Posted on 08/23/2007 9:28:36 PM PDT by NormsRevenge
LOS ANGELES - Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger gave a chilly reception Thursday to a GOP-backed plan to change the way California awards electoral votes in presidential elections — a proposal critics say could tilt the outcome in favor of Republicans.
"In principle, I don't like to change the rules in the middle of the game," the Republican governor told reporters.
Schwarzenegger added he wasn't versed in details of the ballot proposal and stressed he wasn't taking a definitive position. But his uneasy response is likely to make it harder for supporters to build momentum and could chill fundraising.
The proposed ballot initiative is being pushed by Thomas Hiltachk, a lawyer in a Sacramento firm that represents the state Republican Party. A draft of the proposed initiative says nixing the winner-take-all system would give presidential candidates "an incentive to campaign in California."
California currently awards all 55 of its electoral votes to the statewide winner in presidential elections — the largest single prize in the nation. Under the proposal, the winner would get only two electoral votes and the rest would be distributed to the winning candidate in each of the state's congressional districts.
That, in effect, would create 53 races, each with one electoral vote up for grabs.
Although liberal-leaning California has gone Democratic in the last four presidential elections, 19 of its 53 congressional districts are represented by Republicans. A Republican presidential candidate could lose the state overall but still pick up 19 electoral votes if he or she finished first in each of those districts.
During the 2004 election, President Bush was handily defeated in California but carried 22 of the state's districts. If the proposed change had been in effect then, he would have been awarded 22 of the state's electoral votes with Democrat John Kerry winning the rest.
Of the 50 states, only Maine and Nebraska allocate electoral votes by congressional district.
Also Thursday, Schwarzenegger said he would try for a second time to reform rules at the heart of how California selects legislators and members of Congress — a system he says has all the fairness of loaded dice.
His idea is to give an independent commission the authority to draw district boundaries. Currently, legislators slice up districts for themselves and Congress every 10 years to reflect population shifts, a practice often criticized as a blatant conflict of interest. In other words, they draw the districts they run in.
Many California districts are heavily skewed to favor candidates from one party, turning them into fortresses of incumbency. Several attempts to take that role away from lawmakers over the years have been rejected by voters, including Schwarzenegger's 2005 proposal.
The governor wants the proposal on the Feb. 5 ballot, the same date the state holds its presidential primary.
California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, right, speaks as former California governors, Pete Wilson, left, and Gray Davis look on during a news conference Thursday Aug. 23, 2007 in Los Angeles. The three along with members of the Voices of Reform Coalition including Common Cause and League of Women Voters met to discuss ways promote a fundamental change in the way political boundaries are drawn to insure fairness and transparency in elections. (AP Photo/Nick Ut)
Pete Wilson looks like he is a bit concerned too.. and is it me or does Gray look,, Grayer?
Schwarzenegger added he wasn’t versed in details of the ballot proposal and stressed he wasn’t taking a definitive position. But his uneasy response is likely to make it harder for supporters to build momentum and could chill fundraising.
you can always tell when Ap wants to kill something. Must mean its a good idea then
I got a kick out of today’s talking heads going appoplectic over this. They claim it’s a Repub power play to grab 19 electoral votes, while at the same time conceding that they will keep all without this change.
I’m all for it. It is better representation, but not a popular vote scenario. It’s based on congressional districts carried.
I don’t like this. Of course I have no prob with CA doing it since the state is hopelessly majority Democrat for decades to come. But if all states did this, we would always have a majority congress and president from the same party.
Also, what if Texas decided to do this? Suddenly we would have 13 reliable GOP electoral votes going to the Democrats. In Florida, the GOP would lose 10 (not that Florida is reliably GOP).
Of course Ah-nold has a problem with it, since it would help Republicans. Mustn’t do that.
It’s time for folks to just face it. The Austrian is a RAT.
Going to a congressional district model, however, gets you to a more republican model. And it has another benefit:
It limits the amount of electoral votes that Democrat vote fraud can contaminate.
Right now, the Democrats can cheat in the major cities of certain states and bring the whole state down (Detroit, Orleans Parish, Baltimore, Chicago, Olympia, etc.)
By breaking a state apart into Congressional districts, you limit this contamination.
True, in some states, Rs would lose electorals (like the 2 they would loose in SC.) But I believe that overall, Rs would benefit tremendously if this were done on a nation-wide basis.
Some of us got suspended on FR 4 years ago for pointing that out before the recall. He’s done nothing for the CA GOP, their numbers are the same as they were under Davis (actually, slightly less if you count federal), and he’s done even less for the Conservative movement. McClintock should be Governor. California will be lucky if it doesn’t end up with Salty Tony Villar or the undead Jerry Brown succeeding Schwarzenkennedy.
A moonbat or a moonbeam succeeding a liberal lunatic. I really feel sorry for y'all. You got your work cut out for you.
Pete probably wants to reach out and smack Arnold upside the head, more than likely. Wilson was a lot more to my liking.
Petey was scarcely better than Ah-nold. CA hasn’t had a non-RINO Governor since Deukmejian.
I don't know, marshal. I'm not sold on this thing, as of yet. It's backed by Arnie's attorney and Petey Wilson, along with a guy that's been shilling for Giuliani. My guess is that Arnold's public comments are a ruse to distance himself from the initiative until he decides if his voice helps or hurts it (while secretly backing it from the git-to).
This change would ensure that Republicans could never get 100% of the electoral votes in California, most likely permanently ceding Los Angeles and San Francisco to the democrats. The day we are lucky enough to have a popular Republican presidential candidate (Yes, I am optimistic), we would be at a disadvantage (compared to today.)
Another reason it’s not “changing the rules in the middle of the game” is that the actual campaigning hasn’t started yet.
When would it NOT be “in the middle of the game” if not now?
The article doesn't make it clear, but a candidate would not be awarded a states electoral votes based merely on the party of paticular congressional seat. You would have to win the vote in that district as well. There would be many scenarios where the congressperson was from one party, but the presidental vote in his or her district went to the candidate of another party.
In any event, that is the difficult position it puts us in, do we try to go for the 20+ EV's and cede the rest to the rodents, which means we'll never get the 55 EV's at any point in the near-future or not ? I'll give an example for why it may be necessary to do this for the short-term: With Fred Thompson as the nominee (the only viable GOP Presidential candidate), if he carries all the states Dubya did in '04 and drops Ohio, we would need those CA votes to make up the difference and keep Hillary from her 3rd term.
The 2004 CA vote by Congressional district (with the proper de-Orwellized color scheme of red=rodent, blue=Republican).
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