contests for legislative nominations, but the only statewide items on the ballot will be initiatives. More than two dozen have been filed so far, ranging from a proposal to start a state-run Internet poker site to pay for filling potholes to a redundant slew of anti-gay-marriage measures. Few will make it to the ballot. Many are not even intended to; they’re a feint in some byzantine negotiation, or just a cheap attempt to get a little attention—for a two-hundred-dollar fee, anyone can file one. (Actually getting one on the ballot requires more than four hundred thousand signatures, and the outfits that collect them usually charge a dollar or two per signature.) Initiative No. 07-0032—the Presidential Election Reform Act—is different. It’s serious. Its backers have access to serious money. And it could pass. full article

The article goes on to point out that due to CA's moving up it primary date there will be this year the big primary and a smaller primary for state (including ballot) issues in June. That means a fraction of the usual turnout in June. All the GOP has to do is turn out its base and get the talking heads ranting. Should this initiative pass then the Dem's have to find a way to swing the pendulum back in their favor or they are so totally screwed. Once they've restored the balance by unlocking another states electoral votes independent presidential candidates will have a much easier time running for election. Thats a winning proposition to many Americans that are tired of voting for lesser evils.

h/t to Donklephant