New! "Electoral vote effort delayed"
Initiative backers decide to aim for the
November ballot instead of June's.
By Kevin Yamamura Friday, December 7, 2007
GOP backers of a controversial initiative to change how California's
electoral votes are counted acknowledged Thursday that qualifying for
the June 2008 ballot is "unrealistic" and said they will continue gathering
signatures for November.
The initiative has drawn national attention because it would assign
California's electors on a district-by-district basis rather than award the
statewide winner all 55 electoral votes, altering the national political
calculus by dividing up a state that has been reliably Democratic since 1992.
Appearing on the ballot in November, rather than June, has two significant
downsides for the initiative. Republican proponents are unable to benefit from
the depressed turnout expected in June, a factor that would have likely meant a
smaller proportion of Democratic voters. They also stand to face a legal challenge
over whether the initiative would apply to the 2008 presidential election because
it would appear on the same ballot.
"Due to the tight calendar we are operating under and the challenge of raising
money and gathering signatures during the holiday season, we understand that
submitting signatures and having them counted in time to make the June ballot
is no longer a realistic goal," Dave Gilliard, a Sacramento consultant running the
California Counts campaign, said in a statement.
As of Thursday, the group had not yet submitted signatures to county registrars.
Secretary of State Debra Bowen's timetable for the June 3 ballot recommended
that initiative backers turn in petitions more than three weeks ago and that
counties begin a 30-day random sampling process by today.
California Counts has until Feb. 4 to submit signatures, 150 days after the
initiative was first cleared for circulation. Gilliard said his group had collected
more than 500,000 signatures; political strategists believe they need about
700,000 to ensure they have enough valid ones to meet the state threshold.
If the initiative qualifies and is approved by voters in November, Democrats
would dispute its application to the 2008 presidential election, said Chris Lehane,
a Democratic consultant running the opposition campaign.
In California, an initiative becomes effective one day after an election. Democrats
say the state would have to use the Electoral College process in place the day of
the presidential election, not one that goes into effect the next day. Republicans
have suggested that because results are not certified and electors do not formally
vote for weeks after an election, the new law could take effect.
Gilliard said the question would be "for the lawyers to answer." Tom Hiltachk, a
GOP election law attorney who initially filed the initiative before abandoning it,
said he has not studied the issue because he thought it would appear on the
June ballot.
Richard L. Hasen, a professor specializing in election law at Loyola Law School
Los Angeles, said it is not clear whether the initiative would be valid in the 2008
presidential race if it passes the same day. He said it would "likely not be
effective," but that his interpretation is based on the law stating that an initiative's
results are valid one day after it is passed.
A 2004 initiative backed by Democrats in Colorado sought a similar change on
the same ballot as the presidential contest. The threat of a Republican legal
challenge became moot when the initiative failed.
But that ballot measure specified that it would apply to the 2004 election,
whereas the California proposal does not. Authors of the California initiative
cannot change the language without restarting signature-gathering efforts from
scratch.
Gilliard said his campaign has collected over $1.2 million to pay signature gatherers.
He and other GOP consultants took over the initiative drive in late October after
earlier proponents abandoned the proposal due to a lack of funding and a
questionable six-figure donation from a Rudy Giuliani supporter.
Republicans behind the initiative argue that it would give minority-party voters a
say in presidential races and provide greater incentive for candidates to visit
California. Gilliard said the initiative would "make our state count again in
presidential elections."
But Democrats charge that the initiative is a Republican ploy to obtain 20 or
more electoral votes in California, a state no GOP presidential candidate has
won since George H.W. Bush in 1988.
Lehane, who called the initiative "an effort to rig the election," said he backs
national reform of the Electoral College, but not a change in only the largest
Democratic state.
"This is a good reminder of why we need legitimate election reform and
should put together steps to pursue a national popular vote," Lehane said.
The proposal would assign California's electors based on who wins each
congressional district and give two additional electoral votes to the statewide
popular winner. Only Maine and Nebraska – a combined nine electoral votes –
use that method.
###
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Sacbee 12-4-2007 Electoral bid's time crunch
GOP-backed intiative may miss June vote, aim instead for November.
By Kevin Yamamura - kyamamura@sacbee.com
Published 12:00 am PSTTuesday, December 4, 2007
Elections officials on Monday said 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.
The initiative has drawn national attention because it would assign California's electors
on a district-by-district basis rather than award the statewide winner all 55 electoral
votes, potentially dividing up a state that has been reliably Democratic since 1992.
Proponents have yet to submit signatures to counties despite a recommendation
from Secretary of State Debra Bowen that they do so three weeks ago.
Republican political consultant Dave Gilliard, who is spearheading the Electoral
College initiative effort, has insisted for the past month that local elections officials
could speed up the random counting process so the initiative could qualify for the
June election by a Jan. 24 state deadline.
But such an assumption may be unreasonable because county registrars already
have committed workers to prepare for the Feb. 5 election, said Stephen Weir,
registrar of voters in ContraCostaCounty and president of the California Association
of Clerks and Election Officials.
Counties are slammed with duties that include mailing ballots to overseas voters,
preparing ballot guides, training poll workers and gearing up for absentee voting
that begins Jan. 7. At the same time, many county election offices are juggling staff
vacation time around the holidays.
"They're risking it, honestly," Weir said of Gilliard's initiative effort. "They're risking it.
They're up against a tidal wave of programming. ... You can't miss deadlines when
you have a live election going."
Democrats have charged that the initiative is a ploy to ensure Republicans obtain
20 or more electoral votes in California, a state no GOP presidential candidate
has won since George H.W. Bush in 1988. But Republicans behind the initiative
said it would force presidential candidates to visit California more often and give
more voters a voice in the presidential outcome.
Gilliard and other GOP consultants took over the initiative drive in late October
after earlier proponents abandoned the proposal due to a lack of funding and a
questionable donation received from a Rudy Giuliani supporter.
They need 433,971 signatures to qualify their initiative for the ballot but are aiming
to collect roughly 700,000 to ensure they have enough valid petitions. Gilliard in
October had hoped to get the proposal on the June ballot but said he would shoot
for November 2008 if he could not meet deadlines for the earlier election.
Gilliard did not return repeated phone calls Monday, but wrote in an e-mail,
"We are still hopeful of making the June ballot but understand we are at the mercy
of the calendar."
He estimated a week ago that his campaign had more than 500,000 signatures
and was hoping to turn them in by Monday. He estimated that his campaign had
collected $1.3 million.
Political analysts believe the initiative would fare better in June because it is
expected to have a low turnout, which generally hurts Democratic causes. Gilliard
believes the initiative would still affect the 2008 presidential outcome if it is on the
same November ballot, but opponents disagree.
Bowen's office gives counties eight working days to verify that proponents have
submitted the bare minimum of signatures required to pass. At that point, the
secretary of state authorizes counties to begin conducting a random sample of
signatures to verify their validity, a process that can take up to 30 working days.
Counties are required to submit random sample results to Bowen by Jan. 22.
As of Tuesday, there are only 33 working days until that deadline, five fewer
than counties are given to complete their raw counts and random samples.
If the random sampling does not begin by Friday, counties are free to finish their
counting after Jan. 22 and the initiative could miss the June ballot.
"There's a whole bunch of things we're trying to do for February besides this
initiative," said Brad Buyse, campaign services manager for SacramentoCounty's
elections office. "So it would be wise of them to turn (signatures) in because of
Christmas, New Year's and the February election. Many counties may use every
day that's allotted to them."
Weir said that staff members who would normally have time to verify petitions
will likely be swamped with registering voters and other last-minute election activities.
"I'm telling you, your data-entry people are going to be focusing on that and will
focus on petitions when they have the time," Weir said.
Chris Lehane, who is leading the Democratic effort to oppose the initiative,
said he believes initiative proponents are a long shot to qualify for June at this point.
"They have alternatively talked about shooting for November (2008), which
would appear to be what they're focusing on now if they're moving forward at all,
" Lehane said. "Whether it's June or November, we will defeat it no matter which
ballot it shows up on."
********************************************************************
NEW !
CBS News |
Calif. Measure Would Split Electoral Votes
CBS News, NY - While California, like most states, is winner take all, a proposed initiative would slice the state's electoral votes up by district. ... ************************************** |
Electoral College campaign still needs signatures
By Dan Morain December 1, 2007 Los Angeles Times Staff Writer
SACRAMENTO — As deadlines came and went, backers of an initiative
that could affect the 2008 presidential election continued struggling Friday
to gather enough signatures to place the measure before voters.
Organizers had set this week as a deadline for wrapping up their petition
drive, but said they had not raised the roughly $2 million needed to pay
petition circulators. Secretary of State Debra Bowen had recommended a
deadline of Nov. 29.
Campaign manager Dave Gilliard said that agents would work through the
weekend to obtain the 434,000 valid signatures required to put the Electoral
College initiative on next June's ballot and that he expected to submit the
names by midweek.
Gilliard was less than certain that he would reach his goal of 700,000
names, a number allowing leeway for signatures that might be disqualified.
"We won't know until they're collected," he said.
The proposed initiative would alter California's winner-take-all system of
awarding its 55 electoral votes. Instead, electors would be allocated based
on which candidate captured majorities in individual congressional districts.
That could help the eventual Republican presidential nominee in California.
With Republicans holding 19 congressional seats, the GOP nominee would
presumably win at least that many districts, giving the candidate 19 electoral
votes, almost as many as Ohio has.
In 2004, President Bush, a Republican, won majorities in 22 congressional
districts, despite losing to Democratic U.S. Sen. John Kerry in California
44.4% to 55.4%.
If California altered its Election Code to count electoral votes by congressional
district, the state would join just two others using that method: Maine and
Nebraska, which combined have nine electoral votes.
Gilliard said Friday that he was unsure whether the campaign would reach its
fund-raising goal.
Tapping some Republican stalwarts, proponents have raised more than $1 million;
the actual figure won't become public for several days. But Gilliard said $200,000
to $250,000 more was needed to pay circulators for the signatures they have gathered.
"Until it is the bank, I don't want to make any pronouncements," he said.
Initiative organizers often miss deadlines and still qualify their measures, but pushing
the target date is risky. Once signatures are submitted, local elections authorities
must verify them and send them to the secretary of state, who certifies the measure
for the ballot.
The initiative has attracted interest among presidential campaigns because
of its national implications.
Democratic National Party Chairman Howard Dean has said that Democrats
could not win the White House without winning all California's 55 electoral votes.
This state accounts for more than 10% of the 538 electoral votes nationally,
by far the biggest block of any state.
Backers have said that if they failed to qualify the Electoral College measure
for June, they would try to place it on the November 2008 ballot. It is unclear
what that would mean for that month's presidential election.
The Electoral College initiative has had a troubled past. Its original campaign
team, including its author, Sacramento attorney Thomas Hiltachk,
abandoned the measure in October.
Hiltachk and his team had been unable to raise sufficient money.
Hiltachk also became angry when the one donation he received -- $175,000
from Wall Street mogul Paul E. Singer -- took a circuitous route through a
Missouri attorney and a hitherto unknown corporation. That route hid,
at least for a time, the true source of the contribution.
The measure itself is relatively simple, taking fewer than four pages.
Supporters portray it as a way to make California's elections fair.
The idea of altering California's system has been discussed within
Republican circles for years.
It became so serious in the 2004 campaign that California
Republicans approached the Republican National Committee about it.
But the GOP and President Bush's political team concluded that
Bush could win the election without the added boost that such a
move would bring.
###
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NEW ! LEADING A MOVEMENT TO MAKE A DIFFERENCE
Richard K. Wagner, President, Lincoln Club of Orange County
The Lincoln Club of Orange County Board of Directors has voted
decisively to endorse and support the California Counts Electoral
College Reform initiative. Agreeing to contribute $100,000 to the
cause, the Board felt that for far too long, too many voters in
California have not been counted in Presidential elections.
For over 45 years the Lincoln Club has been at the forefront of
most of the major issues confronting California. It was initial
support and funding of club members that helped launch Ronald
Reagan's 1966 gubernatorial campaign. In 1978 early seed
money and support by the club helped allow for Proposition 13
to proceed to the ballot.
In 2003 it was a $200,000 commitment along with the club's good
name that helped to launch the recall of Gray Davis.
In most instances, the club acted only after substantial, and
sometimes heated, debate, and this vote was no exception.
The greatest cause for concern by some club members was the
idea of reforming the Electoral College process in California.
Taking the state from a winner-take-all to one where electors are
chosen by Congressional district caused great angst. In fact only
a month ago most board members were against this initiative for
just this reason. However the debate established some solid
arguments as to why this initiative should be considered and
supported, and the reasons had nothing to do with trickery or
slight of hand with regards to the election process.
First, California is an aberration in relation to the rest of the country.
There are 38 million people in the state of which 22 million are eligible
to vote, and around 15 million are actually registered. About 43% or
6.5 million of these are Democrats, and about 36% or 5.5 million of
these are Republicans. In a winner-take-all scenario, 5 to 6 million
Republican votes in the nation's largest state are as good as uncounted
in every Presidential election, and this greatly bothered the board.
Second, most candidates for President do not campaign in the
state for votes and simply use it for raising money. By establishing a
process whereby electors are chosen by Congressional district,
California then sets itself up as a number of states within a state,
thus forcing candidates to spend time here. For example, Orange
County incorporates roughly five Congressional districts, or as many
Electoral College votes as West Virginia.
In effect, Orange County becomes a state, as does San Diego, L.A., the
Inland Empire area of San Bernardino/Riverside, the Central Valley,
and the Bay area.
Third, the idea that all states will follow suit and begin diluting down the
effect of the Electoral College doesn't make sense. Why would West
Virginia, with only five Electoral College votes, make itself less attractive
by not having a winner-take-all process?
The idea of a winner-take-all process was not something board members
had a problem with. It just seemed that in the mega-nation state of
California, it no longer makes sense.
Fourth, the Founding Fathers, in framing the Constitution, were specific
that the states, not the federal government, could each individually
determine how their respective Electoral College votes would be
apportioned. Club members felt that this in and of itself was a built-in
check and balance on the Electoral College process, whereby a state
has the ability to adjust and change as required to ensure the proper
representation of its voters. This is a Federalist approach,
and the Lincoln Club believes that the time to adjust has arrived.
Fifth, and last, one of the prominent ideas behind the formation of the
Electoral College was to level the playing field between states so that
the larger states would not be able to impose their will time and again
over the smaller states. The situation we find ourselves in today is that
a few extremely large states in the winner-take-all column are having a
greater impact on elections than ever before. Club members felt that
the Founding Fathers would be aghast at the size and influence of just
a small number of states, and that they would be in support of the kind
of political readjustment that the California Counts initiative proposes.
The Lincoln Club believes that California is just too big for a winner-take-
all process, and that the California Counts initiative solves the
representation problem without compromising the integrity of the Electoral
College process. We think that the Founding Fathers would approve of
this initiative - one that makes votes count.
_________________________________________________________
NEW!! Electoral change is hope for GOP November 26, 2007 03:29:39 AM
By Ben van der Meer bvandermeer@modbee.com
There used to be a phrase to describe a certain breed of California voter:
Reagan Democrats.
Those were the moderate-to-conservative members of the Democratic Party
who supported President Reagan and the first President Bush in the elections
of 1980, 1984 and 1988. But for many reasons, Republican candidates have
written off their chances here ever since.
Now a coalition of reformers -- with funding from state Republicans -- is hoping
to make California an important state for the GOP again, by tweaking how
electoral votes are apportioned.
If a ballot measure to that end goes before voters next year, and it succeeds,
battleground states like Ohio and Michigan could be no more important than
some regions of California, such as the moderate Northern San Joaquin Valley.
Let's go back. The proposed measure, called the Electoral Reform California
Initiative, is based on similar practices in Nebraska and Maine.
In those states, every congressional district is worth one electoral vote.
The candidate who wins the popular vote in a district receives an electoral vote.
Two electoral votes, representing the state's two senators, go to whoever wins
the statewide vote.
Here, that would mean California's 55 electoral votes -- the most in the nation
-- would be split between the Democrat and the Republican candidates, rather
than all going to the state winner.
If that were in play in 2004, President Bush would've gotten 21 electoral votes
in California, to Sen. John Kerry's 34. That's one more electoral vote than Bush
won in Ohio, which gave him a second term.
The thinking, according to the ballot measure's author, former state
Sen. Ray Haynes, is that candidates of both stripes would campaign in
California if they think they can pick up electoral votes in some of the
congressional districts.
What does that mean for the valley?
Haynes thinks it means candidate visits from both sides.
"California is unique in this country," he said. "Those who like the status quo
don't want to work for electoral votes."
Swing parts of the state, such as Modesto, could be attractive to candidates
who can't take it for granted, as Democrats discovered to their chagrin back
in the 1980s.
State Democrats, predictably, vow to defeat the measure if it makes the June
2008 ballot. But the proposal may have some other handicaps, as well. Haynes
said as many as 10 districts in California are competitive, suggesting they would
be the districts candidates from both parties would target.
Realistically, though, those districts are drawn so that in most cases, the party
currently representing them stays in power. Since redistricting in 2001, only one
congressional seat statewide changed parties, the 11th Congressional District
last year.
And the measure doesn't have unanimous support within the Republican Party.
Gov. Schwarzenegger has seemed disinclined to support it, and local
Republicans said the prospects of it making the state ballot are iffy.
Then there's early polling that shows most voters are cool to or don't support
the idea. With statewide propositions, being behind in the polls at the start is
considered bad mojo, though Haynes pointed out that 1978's Proposition
13 also started behind but passed in a landslide.
Even if the measure doesn't pass, it may have other value for the Republicans.
State Democrats are flush with cash; but state Republicans, not so much.
If Democrats have to pony up to make sure this measure doesn't pass, that
could level the playing field somewhat.
With a national presidential race and a handful of state congressional races
in play, money thrown at a ballot measure fight is money that can't be spent
where the party might need it more.
In a weird way, the proposal could reverse California's standing in presidential
politics: Rather than pick up money here, Democrats might have to spend it.
INITIATIVE UPDATE !
Just two weeks ago, the Reform Initiative was
destined to join many other great ideas that never
made the ballot due to lack of money, organization
or time.
Today, thanks to the generous support from donors
and herculean efforts from everyone working on the
measure, I am very happy to inform that we are well
on our way to qualifying the Electoral Reform California
Initiative 07-0032 for the June 3, 2008 ballot.
Here is the update:
We have gathered a total of nearly 400,000 signatures
(300,000 over the last two weeks). Our paid signature effort
is proving enormously successful – so much so that we
were able to decrease the price we are paying circulators
on the street – an almost unprecedented situation for an
initiative campaign working on a deadline.
We are getting thousands of signatures from the internet,
and mail thanks to a massive internet/email campaign from
Congressman Darrell Issa.
The California Republican Party and our CalCounts
Committee have mailed petitions to a total of over
750,000 households statewide.
Our volunteer signature efforts and $2 bounty program
are starting to produce signatures and we expect some
big returns from that program over the next couple of weeks.
Polling continues to show that Californians support our Initiative.
A new SurveyUSA poll shows that 47% support choosing delegates
by congressional district. Only 34% of voters want to keep the
current winner-take-all system. The more voters are
informed about the initiative, the stronger they support it.
We need about 434,000 valid signatures to qualify this
initiative. Our goal remains to submit well over 600,000
signatures before the end of the month. We are well on
our way, but we need everyone to double their efforts to
help us put the Electoral Reform Initiative before
voters in June.
Thank you!
Dave Gilliard, Manager, California Counts
**************************************************************
Electoral Reform Initiative is legal and liberals are full of baloney!
by James Lacy, Attorney -Politcal Law 11-2-2007 and 10-29-2007
There is a report in the Sacramento Bee today that Art Torres, Chair
of the California Democratic Party, is claiming that the PERA initiative,
O7-0032 which would reform California's apportionment of electoral college votes to
recognize regional diversity and make our state relevant again in Presidential elections,
is unconstitutional.
That position is a bunch of baloney.
Long established U.S. Supreme Court case law (see Smiley v. Holm, 285 U.S. 355
(1931) and Davis v. Hildebrant, 241 U.S. 565 (1911) ) provide strong logic and support
for the initiative. Those cases establish rock-solid support for the proposition that the
word "legislature" in Article 1 of the U.S. Constitution, dealing with apportionment of
Congressional districts for election purposes, includes the lawmaking process in the
state as determined by its particular "polity." In these cases, "legislature" in Article 1
was interpreted to include not only the state legislature itself, but the full lawmaking
process, including the Governor's veto, and the people's power of referendum.
In California, all power, including the power to act as the "legislature," is reserved
to the people in our state constitution. The "polity" of our lawmaking process includes
initiatives, and the initiative process in California was placed in the state constitution
about the time of the Smiley and Davis cases. Court's are compelled to follow Supreme
Court precedent, and there is very strong logic that the same analysis actually applied
by the Supreme Court under Article 1 to Congressional elections will be applied under
a review of the "California Counts" initiative under Article 2 for Presidential elections of
the Constitutionally coequal Executive branch. In other words, these same rules apply
to the coequal Congressional and Executive Powers, and if the Supreme Court already
has determined that referenda is action of the "legislature" in Ohio (under Article 1), then
Courts will find that initiative is action of the "legislature" in California (under Article 2).
Loyola Law Professor Rick Hasen is quoted in the article. Rick provides a fine
service for election lawyers through his blog. And Rick is a brilliant lawyer. Rick states
the law accurately in the news report. Rick tries to be neutral, but he has been associated
with liberal legal causes in the past, and I believe he has greatly underplayed the Article
1/Article 2 "coequal" analysis, which is such a strong argument that even reluctant
observers who understand the law should agree that even in a close call (which it is not),
the likelihood is a reviewing court will uphold the California Counts initiative, and
California will be relevant again in Presidential elections.
10-29-2007
The Federal Constitution states at Article II, Section 1 that states shall "appoint, in
any manner as the Legislature therof may direct, a Number of Electors" for the purpose
of electing the President and Vice-President of the United States.
The California Constitution empowers the people of the state at Article II with "all
inherent political power" to act as the legislature through the initiative process to
"propose statutes and amendments..." and to "adopt or reject them."
In California, the Legislature is not the exclusive source of legislative power; the
constitution also includes the people's powers of initiative and referendum.
Professional Engineers in California Government v. Kempton (2007) 56 Cal.Rptr.3d 814,
40 Cal.4th 1016, 155 P.3d 226.
The people's reserved power of initiative is greater than power of the legislature.
Rossi v. Brown (1995) 38 Cal.Rptr.2d 363, 9 Cal.4th 688, 889 P.2d 557.
All presumptions favor the validity of initiative measures. California Family Bioethics
Council v. California Institute for Regenerative Medicine (App. 1 Dist. 2007) 55 Cal.
Rptr.3d 272, 147 Cal.App.4th 1319, review denied. The initiative power must be
liberally construed to promote the democratic process. California Assn. of Retail
Tobacconists v. State of California (App. 4 Dist. 2003) 135 Cal.Rptr.2d 224, 109 Cal.
App.4th 792, review denied. The voters' power to decide whether or not the Legislature
can amend or repeal initiative statutes is absolute and includes the power to enable
legislative amendment subject to conditions attached by the voters.
Professional Engineers in California Government v. Kempton (2007)
56 Cal.Rptr.3d 814, 40 Cal.4th 1016, 155 P.3d 226.
The Presidential Elector Reform Initiative is a needed reform that will guarantee that
California's diversity will be represented in the Electoral College, and also make
California relevant in the presidenital election process. Other states, such as Maine
and Nebraska, have similar laws. The proposed California initiative, as stated above,
is also strongly supported by the legal authorities and the Federal and state constitution.
All voters need to do to make this necessary reform happen is
sign the petition and then vote "Yes" in June!
******************************************************************************
Art Torres: The big bad wolf!
______________________________________________________
Dump winner-take-all! Los Angeles Times, October 28, 2007
The states should divvy up electoralvotes so people
are more accurately represented.By Alexander Keyssar
The effort by some California Republicans to alter the way the
state's electoral votes are distributed in presidential elections
has been miraculously resurrected.
The proposal -- which would replace the winner-take-all system
with an allocation of electoral votes by congressional districts
had stalled last month in the wake of a strangely surreptitious
financial contribution to the cause from a Rudy Giuliani backer.
The proposal had also faced a ferocious assault from Democrats
(especially Clintonians) who fought it with money, focus groups,
radio ads and red-hot rhetoric, insisting that the proposed reform
was nothing but a "power grab" by Republicans, a dangerous and
blatant ploy designed to rig an election through procedural trickery.
But now it's back.
Last week, a new group of experienced organizers said not only
was it reviving the initiative but it would spend "whatever it takes"
to get the proposal onto the June ballot. Democrats began crying
foul again, worried that Republican electoral votes from California
in the 2008 election could go from zero (under the winner-take-all
system in this majority Democratic state) to as many as 19 (the
number of districts that have elected GOP members of Congress).
But this partisan battle for short-term advantage between Democrats
and Republicans in California ought not obscure the larger truth:
The strange method of electing presidents under which we currently
operate needs to be fixed. The way the system works is, in fact,
subject to partisan manipulation that could be decisive in a close
election. Florida. Right now, any state legislature could legally
decide to apportion its state's electoral votes in almost any way
it wants -- "winner take all" (the system currently used in most
states), or by district (as happens in Maine and Nebraska), or in some
other as-yet-undetermined fashion. In late November 2000, for
instance, Florida's Republican-controlled Legislature seriously
considered ignoring the disputed popular vote altogether and
choosing electors by itself.
A bit of history suggests that this should not surprise us.
The winner-take-all system of allocating electoral votes
-- which we now accept as normal and which awards all of a
state's electoral votes to the candidate who wins a majority
of the popular vote in the state -- was itself the product of
partisan maneuvers, put into place by politicians of different
parties, including our revered founding father and democratic
hero, Thomas Jefferson.
The Constitution drafted in Philadelphia in 1787 said (and says)
nothing about how a state should choose its electors or apportion
electoral votes. It leaves that decision to the legislature of each
state. Not surprisingly, when political leaders were first trying to
erect the institutions that the founding fathers had sketched on
paper in Philadelphia, different states adopted different methods
of choosing presidential electors. In some, the legislatures
appointed electors by themselves (without holding any popular
election); others developed a winner-take-all system in which
they held "general ticket" elections, granting the winning
candidate all of the state's electoral votes; still others allocated
the electors by district. Numerous states changed systems
from one election to the next.
The most progressive political thinking of the era favored the
district plan -- because it would most closely link the preferences
of voters to the selection of electors. As Jefferson observed,
"All agree that an election by districts would be best, if it could
be general."
Yet Jefferson proved more than willing to let partisan advantage
trump what "would be best." As the 1800 election approached,
his Republican supporters in Virginia, mindful that their opponents
in the Federalist Party had won five of the state's electoral votes
in 1796, replaced the district system with "winner take all"
-- thereby guaranteeing Jefferson all of Virginia's electoral votes.
(Massachusetts, the home of Jefferson's rival, John Adams,
retaliated by entrusting the selection of electors to the Federalist-
dominated legislature.) A few years later, Jefferson, as president,
backed away from supporting a constitutional amendment
mandating a district system throughout the nation -- a strategy
that would have eliminated the potential unfairness of having a
district approach in some states and the winner-take-all system
in others -- because "winner take all" appeared to be benefiting
his party.
Indeed, "winner take all" became, and endured as, the primary
method of choosing electors precisely because of partisan
dynamics. Regardless of the broader democratic principles at
stake, dominant parties in nearly all individual states had
embraced the short-run advantages of "winner take all" by
1830; since then, few states have had an appetite for dividing
up their electoral votes while everyone else was using "winner
take all" -- in part because doing so would appear to lessen the
state's clout in national politics. (Democrats in Michigan made
the change in the 1890s and were severely punished for their
pains after Republicans regained control of the state legislature.)
National efforts to impose a district plan (or a similar system
that would allocate electoral votes in proportion to the
distribution of the popular vote within a state) have occasionally
garnered widespread support (several times winning passage
through one branch of Congress), but, so far, partisan opponents
of such a change have successfully prevented such a
constitutional amendment from receiving the necessary
two-thirds vote in both houses of Congress.
All of which has left us with a winner-take-all system that was
never voted on or designed as a matter of national policy and
has numerous intrinsic defects (such as transforming presidential
elections into nonevents in the many states where candidates
don't bother to campaign because the outcome is not in doubt).
We are also left with a constitutional framework that remains
vulnerable to partisan machinations. That framework, created
by men of the 18th century who could barely imagine mass
political parties, permits the rules of the game to be changed
in midstream by any one state or any collection of states.
The largest states, of course, would be particularly inviting
targets.
If the Republicans truly believe that it would be fairer and
more democratic to choose electors by district, then instead
of introducing such plans piecemeal in states where they
would benefit, they should introduce a constitutional amendment
to create a national district system -- one that would apply to
Texas and South Carolina as well as California. And if the
Democrats truly want to prevent procedural "power grabs,
" they should sign on to such a proposal -- or offer a
"proportional plan" or (better yet) actively back a national
popular election that would eliminate the electoral college
altogether.
If both parties worked together on such legislation, jointly
committing themselves to remedy a design flaw in our
Constitution, they might even succeed in dissipating a bit
of the cynicism that the electorate so frequently expresses
about political parties that seem far more interested in their
own welfare than the fate of the nation.
Alexander Keyssar is a professor of history and social policy
at Harvard University's Kennedy School of Government.
**************************************************************************
Will changing the how we elect presidents be the latest California trend?
BY RHODES COOK Wall Street Journal
Wednesday, October 17, 2007 12:01 a.m.
It would not be surprising if the most important single primary in 2008 takes
place in California. But don't look for it to be the presidential primary on
Super-Duper Tuesday Feb. 5. Look instead to the state primary on June 3,
up to now a low-profile event that could become fraught with significance if
some California Republicans succeed in getting a highly controversial
proposition on the ballot.
If successful, it would ensure the party's nominee 20 or so electoral votes
from California next fall, even if the GOP candidate loses the state for the fifth
straight election. And if the 2008 election is as close as the last two have been,
that could be enough to keep the White House in Republican hands.
The political weapon of choice for the GOP is a plan that would distribute
electoral votes to congressional district winners (one per district, plus two to
the statewide winner of the popular vote) instead of the winner-take-all format that
nearly every state currently favors. The plan was submitted as a ballot proposal
to California election officials in July by a law firm that has represented the state
Republican Party.
The district plan has been employed for years by two small states, Maine and
Nebraska, with results consistently the same as winner-take-all. But if the plan
were applied in California in 2004, the state's electoral vote would have shifted
dramatically--from 55-0 for Democrat John Kerry (a 10 percentage point winner
in the state's popular vote) to 33-22 Kerry, with Bush taking one electoral vote
for each of the 22 congressional districts that he carried.
In one swoop, Bush would have won more electoral votes in California than he
did in capturing the highly priced battleground state of Ohio (worth 20 electors).
And in one instant, the nationwide electoral vote tally would have shifted in
Bush's favor from 286-251 (with one "faithless" Democratic elector in Minnesota)
to a more commanding 317-221. The district plan would have transformed
Bush's narrow Electoral College victory--where Kerry could have won the
election by taking Ohio--into a decisive triumph.
If applied nationally over the last generation, the district plan would have
reversed the outcome of the 1960 election, electing Richard Nixon rather than
John F. Kennedy, would have produced a 269-269 electoral vote tie between
Jimmy Carter and Gerald Ford in 1976, and would have consistently tightened
the Electoral College outcomes in every presidential election from 1960 to the
end of the 20th century--with the winning candidate losing electoral votes and
the losing candidate gaining some each time.
However, in both 2000 and 2004, the district plan would have actually expanded
George W. Bush's electoral vote margins--from a razor-thin five in 2000 to 38,
and from 35 in 2004 to 96.
*****************************************************
The Hillary's gang of pirates know that this
- initiative will kill her chances to be president!
- Be aware. Look up "Lincoln Brigade" of the 30/40s.
- Members were the Industrial Workers of the World, "Wobblies", socialist, and anarchist organizations.
- State Dem group played hardball to kill GOP election system plan
Carla Marinucci, Chronicle Political Writer
Sunday, October 7, 2007
They called themselves "The Lincoln Brigade."
Even as Democrats feared having to spend as much as $40 million for a bruising, bloody fight expected to
drag on for months, this makeshift group of California Democratic operatives needed just weeks to pummel
a Republican-funded push for a ballot measure that threatened to change the outcome of the 2008 presidential election.
The ruthlessly effective battle plan of the California Democrats' group raises the specter that, as the 2008 election looms, Republicans may have to confront a far more aggressive Democratic ground game that has revived the
old "Clinton war room" philosophy.
"We need to fight back and not be reluctant - that if they come after you with a knife, to pull out a gun," said
California Democratic strategist Chris Lehane, former spokesman for President Bill Clinton's White House and
Vice President Al Gore's 2000 presidential campaign.
The group took aim at the Presidential Election Reform Act, a proposed California ballot measure that would
change the way the state apportions its Electoral College votes and likely benefit the Republican nominee.
After two terms of Republican control of the White House - and angered by what they perceived as a history
of electoral "dirty tricks" by GOP strategists such as President Bush's key adviser Karl Rove - the Democrats'
response in California could serve as an indication of what lies ahead in the 2008 battle for the White House.
"We ran it like a military operation," says Margie Sullivan, a former chief of staff to three Clinton Cabinet
secretaries who was closely involved in the effort. "You had this SWAT team of talented, hyper-engaged people.
... It was: boom, boom, boom."
Lehane and Sullivan are some of the lead players in the group, which includes many former insiders from the
Clinton administration. They named their group after the brigade of American volunteers who fought against
fascism in the Spanish Civil War.
After events such as the 2000 Florida presidential election recount, the 2003 California recall election that ousted
Democratic Gov. Gray Davis, the 2004 "Swift Boat" campaign against Sen. John Kerry, "Democrats are waking
up to reality, " said Doug Boxer, the son of U.S. Sen. Barbara Boxer and a Bay Area consultant who was political
director for the effort against the ballot measure.
"It doesn't mean (Democrats are) jettisoning their values system ... but the Clinton administration played hardball
on a lot of things, and we'd gotten away from that," Boxer said. "We're back to the Clinton era."
Veteran California Republican strategist Dan Schnur conceded that the recent Democratic effort against the ballot
measure was astonishingly effective. But he argued that the result - Republican supporters have for the most part
backed away from the measure - may have been due more to the high stakes and a hunger to get back into the
White House than brilliant campaign strategy.
"There's an old saying: Nothing concentrates your attention like the prospect of your own destruction," Schnur
said. "They correctly identified this as a mortal blow to their Electoral College prospects next year. If they hadn't
mobilized with everything they had, they would have been signing their own death warrant."
Interviews with lead players in the effort last week reinforced that scenario: Democrats from local to national levels
shifted into gear almost as soon as rumors surfaced in May that Republicans might try to "steal the election" in the
Democratic-leaning state with a ballot measure to benefit the GOP nominee.
Instead of the winner-take-all system used in all but two states, the measure provided that 53 of California's 55
electoral colleges votes would go one-by-one to the presidential candidate who wins each of the state's 53
congressional districts.
Analysts said such a change could swing about 20 of California's Electoral College votes - about as many as key
states such as Ohio and Pennsylvania - from the Democratic candidate, who would be favored to win the statewide
popular vote, to the Republican candidate who could win Republican-dominated congressional districts.
By the time the GOP-backed group called "Californians for Equal Representation," led by attorney Thomas Hiltachk
- who has represented Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and the state GOP - submitted the ballot measure to the state
attorney general's office on July 17, the ad-hoc Democratic group was already engaged in a flurry of action.
Lehane had contacted Sullivan and Tom Steyer, a longtime major party donor and lead fundraiser for Kerry who
heads San Francisco-based Farallon Capitol.
"He said, 'We've got to stop this - now' ... and immediately kicked in $150,000," Lehane recalled.
They roused a crew of party operatives including Peter Ragone, longtime aide to San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom,
who acknowledged that many believed the GOP effort was a longshot.
But "we'd seen that movie before," Ragone said. "We had learned ... that when Republicans start with these shenanigans,
you have to hit them hard. Our attitude was: Not in our state."
The goal, Sullivan said, was to "strangle the baby in the cradle" and kill the ballot measure early, rather than let it
qualify for the ballot - where it would be much tougher and more expensive to beat.
As the campaign in favor of the measure prepared to circulate the petitions and get the voter signatures needed to
qualify it for the ballot, Doug Boxer contacted every major Democratic elected official from mayors to state legislators
to California's U.S. senators and urged them to speak publicly against the Electoral College plan.
Steyer and Sullivan hit the phones, rounding up financial backing and commitments from deep-pocketed donors like
Nancy Parrish, a leading supporter of Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton's presidential campaign and Hollywood producer
Norman Lear, who put up $50,000. Also at the ready: producer Steven Bing and major Democratic donor and developer
Walter Shorenstein, Sullivan said.
Pollster Paul Maslin's early focus groups found that a slim majority of Californians initially backed the Republicans'
call for an end to "winner take all," so the Democrats began a daily drumbeat aimed at the media - press conferences,
meeting with the state's leading editorial boards and outreach to Internet Web sites and blogs.
The Democrats wanted to "tell our side of the story" additionally through TV and radio ads to erode public support
and scare off potential GOP donors, Lehane said.
At one point, "Norman Lear pitched in on a script change," Lehane said. "That made us nervous ... it's was kind of
like Picasso giving you advice on painting."
Frank Russo, publisher of the California Progress Report, a popular Democratic Web site, said the strategy achieved
"a clarion call that went out to all the troops," prompting netroots activists such as the Courage Campaign and Daily
Kos loyalists to pound the issue to the grassroots. "It was like the old Who song: We won't get fooled again," he said.
Democratic National Committee Chairman Howard Dean flew to San Francisco for a press conference with labor leaders
to "make it very clear from the beginning that the new Democratic Party is not going to take it lying down - we still stand
and fight," said DNC spokesman Karen Finney.
Editorial boards lined up against the measure. Then came a turning point - Schwarzenegger's public slap at the measure,
which he said suggested a "loser mentality" by his party and an attempt to change election rules in the middle of the game.
Democrats still felt they had a big challenge: unmasking the money people behind Hiltachk's group - which by early
September had said it had collected 40,000 signatures to put the measure on the June 2008 ballot.
Many of the original backers of the GOP ballot measure also were supporters of GOP presidential candidate Rudy
Giuliani. Then came the news that the single $175,000 contribution to Hiltachk's Sacramento group was from a separate
organization run by a Missouri GOP attorney named Charles Hurtt III - another Giuliani donor. But Hurtt's group wouldn't
reveal its donors.
Democratic attorney James Harrison announced the party would file a complaint with federal election officials alleging
money laundering - and the state's Fair Political Practices Commission acknowledged looking into the issue.
Quickly, the GOP ballot measure drive collapsed. Hiltachk resigned - as did his group's spokesman, Kevin Eckery and
the chief fundraiser, Marty Wilson. They said they didn't want to accept money from anonymous donors - and support
and funding had dried up for the measure.
In the last week, the money man behind the Missouri group was revealed to be Giuliani policy adviser and top fundraiser,
billionaire New York hedge fund executive Paul Singer. That has prompted Harrison to pledge that Democrats will continue demanding answers regarding Giuliani's links to the effort - right into the 2008 primary season.
Eckery, the former spokesman for the ballot measure group, said that while the experience served as "a tune-up for the
Clinton machine in California," Democrats shouldn't get overconfident from the result.
"Politics is a contact sport," he said, "and the presidential election is the Super Bowl."
Cast of characters
Some of the key Lincoln Brigade players and their Clinton connections:
Chris Lehane: former White House spokesman for President Bill Clinton and 2000 spokesman for Al Gore's presidential
campaign. Lehane is supporting Hillary Rodham Clinton's presidential effort.
Doug Boxer: consultant and son of U.S. Sen. Barbara Boxer of California.
Tom Steyer: founder of San Francisco's Farallon Capital Management, one of Sen. Clinton's biggest donors and a
leading fundraiser for 2004 John Kerry campaign.
Margie Sullivan: Farallon Capital management analyst, Democratic fundraiser and former chief of staff to three U.S.
Cabinet secretaries during the Clinton administration.
Ari Swiller: Democratic fundraiser and "kitchen cabinet" insider of Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, a Hillary
Clinton backer.
Peter Ragone: a former aide in the Clinton administration and Gore spokesman. He is former spokesman for San
Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom, a Clinton endorser.
Bill Carrick: longtime Democratic strategist for U.S. Sen. Dianne Feinstein, who has endorsed Hillary Clinton.
Paul Maslin: veteran Democratic pollster, formerly for Democratic National Committee Chairman Howard Dean and
now for New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson, a Democratic presidential candidate.
Sean Sullivan: opposition researcher formerly with the San Francisco firm of Averell "Ace" Smith, who is now
Hillary Clinton's California campaign manager.
E-mail Carla Marinucci at cmarinucci@sfchronicle.com.
Sept 2, 2007 SFGate by Matthew Yi
Field Poll shows Californians lean toward dividing
electoral votes (47-35% favor. Dems terrified)
California voters are inclined to support a proposed ballot initiative that would
change how the Golden State allocates its electoral votes in presidential campaigns,
but they're not yet sold on the idea, a Field Poll released today showed.
Currently, California employs a winner-take-all system that awards the
state's entire 55 electoral votes to the winner of the state's popular vote.
Under the proposed measure, which could be on the June 2008 ballot, the
presidential election would become, in essence, a congressional district-by-
congressional district contest. The winner of the statewide popular vote
would receive two electoral votes, but the remaining votes would go to the
winner in each of the 53 congressional districts.
The proponents of the California ballot measure, largely Republicans, say such
a change would make presidential elections more fair by more accurately reflecting
the results of the popular vote. However, Democrats have railed against the proposal
by charging that the measure is a Republican-driven effort to keep Democrats from
capturing the White House.
If the proposal is adopted, analysts suggest that a Republican presidential candidate
would get a boost because Democrats can no longer count on all 55 electoral votes
from California, which has voted for Democratic candidates since 1988.
All but two states, Nebraska and Maine, give their electoral votes on a winner-take-all
basis to the presidential candidate who wins the statewide popular vote.
The Field Poll found that 47 percent of registered voters back a change to California's
system for electoral votes, with 35 percent opposed. Republicans generally support
the change more than Democrats.
When pollsters explained the political implication that Democratic presidential
candidates might lose some electoral votes under a proportional system, the
numbers changed: 49 percent supported the change and 42 percent opposed it.
Opposition from Democrats and independent voters rose when the issue was put this way.
Still, the survey showed there is "initial support for the idea to change the California's
system," said Mark DiCamillo, director of the Field Poll.
"I think voters on both sides tend to see the current winner-take-all to be a little bit
unfair," he said. "Even the Democrats in the first question (before political ramifications
were explained) were nearly evenly divided."
The poll of 536 registered voters taken Aug. 3-12 has a margin of error of plus or
minus 4.5 percentage points.
With California's 55 electoral votes representing the biggest single chunk of votes
in the presidential election, the proposed initiative - should it make the ballot - will
generate a huge partisan campaign fight.
"And I think there would be more involvement from outside the state than we've
ever seen in any other initiative in California," DiCamillo said.
Even though the proponents of the measure have yet to begin gathering signatures,
the battle lines have already been drawn.
A representative for the proponents of the measure said the results of the latest Field
Poll are encouraging.
However, the state's Democrats argue that the proposal is nothing but
a "right-wing power grab."
"Republicans are in disarray nationally right now. And in California, they aren't even
treading water. They'll do everything they can to steal the White House in 2008.
Our job is to make sure that we take it seriously and do everything we can to kill it,"
said Roger Salazar, a spokesman for the California Democratic Party.
*****************************************************
Republican Party has adopted our plan!
California Republican Presidential Primary
Will No Longer Be Winner-Take-All In 2008
The California Republican Party has modified its rules, changing the
Golden State presidential primary from a winner-take-all contest to one
where most of the 173 available Republican delegates to the party's
national presidential nominating convention will be chosen by
winner-take-all within each Congressional District.
Three delegates in each of the 53 congressional districts in California
will go to the Republican presidential candidate winning the most primary
votes within each Congressional District.
There are three types of delegates: Congressional District,
Republican at-large, and the Republican Party leadership.
In 2008 California will have 159 Republican congressional delegates,
11 Republican at-large delegates, 3 Republican Party leader delegates.
The 3 Republican Party leader delegates are: RNC committeeman, RNC
committeewoman, and the state Republican Party chairman.
The 11 at-large delegates will go to the Republican presidential
candidate winning the most primary votes statewide.
This relatively new California Republican primary system will clearly
put an increased emphasis on grass-roots organizing, though the
most efficient way to reach voters in the Golden State will remain
through television and radio advertising.
But it will obviously allow lower-tier Republican presidential candidates
to cherry pick delegates in specific California Congressional Districts
where the political terrain favors their ideology, even if they dont have
the resources to compete statewide.
**********************************************************************
Historical Foundation http://www.fec.gov/pdf/eleccoll.pdf
The function of the College of Electors in choosing the president can be likened
to that in the Roman Catholic Church of the College of Cardinals selecting the Pope.
The original idea was for the most knowledgeable and informed individuals
from each State to select the president based solely on merit and without regard to
State of origin or political party.The structure of the Electoral College can be traced
to the Centurial Assembly system of the Roman Republic.
Under that system, the adult male citizens of Rome were divided, according to
their wealth, into groups of 100 (called Centuries).
Each group of 100 was entitled to cast only one vote either in favor or
against proposals submitted to them by the Roman Senate.
In the Electoral College system, the States serve as the Centurial groups ( though
they are not, of course, based on wealth ), and the number of votes per State is
determined by the size of each State's Congressional delegation. Still, the two
systems are similar in design and share many of the same advantages and
disadvantages. The similarities between the Electoral College and classical
institutions are not accidental. Many of the Founding Fathers were well schooled in
ancient history and its lessons.
Historical Curiosities
In the evolution of the Electoral College, there have been some interesting developments and
remarkable outcomes. Critics often try to use these as examples of what can go wrong. Yet
most of these historical curiosities were the result of profound political divisions within the
country which the designers of the Electoral College system seem to have anticipated as
needing resolution at a higher level. In 1800, as previously noted, the Democratic-Republican
Electors gave both Thomas Jefferson and Aaron Burr an equal number of electoral votes.The
tie, settled in Jefferson's favor by the House of Representatives in accordance with the original
design of the Electoral College system, prompted the 12 th Amendment which effectively
prevented this sort ofthing from ever happening again. In 1824, there were four fairly strong
contenders in the presidential contest ( Andrew Jackson, John Quincy Adams, William
Crawford, and Henry Clay) each of whom represented an important faction within the now
vastly dominant Democratic-Republican Party. The electoral votes were so divided amongst
them that no one received the necessary majority to become president (although the popular
John C. Calhoun did receive enough electoral votes to become vice president). In accordance
with the provisions of the 12th Amendment, the choice of president devolved upon the House
of Representatives who narrowly selected John Quincy Adams despite the fact that Andrew
Jackson had obtained the greater number ofelectoral votes. This election is often cited as
the first one in which the candidate who obtained the greatest popular vote ( Jackson) failed
to be elected president. The claim is a weak one, though, since six of the twenty four States
at the time still chose their Electors in the State legislature.
Some of these (such as sizable New York) would likely have returned large majorities for
Adams had they conducted a popular election. The 1836 presidential election was a truly
strange event. The developing Whig Party, for example, decided to run three different
presidential candidates ( William Henry Harrison, Daniel Webster, and Hugh White ) in
separate parts of the country. The idea was that their respective regional popularities would
ensure a Whig majority in the Electoral College which would then decide on a single Whig
presidential ticket. This fairly inspired scheme failed, though, when Democratic-Republican
candidate Martin Van Buren won an absolute majority of Electors. Nor has such a strategy
ever again been seriously attempted. Yet Van Buren himself did not escape the event entirely
unscathed. For while he obtained an electoral majority, his vice presidential running mate
( one Richard Johnson ) was considered so objectionable by some of the Democratic-
Republican Electors that he failed to obtain the necessary majority of electoral votes to
become vice president. In accordance with the 12th Amendment, the decision devolved
upon the Senate which chose Johnson as vice president anyway. A really bizarre election,
that one. In the 1872 election, Democratic candidate Horace Greeley (he ofearlier "Go West,
young man, go West" journalistic fame whose nomination makes a good story in itself)
thoughtlessly died during that period between the popular vote for Electors and the meeting
of the Electoral College. The Electors who were pledged to him, clearly unprepared for such
an eventuality, split their electoral votes amongst several other Democratic candidates
(including three votes for Greeley himself as a possible comment on the incumbent Ulysses
S. Grant). That hardly mattered, though, since the Republican Grant had readily won an
absolutemajority of Electors.
Still, it was an interesting event for which the political parties are now prepared. In 1876, the
country once again found itself in serious political turmoilechoing, in some respects, both the
economic divisions of 1824 and the impending political party realignments of 1836, but with
the added bitterness of Reconstruction. A number of deep cross currents were in play. After
a vast economic expansion, the country had fallen into a deepdepression. Monetary and tariff
issues were eroding the Union Republican coalition of East and West while a solid
Republican black vote eroded the traditional Democratic hold on the South. The incumbent
Republican administration of Grant had suffered a seemingly endless series of scandals
involving graft and corruption on a scale hitherto unknown. And the South was eager to put an
end to Radical Reconstruction which was, after all, a kind of vast political mugging. Against
this backdrop, the resurging Democratic Party easily nominated Samuel J. Tilden, the popular
Governor of New York, and Thomas A. Hendricks of Indiana (shrewd geographic choices
under the circumstances). The Republicans, in a more turbulent convention, selected Ohio
Governor Rutherford B. Hayes and William A. Wheeler of New York. A variety of fairly
significant third parties also cropped up, further shattering the country's political cohesion.
This is about as good a prescription for electoral chaos as anyone might hope for. Indeed, it is
almost surprising that things did not turn out worse than they did. For on election night, it looked
as though Tilden had pulled off the first Democratic presidential victory since the Civil War -
although the decisive electoral votes of South Carolina, Florida, and Louisiana remained in
balance. Yet these S tates were as divided internally a s was the nation at large. Without
detailing the machinations of the vote count, suffice it to say that each State finally delivered to
the Congress two sets of electoral votes --one set for Tilden and one set for Hayes. Because
the Congressional procedures for resolving disputed sets of Electors had expired, the Congress
established a special 15-member commission to decide the issue ineach of the three States.
After much partisan intrigue, the special commission decided (by one vote in each case) on
Hayes' Electors from all three States. Thus, Hayes waselected president despite the fact that
Tilden, by everyone's count, had obtained a slight majority of popular votes ( although the
difference was a mere 3% of the total vote cast). As a final note, the Congress enacted in 1887
legislation that delegated to each State the final authority to determine the legality of its choice
of Electors and required a concurrent majority of both houses of Congress to reject any electoral
vote. That legislation remains in effect to this day so that the events of 1876 will not repeat them-
selves. Benjamin Harrison's election in 1888 is really the only clearcut instance in which the
Electoral College vote went contrary to the popular vote. This happened because the incumbent,
Democrat Grover Cleveland, ran up huge popular majorities in several of the 18 States which
supported him while the Republican challenger, Benjamin Harrison, won only slender majorities
in some of the larger of the 20 States which supported him (most notably in Cleveland's home
State of New York). Even so, the difference between them was only 110,476 votes out of
11,381,032 cast -- less than 1% of the total. Interestingly, in this case, there were few critical
issues (other than tariffs) separating the candidates sothat the election seems to have been
fought -- and won -- more on the basis of superior party organization in getting out the vote than
on the issues of the day.
*********************************************************************************************
Electoral College
On four occasions in U.S. history, the candidate with the most popular votes
did not win the presidency. This is a feature of a republican form of government,
a government that is intended to "check" popular participation and "leveling" or
democratic impulses. The mechanism by which this is done is the Electoral College.
The Electoral College also insures that the number of parties seriously competing
for the presidency will always be and only be two.
Each State's allotment of electors is equal to the number of House members to
which it is entitled plus two Senators. In order to win the presidency, a candidate
must win a majority of electors, 270.
***************************************************************************
Single-Member Districts
Single-member districts simply mean that in any given congressional district, the winner takes all.
That is, if the Republicans get 39 percent in a congressional district and the Democrats get 35
percent and the Greens get 26 percent, the district will still be represented by a single member,
in this case the Republican Elector. This is very democratic.
In Maine and Nebraska, the winning candidate does not necessarily get all the electoral votes for
the state. The winning candidate in each House district gets one electoral vote, then the winning
candidate in the entire state gets two additional electoral votes, representing the two Senators.
The political power is returned to the grass roots of the citizenry with our proposal.
This doesn't make much difference in the past, because all districts of Nebraska voted
Republican, and both districts of Maine voted Democrat. But if California were to do something
like this, it would have a huge effect on Presidential elections.
If such a system spread to many states, there would be more campaigning in those states,
although there would never be a need for a nationwide recount, only in House districts where the
vote was close. A system like this would also tend to avoid statewide recounts, unless the total
Electoral College vote was within two votes of a tie (which did occur in 2000).
**************************************************************************************************************
GOOD ARTICLES FOR REFERENCE
http://www.fec.gov/pdf/eleccoll.pdf
www.votescount.com/books/elecoll.htm
www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/ c/a/2004/10/03/INGI190IU01.DTL - 30k
*****************************************************************
Senator Ray Haynes (ret)
August 29, 2007
THE RIGHT WAY TO REFORM THE ELECTORAL COLLEGE!
Since the 2000 election, proposals to reform or abolish the Electoral College
have proliferated throughout the country. An initiative to change how
Californias votes are apportioned has been submitted to the Attorney General,
and the Democrats are going nuts. The initiative, based on a Constitutional
Amendment that as a State Senator, I proposed in 2001, would award 53 of
Californias electoral votes to the candidate who receives the plurality of the
votes in each of the 53 Congressional Districts, and the remaining two would
be awarded to the candidate who receives a plurality of the statewide vote.
Democrats are not opposed to reforming the Electoral College. They have
made their own proposal, which was introduced by Assemblyman Tom Umberg
last year, and would award Californias Electoral College votes to the candidate
that wins the plurality of the nationwide vote. His proposal would also require
other states to agree to this proposal before it would take effect. The Democrats
proposal is also constitutionally suspect.
The Electoral College system was created by the founding fathers because of
the fear that the smaller states had of the domination by the larger states of
New York, Virginia, and Massachusetts. Much like the U.S. Senate, where each
state has two representatives, regardless of size or population, the Electoral
College awards votes to presidential candidates on a state-by-state basis.
The campaign for president, for this reason, becomes 50 state elections, where
campaign organizations in each state become critical, and the national "results"
are irrelevant. In 1787, the smaller states believed this was critical to
protecting them from the larger states, and would give candidates from
smaller states an ability to run for president. The Constitution allowed each
state to determine how its Electoral College votes would be apportioned.
Quite frankly, election of electors on a state-by-state basis has worked
for this country. Today, where large urban areas predominate, a popular vote
would have the presidential candidates spending all of their time in those large
urban areas. Candidates would start in New York, fly to Chicago, Miami,
Los Angeles, San Francisco, Seattle, and hit Dallas-Fort Worth, New Orleans
and Atlanta, and start all over again. Iowa, Wisconsin, New Mexico, and several
other swing states would fall OFF the election map. The Electoral College
requires these candidates to pay attention to small states in close elections,
because, as 2000 demonstrated, 2000 votes in Wisconsin, 500 votes in
New Mexico, or 900 votes in Florida could have changed the election outcome
for Al Gore.
So, why award electoral votes on a Congressional District basis?
First, it is constitutional. It has been in effect in at least two states, Maine
and Nebraska, and has survived constitutional scrutiny. It preserves the
integrity of the Electoral College system constructed by the founding fathers,
forcing candidates to pay attention to different states, and different areas of
those states, as opposed to just focusing on the large urban areas. It respects
representative democracy. In 2004, George Bush got 44 per cent of the
California vote, but not one Electoral College vote in California. In California,
where approximately ten Congressional districts could be in play, candidates
in a close election would be forced to come to California and compete for votes,
not just campaign for money. Under this system, the concerns of Fresno, or
Antioch, or Pomona, or San Diego would become just as important as
the concerns of Los Angeles or San Francisco to a presidential candidate.
Finally, it would force the national parties to focus on state legislative elections.
Winning the statehouse in a redistricting year would have an effect on the
presidential elections. Fair redistricting would become a priority throughout
the country.
The Reform of the Electoral College that preserves the Electoral Colleges
intent, but distributes the votes in a more democratic fashion strengthens the
American system of government, helping the large and small states equally.
It is constitutional, democratic and it is FAIR.
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THE NATIONWIDE DISTRICT PLAN (Written in 1975)
THIS PLAN retains the electoral vote allocation for each state and spells out a system of
electoral vote counting BY DISTRICT within each state.
Electoral districts (which may or may not be identical with congressional districts) are
established. The elector nominee, who receives a plurality of the popular vote within his or
her district, is elected.
The proposals include electing two of the presidential electors at large within each state
(corresponding to the election of senators). So each voter would vote for THREE ELECTORS,
one from his district and two at large. Other proposals create electoral districts within each
state to match the total number of electors for the state.
EFFECTS OF THE DISTRICT PLAN
Advocates of the district plan are convinced it would safeguard the federal system by
restoring and preserving between RURAL and URBAN areas and between large and
small states the BALANCE OF VOTING POWER which they believe was desired by the
writers of the Constitution. They are of the opinion that the presidency and the Congress
should have the same constituency that this would lead to more harmonious relations
between executive and legislative branches and especially to a more responsive executive
branch.
The fact that the district plan WOULD NOT PREVENT the possibility of a minority
President is of far less importance to its advocates than the preservation of the federal
system, which the district plan would achieve, in their opinion. Proponents state that any
system which preserves the federal principle and gives each state a minimum of three
electoral votes will grant a slightly greater voting power to the smaller states. "Indeed,
this was the original purpose of the electoral vote bonus for smaller states, so that the
GREATER POPULATIONS of the large states could NOT DICTATE the selection of
the President."1
1Senator Karl Mudt (R., S.D.) in a 1968 statement in the Villanova Law Review,
Volume 13, winter 1968.
Critics of the district plan insist it would increase the influence of small states far
out of proportion to the size of their populations while drastically reducing the influence
of large states in which the votes are usually balanced rather evenly between the parties.
The effect of the plan would thus be "malapportioning the presidency in favor of the small
states and of homogeneous, one-party or near-one-party regions of the country."1
1"Electing Presidents," The New Republic, February 22, 1969, pp. 9-10.
Some political writers and congressmen are convinced the district plan would INVITE
MINOR-PARTY activity and might break up the two-party system. It is also thought the
district plan might reduce the likelihood of an election producing a majority of electoral
votes and, hence, would increase the need for a run-off or some other kind of contingent
election to resolve the electoral vote deadlock.
The disenfranchisement of defeated voters within any state would continue under the
district system. The vote of a PLURALITY OF A STATE'S VOTERS could also be
negated under the district system, because in operation it is a multitude of winner-take-all
systems within each state. This makes it possible for a plurality of the votes state-wide to
be for a different party than that of the winners in most of the districts of the state.
The district plan "would intensify the importance of district lines and thus aggravate
controversy over gerrymandering and other problems of apportionment."2
2Dr. Paul A. Freund, Harvard Law School and member of the ABA Commission on
Electoral College Reform.
Although this plan would achieve a closer correspondence between the electoral vote
and the popular vote than does the existing state-wide winner-take-all system, its
operation does not correlate with degree of voter participation. Hence, a light voter
turnout can have the same weight as a heavy voter turnout, which is inequitable in the
opinion of some critics.
HISTORY OF THE DISTRICT PLAN
The district plan was first introduced as a proposed amendment in 1800 and,
despite a great deal of discussion in Congress since that time, it has been voted
on only five times in the Senate and twice in the House of Representatives.
Only one vote has been taken on the district plan in this century. In 1956, the
Daniel Substitute, which included a district plan, passed the Senate by 48 to 37
but did not win a two-thirds vote. The Daniel Substitute was an amendment to a
proposed constitutional amendment embodying a proportional plan. It proposed
that the state legislature would decide whether to count electoral votes by a
proportional or a district system.
The floor debate was a basic power struggle between liberal-conservative,
urban-rural and party factions. Political realignment seemed inevitable if the Daniel
Substitute were passed. Under a district plan, the balance of Democratic power
would shift to the south because in the two-party states of the north, electoral votes
would be split between the parties fairly evenly. Republican conservative, rural
interests would increase in importance because of the shift in power away from
the large states and large cities, where liberal Republicans (like liberal Democrats)
had their hold.
Major support for this type of reform has always come from persons who consider
the chief evil of the Electoral College system to be the general ticket or unit vote
method of casting electoral votes--the winner-take-all system.
In the 90th Congress (1967-68), Senate sponsors of district plan resolutions
included Republican Senator Karl Mundt (S.D.), Strom Thurmond (S.C.), Norris
Cotton (N.H.), Hugh Scott (Pa.), Roman Hruska (Neb.), John Tower (Tex.), Peter
Dominick (Colo.), Len Jordan (Idaho), Hiram Fong (Hawaii) and Democratic
Senators John Stennis of Mississippi and Ernest Gruening of Alaska (no longer
in the Senate).
In the house in 1967-68, sponsors were Democratic Representatives Thomas
Abernethy and Jamie Whitten of Mississippi and Representative M. G. Snyder of
Kentucky, a Republican who also sponsored a district plan in the 91st Congress.
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By George F. Will Thursday, October 12, 2006;
Sometimes the loveliest word in America's political lexicon is "VETO."
From: Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, "A Veto for Voters' Good"
California's governor has demonstrated virtue, understood as the good we do when no one is watching. With his state and the nation paying no attention to an anti-constitutional campaign
to alter the way presidents are chosen, Arnold Schwarzenegger has vetoed a bill that, had it
become law, would have imparted dangerous momentum to a recurring simple-mindedness.
The bill would have committed California to cast its electoral votes -- today, 55 -- for whichever candidate receives the most popular votes nationally. The commitment would have been
contingent on a compact with other similarly committed states, all having a combined
total of at least 270 electoral votes.
Such legislation has been introduced in six states and passed by Colorado's Senate.
Advocates offer two rationales:
First, California and other states that are not closely contested battlegrounds are
not "relevant." (A state with more than one-fifth of the electoral votes needed to win the
presidency is "irrelevant"? Please.) What is meant is that uncontested states are "neglected"
by presidential campaigns, so direct popular election of presidents -- the point of the
multi-state compact -- would increase voter interest in the many states (by one count, 37, 34
and 37 in the past three elections) that are not considered swing states.But it is disproportionate
to traduce, by simplification, sophisticated constitutional arrangements just to make campaigns
more stimulating for some states. Furthermore, the electoral vote system is a wholesome
political market: It provides steady incentives for parties to change the attributes that
make them uncompetitive in many states.
How long will the GOP be content not to contest California?
The system aims not just for majority rule but rule by certain kinds of majorities . It encourages candidates to form coalitions of states with various political interests and cultures.
Such coalitions can be assembled only by a politics of accommodation. So the electoral
college system discourages attempts to build narrow ideological or geographical majorities.
Today the system is helping the Democratic Party by nudging it to be less of a coastal
party -- less reliant on a risky 20-state strategy in presidential elections.
The second argument for the multi-state compact is: The possibility of the winner of the
popular vote losing the electoral vote contest violates the value that trumps all others -- majoritarianism. Well. Never mind that in 42 of the 46 elections since 1824 (all but 1824,
1876,1888 and 2000) for which we have popular vote totals that did not happen.
Which suggests that the assault on the electoral vote system is driven by simplistic majoritarianism, which would shatter the two-party system that is conducive to temperate politics.
That electoral vote system (combined with the winner-take-all allocation of votes in all states
but Maine and Nebraska) makes it very difficult for third-party presidential candidates to be competitive. In 1992 Ross Perot won 18.9 percent of the popular vote but no state and therefore no electoralvotes. Direct popular election of presidents would be an incentive for fragmentation
of the electorate by the proliferation of factional candidacies.
Imagine 2008 with independent candidacies by, say, Colorado Rep. Tom Tancredo (deport illegal immigrants), Pennsylvania Rep. John Murtha (out of Iraq immediately), New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg (independence from the two parties is a virtue) and Jesse Jackson
(he would think of a reason). None could win, but cumulatively they could prevent the major-party winner from reaching even 40 percent. And the multi-state compact cannot include a runoff provision. That would require a constitutional amendment; 34 senators can prevent a constitutional
amendment from being sent to the states for ratification, and many more than 17 of the
smaller states benefit from the additional weight the electoral vote system gives them.
It is perverse that the 2000 election, which culminated with the lawyers' riot in
Florida, is cited to undermine an electoral vote system that prevented 2000 from being a
calamity. If, in presidential elections, popular votes were poured into by fewer votes
(118,574) than there were precincts (166,064), would unleash a coast-to-coast frenzy
of litigation -- about ballot design, voting hours, alleged voting-machine malfunctions, etc.
The electoral vote system quarantines electoral disputes to a few closely contested states.
Under the multi-state compact, Californians, who in 2004 supported John Kerry by a popular
vote margin of 1.2 million, would have seen their electoral votes swell President Bush's
winning margin. In 1960 and 1976, too, California's electoral votes would have
gone to candidates rejected by Californians.
- They should understand what their governor has demonstrated:
- Sometimes the loveliest word in America's political lexicon is "veto."
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George Will Political Astronomy, Bush vs Gore, 2000 Election
TO UNDERSTAND the presidential race, do as Percival Lowell did. Infer what is unseen from what is seen.
Lowell (1855-1916) was the American astronomer whose study of the orbit of Uranus revealed irregularities he thought could most reasonably be explained as effects of an unseen planet. This ignited a search that culminated in the discovery of Pluto.
The dynamic of today's presidential race, as those most intimately involved--the two campaigns--understand it, can be inferred from where they are investing television advertising money.
Consider California.
Given the number of electoral votes in the "Republican L" (go south from the Canadian border through the Mountain and Prairie states, turn east at Texas and cross the South to the Atlantic), California's 54 electoral votes--one-fifth of the 270 needed to win--are more vital to Democrats than to Republicans. And California's Republican Party has not won a U.S. Senate race since 1988; its 1998 gubernatorial candidate got just 38.4 percent of the vote; George Bush in 1992 and Bob Dole quickly quit contesting California, finishing with 32.6 and 38.2 percent of California's votes respectively. California had been considered safe for Al Gore.
So why is George W. Bush spending $1.5 million a week on television there--$1 million of it in Los Angeles? Because he is close enough to hope to win, or at least to force Gore to spend in California money that cannot be spent in, say, Florida.
Republicans have heard that during a recent week Gov. Gray Davis's nightly tracking polls showed Bush behind by three to five points--and ahead once. Recent Republican polling put Bush behind by 18 points in Los Angeles, but ahead by 12 to 14 points in the rest of the state. Then a respected public poll put Bush behind by just 4 points. On Oct. 17, Garry South, one of Gore's principal California strategists, warned that "it has closed up here," Bush is "resonating with people" and "we may have to spend some money here."
Perhaps South wants talk of a tightening race to energize the Democratic base for the sake of other candidates and ballot initiatives. However, some Republicans suspect that Davis might be dry-eyed if Gore loses. Ken Khachigian, a leading Republican consultant, mischievously says he suspects that there probably soon will be a Web site "DavisforPresident2004.com." (Funny Joke)
The number of states within reach of both candidates is growing rather than shrinking as Election Day nears. Bush did not expect to be worrying in late October about Nevada. Gore is moving television money into Tennessee and Arkansas, which is embarrassing. Bush is increasing his buys in West Virginia (since 1928 Republicans have carried it only in Eisenhower's, Nixon's and Reagan's landslides--1956, 1972, 1984), Minnesota, Iowa, Wisconsin, Oregon and Washington. Clinton carried all of those twice, and they were six of the 10 states Michael Dukakis carried in 1988.
Political astronomers adept at charting conflicting forces in the social solar system should study Michigan, where Bush could be hurt by a conservative measure--a splendid school choice voucher initiative targeted at failing inner-city schools--that could enlarge Michigan's turnout. It is supported by the Catholic hierarchy, whose schools would benefit from an enlargement of the pool of pupils empowered to exercise choice. But this initiative may increase the turnout of Catholics, including Democratic Catholics, and African Americans, who will vote for the initiative and for Gore.
The contest that has stirred the deepest passions nationally is not the national race. Rather, it is New York's Senate race. People trying to plot the effects of various political planets on one another should consider that if Gore loses, the optimum outcome for conservatives might be for Hillary Clinton to win. Instantly she would be the Democratic Party--much the most visible Democrat nationally and the leading aspirant for the 2004 presidential nomination. Her quest for the nomination would divide Democrats. Were she to win the nomination, she would be the weakest Democratic nominee since George McGovern, who in 1972 carried Massachusetts and the District of Columbia. And her candidacy probably would catalyze party-switching by a few conservative Democratic members of Congress.
On Nov. 7, for the sixth time in 10 elections, the nation will elect a southerner. (In the other four elections it chose Californians--Southern Californians.) This not only illustrates, redundantly, the political eclipse of the Northeast (that region's consolation prize is Connecticut's Joe Lieberman), it shows that both parties can reasonably hope to harvest electoral votes almost everywhere. Which is why the political planetarium has never presented a more complex picture.
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George Will The Framers' Electoral wisdom
POLITICAL HYPOCHONDRIACS again are urging Americans to fear and be offended by the system of choosing presidents by electoral votes. Criticism of this system recurs whenever a close contest poses the possibility that a candidate might win an electoral vote victory while receiving fewer popular votes than his opponent. It is said, with more passion than precision, that this happened three times--1824, 1876, 1888.
Even if that is true, it means that in 50 of 53 elections since 1789--in 94 percent of elections, and in 27 consecutive elections--the system has not produced the outcome that troubles the sleep of its critics. Besides, the assertions about those elections can be true without being pertinent.
In 1824, before the emergence of the two-party system, all four candidates appeared on the ballots in only six of the 24 states. Six states, including New York, had no elections: Their state legislatures picked the electors. Nationally, only about 350,000 of the 4 million eligible white males voted. Andrew Jackson received 38,149 more votes than John Quincy Adams, but neither received a majority of electoral votes. So the House of Representatives decided, picking Adams. In 1888 fraud on both sides may have involved more votes than the victory margin (90,596).
There never has been an Electoral College victory by a candidate who lost the popular vote by a substantial margin. And only simple-minded majoritarianism holds that "the nation's will" would be "frustrated" and democracy "subverted" (this is the language of Electoral College abolitionists) were an electoral vote majority to go to a candidate who comes in a close second in the popular vote count. In such a case, the Framers' objective--a president chosen through state-by-state decisions--would be achieved.
The Electoral College has evolved, shaping and being shaped by the two-party system, which probably would not survive abandonment of winner-take-all allocation of electoral votes. Direct popular election of presidents, or proportional allocation of states' electoral votes, would incite minor parties to fractionate the electorate. This might necessitate runoff elections to guarantee that the eventual president got at least 40 percent of the vote--and runoffs might become auctions in which minor parties sold their support.
The electoral vote system shapes the character of winning majorities. By avoiding proportional allocation of electoral votes, America's system--under which Ross Perot in 1992 got 19 percent of the popular votes and zero electoral votes--buttresses the dominance of two parties, and pulls them to the center, producing a temperate politics of coalitions rather than a proliferation of ideological factions with charismatic leaders.
Furthermore, choosing presidents by electoral votes is an incentive for candidates to wage truly national campaign
s, building majorities that are geographically as well as ideologically broad. Consider: Were it not for electoral votes allocated winner-take-all, would candidates campaign in, say, West Virginia? In 1996 Bill Clinton decisively defeated Bob Dole there 52 percent to 37 percent. But that involved a margin of just 93,866 votes (327,812 to 233,946), a trivial amount compared with what can be harvested in large cities. However, for a 5-0 electoral vote sweep, West Virginia is worth a trip or two.
Some Electoral College abolitionists argue that a candidate could get elected with just 27 percent of the popular vote--by winning the 11 largest states by just one vote in each, and not getting a single popular vote anywhere else. But it is equally pointless to worry that a candidate could carry Wyoming 220,000 to 0, could lose the other 49 states and the District of Columbia by an average of 4,400 votes, and be the popular vote winner while losing the electoral vote 535 to 3. Serious people take seriously probabilities, not mere possibilities. And abolitionists are not apt to produce what Madison was too sober to attempt, a system under which no unwanted outcome is even theoretically possible.
Critics of the Electoral College say it makes some people's votes more powerful than others'. This is true. In 1996, 211,571 Wyoming voters cast presidential ballots, awarding three electoral votes, one for every 70,523 voters, whereas 10,019,484 California voters awarded 54 electoral votes, one for every 185,546 voters.
So what? Do critics want to abolish the Senate as well? Delaware, the least populous state in 1789, understandably was the first to ratify the Constitution with its equal representation of states in the Senate: Virginia, the most populous, had 11 times more voters. Today Wyoming's senators' votes can cancel those of California's senators, who represent 69 times more people. If that offends you, so does America's constitutional federalism.
The electoral vote system, like the Constitution it serves, was not devised by, and should not be revised by, simple-minded majoritarians.
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