August 24, 2007
The Governator Doesn't Like It
LOS ANGELES - California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger on Thursday expressed distaste for a Republican-friendly ballot initiative created by two of his former advisers who want to alter the state's electoral voting process.
"In principle, I don't like to change the rules in the middle of the game," Schwarzenegger said about "The Presidential Election Reform Act."
Created by the governor's former attorney Thomas Hiltachk and ex-advisor Marty Wilson, the '08 ballot measure would move the state's electoral votes from winner-take-all to allocation by congressional district plus two statewide votes.
The governor's comment came two days after Dems submitted paperwork in Sacramento for their "National Popular Vote" counter-initiative, which would have the state's electoral votes go to whoever wins the national popular vote.
The dueling electoral vote initiatives, both aiming for the 6/08 state primary, now must compete also with Schwarzenegger's renewed interest in reforming California's selection of state and federal legislators. The governor may push his own ballot proposal for the 2/5 presidential primary to create an independent commission to draw up fresh district boundaries.
Without such reform, "there's no competition," Schwarzenegger said at a Los Angeles press conference with former CA GOP Gov. Pete Wilson and ex-CA Dem Gov. Gray Davis, whom the actor ousted from office in a 2003 recall.
Schwarzenegger's remark could hinder his two ex-advisors in their current attempts to raise $2 million for the initiative's ad budget. However, the authoritative Field Poll this week said that 47% of Californians polled support the initiative's district-based electoral vote counting over winner-take-all, with 35% opposing such a change.
If their initiative passes next June, Republicans could secure between 19 and 22 electoral votes since 19 of California's 53 congressional seats usually vote red. Maine and Nebraska (with a combined 9 electoral college votes) are the only other states to do proportional allocation.
Dems are attacking early here to quash a measure which might swing a national election.
"It's much better to be on the offensive and deal with this from the front end and hopefully stop it from even getting off the ground," said Dem initiative spokesman Chris Lehane, an early Kerry '04 communications director/Gore '00 press secretary. His group, Californians for Fair Election Reform, competes against the GOP-driven Californians for Equal Representation.
The Republican proposal's qualifying petitions could start circulating after the state attorney general gives it a ballot title and summary on Sept. 5. Opposition funding is expected from San Francisco hedge fund master Tom Steyer and Hollywood millionaire movie producer Steve Bing, ex-boyfriend of English rose Elizabeth Hurley. In 2005, more than $4 million from Bing helped Cal Dems defeat Schwarzenegger's redistricting initiative.
GOP initiative spokesman Kevin Eckery - a onetime Pete Wilson press secretary - is nonchalant about Dem attacks since so many states must pass their popular vote measure for the idea to work nationally. "The small states will never turn their back on the electoral college," he said. "So you might as well make the electoral college work better. It's not going anywhere." [DAVID FINNIGAN]
Posted at 09:26 AM
Comments
Arnold is against "the Presidential Elections Reform Act" because it is a dirty trick from his ex-'advisers'.
As the NY Times states: If the GOP succeeds in this "elaborate dirty trick posing as reform" then [these GOP advisers] will have rigged the 2008 election to virtually prevent a Democrat from being elected to the White House in 2008. No matter the popular vote.
Evan | 08.24.07 11:40 AM
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None of these proposals (nor the Maine and Nebraska examples) is "proportional" allocation. They are still "winner take all", just at the congressional district level, not statewide. A proportional allocation of California's 55 electoral votes would have resulted in Bush getting 24 of them based on the 44.36% of the popular vote he received, not the 19 that the current proposal would have given him based on his wins in that number of districts.
Michael Rebain | 08.24.07 12:59 PM
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Initiatives 07-0032, 07-0048, 07-0048, 07-0049, and 07-0052 all operate under the impermissible assumption that any California constitutional amendment or a statute [other than an action of the Legislature] can have any legal effect in this area. The power of choosing a state's electors comes from and is SOLELY governed by the U.S. Constitution, Art. II, § 1 [See the Supreme Court in Bush v. Gore]. Even if the California Legislature enacted such a law, it can at any time prior to the actual selection of the electors set aside the effect of any legislature-passed statute and rely solely on its own federally given power, obviating sending it to the governor with his veto power as required under the California Constitution.
In the disputed 2000 presidential election, the Republican-dominated Florida legislature was giving serious consideration to doing just that, setting aside all election controversies and choosing the Republican slate of electors by a vote of the legislature itself.
Any popular initiative on such a subject would be a juridical nullity. That is why the entire electoral college system can only be amended by a federal constitutional amendment.
Let's take an extreme example. Suppose all 50 states enter into an interstate compact approved by Congress to modify the effect of the winner-take-all system. All it would take is one state legislature to bolt and rely on its federal constitutional power to cast its state electoral votes as it sees fit. In all likelihood, it would not come to that since a federal constitutional amendment would have passed first.
Dale Alan Diefenbach
Senior Reference Librarian, retired
Harvard Law School
Dale Alan Diefenbach | 09.11.07 01:05 PM
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