GOP-backed bid to reform California's electoral process collapsing

San Francisco -- Days after a controversial organization began collecting voter signatures for a ballot measure to change California's winner-take-all primary, a founder of the GOP-backed group says its major players are resigning - and the group will fold - due to lack of funding and support.

"The levels of support just weren't there," said Marty Wilson, the Sacramento-based fundraiser, in a telephone interview Thursday.

Wilson was among the founding members of Californians for Equal Representation, the group led by Sacramento attorney Thomas Hiltachk that intended to collect roughly 434,000 signatures to qualify the Presidential Election Reform Act for the June 2008 ballot.

The measure would have changed the state's winner-take-all means of awarding Electoral College votes to a proportional system that would have awarded 53 of the state's 55 electoral votes - one by one - to the popular vote winner of each of the state's 53 congressional districts. The other two electoral votes would have gone to the statewide popular vote winner.

The change, Democrats had complained, would benefit the GOP - and perhaps alter the outcome of the 2008 presidential election.

"There has not been the financial level of support necessary to run a viable campaign, and there wasn't sufficient interest from donors inside or outside the state to qualify the measure for the ballot," Wilson said.

Wilson said he has disassociated himself from the committee, and he confirmed that Hiltachk, who has represented both Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and the state GOP, resigned from the committee Wednesday, as has spokesman Kevin Eckery.

Chris Lehane, a Democratic strategist, reacted with caution to the news, saying that Democrats, who have fought the effort aggressively from the start, intended to verify fully the committee's demise before they dropped protests and even possible legal action against the organization.

>> $hit. We’d better not lose OH next year, or this country is f**ked <<

Bingo. The same can be said for Colorado or Missouri, since they're still on the winner-take-all system as well, we're talking 9 and 11 electoral votes each, and a full 20 electoral votes in Ohio.

I cannot believe the arrogance of some freepers who basically want to thumb their nose at the rest of the country and write off any state that's not a nice solid "red state" in the deep south or west. It's almost as if they're begging for Bob Dole redux.

Bush won by the skin of his teeth by picking up 271 electoral votes with the minimum threshold to win being 270. With New Hampshire (one of the election 2000 states that put Bush over the top) sliding further and further to the Dems, we have to do everything we can to keep Missouri, New Mexico, Ohio, Colorado, and Iowa from going to the dark side.

Sean Hannity was on the radio the other day saying he was fairly confident that the Hilderbeast will pick a running mate who can carry a swing state (he named four possibilities, including Bill Richardson and Congressman Ted Strictland of Ohio) rather than pick Obama (who gives her nothing except praise from the MSM), and I'm inclined to agree.

The GOP needs to follow suit and get SOMEONE on the ticket who is "popular" enough in a swing state that they are guaranteed to put it in the GOP column and have the potential to put several other states as well.

And another thing, with the RATs continuing their push to abolish the electoral college and replace it with the "popular" vote so the big city goons can pick our Presidents for us, we really need to beat them to the punch on electoral college reform and have the district-by-district system adapted nationally. I am confident we would win under such a system because a lot of RAT-controlled Congressional districts that elect pro-life, pro-gun "moderate" Dem types will never vote for the likes of Hilderbeast. Bush would have won under a district-by-district system and I think the next GOP nominee can as well. But we need to adapt it nationally because in partisan states you'll see the Dems block it in California and the GOP block it in Texas and so on, to maintain the status quo monopoly over the electoral votes they currently enjoy.

In states like mine that ARE competitive outside of Chicago, such a method would finally allow us to participate in the Presidential election process.

And by the way, THIS scenario we are facing with the electoral college is why I won't "get over" freepers celebrating Tommy Thompson's exit from the primary. Just because a bunch of egomanics INSIST we nominate someone from THEIR region of the country (apparently only southern candidates are "true conservatives"... that Ronald Reagan fellow must have been an awful RINO) and want to shove a bunch of "safe state" nominees down the party's throat, doesn't mean the rest of the country will elect them. I'll all for putting a southerner on the ticket, but one that can actually WIN a state that doesn't go GOP by default, rather than someone who would lead us down the path of defeat like "President" George Allen.

FYI: Giuliani's operatives fess up:

(snip)
For his part, Rudolph Giuliani, who has been working his way around California this week, said he played no role in the initiative effort, and did not know Mr. Hurth, who contributed to his campaign earlier this year.
“As far as I am concerned you can leave it the way it is,” Mr. Giuliani said during a news conference here. “In fact, in some ways, you might consider, I think that this is a state I can win. That might actually favor some of the other Republican candidates who might have a more difficult time winning this state. I think this is a state I have 50-50 chance of winning.”
(Update) A postscript: The New York Daily News reported on its political blog that Mr. Giuliani’s top fundraiser, Paul Singer, told the paper that he was the sole financial backer of the initiative. Mr. Singer is a member of the national finance committee on the Giuliani campaign.
In response, Howard Dean, the chairman of the Democratic National Committee, issued a statement saying: “Given his role in the Giuliani campaign, voters deserve to know the truth about Rudy’s involvement in and knowledge about this shameful effort to disenfranchise voters.”
(source: NYT blog)

Why don't we just abolish the States altogether and have regional governance, too?

The average partisan here on FR struggles to remember the original intent as both party adjust their constitutional garters. Imagine for a moment, how hard it is for a 6th grader, with little or no background, to understand the US Constitutional in light of the onslaught of partisan revisionists from both the right and the left, seeking a temporal advantage without concern for posterity.

To even the casual reader, the US Constitution appears to tie together a confederation of autonomous states united in a single purpose. Imagine the 6th grader who reads the document and then suffers the teacher's explanation of what the words really mean. The new paradigms; the wisdom of the mob and the omnipotence of a central government.

Yep—Amerigomag is poetic, and brilliant, too! And since you agree with him... don’t let it go to your head! lol.

Seriously, I’m glad to know that I’m not the only one not jumping on this Congressional District thing. To me, it is just more incrementalism, moving us closer to the Dems’ dream of the popular vote. After all, if people think it’s better to have their voice directly heard from their district, wouldn’t they love to directly have their vote counted at the national level? And if we think gerrymandering of CD’s is bad now, just wait until each CD counted as an electoral vote. The “anything to win” crowd needs to look beyond the next election—to posterity, as Amerigomag so eloquently stated.

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