GOP Backers Of California Electoral Vote Initiative Raise Half-Million Dollars In Two Weeks

GOP proponents of a California ballot initiative to end the state's winner-take-all method of apportioning electoral votes have raised roughly $539,000 in the past two weeks, according to a campaign finance report filed Tuesday afternoon.

The half-million-dollar haul represents approximately one-quarter of the $2 million that supporters of the proposal said last week they would need to qualify the politically-charged initiative for the California ballot in 2008.

Chris Lehane, a veteran Democratic strategist coordinating opposition to the proposal, said the new donations reflect "just how desperate Republicans are when it comes to 2008 and just how far they are willing to go to try to keep their death grip on power."

The Republican proposal would upend the method of apportioning California's 55 electoral votes, moving from a winner-take-all system based on the popular vote to one that awards one vote for each congressional district a candidate wins.

Such a plan would alter the political geography of the current presidential contest, shifting as many as 20 consistently Democratic electoral votes that come from safe Republican districts into the GOP column.

In late September, political observers declared the proposal virtually dead after the original consultants running the campaign resigned amid allegations that it was a front for the presidential campaign of former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani.

According to disclosure forms filed Tuesday with the California Secretary of State by the group California Counts, which is now pushing the initiative, the state's Republican Party provided the single biggest donation to revive the proposal.

A spokesman for the state party said the $80,000 donation on the group's disclosure forms represents an in-kind contribution, but that the party would be evaluating whether to give more in the coming weeks.

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Rep. Darrell Issa, a wealthy San Diego County Republican, was one of several individuals who contributed $50,000 to the revived proposal. Issa's campaign committee also donated $9,700 to California Counts.

Issa has a history of supporting contentious electoral measures in the Golden State. In 2003 he helped bankroll the recall election that saw former Democratic Gov. Gray Davis turned out of office and replaced with current GOP Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger.

Other prominent donors who have donated $50,000 include former Univision CEO Jerrold Perenchio and Orange County Businessman Duane Roberts.

Backers of the initiative are likely to point to the new disclosure report as evidence that the initiative campaign is not a front for Giuliani's candidacy, as has been alleged by several opponents. Most of the 15 individual donors listed on the report have contributed to
several GOP presidential candidates.

However two of the individual donors announced Tuesday are also contributors to Democratic presidential candidates Hillary Clinton, Chris Dodd and Bill Richardson.

Robert Day, the chairman of the Trust Company of the West, gave $45,000 to the electoral vote initiative. Day has also donated $4,600 to Clinton's presidential campaign, as well as $2,300 to Dodd.

Edward Allred, a California racetrack owner, gave $20,000 to the electoral vote proposal. He has also donated $2,300 to Richardson.

Democratic Party leaders in Washington and Sacramento have launched a revived push to kill the initiative reflecting deep concern throughout the party that the California ballot initiative could seriously harm the party's chances of capturing the White House in 2008.

Comments

[vincent123]

While the Republicans do there dirty tricks in CA by ballot initiative, here in FL they do the reverse. In the last two elections, our state has split almost down the middle on the national ballots but our legislature is almost 80% Republican due to vote and district rigging. Not content with that, the Republicans have fixed the initiative laws to require super-majorities and and passed draconian laws against signature collectors. Even the League of Women Voters have stopped collecting petitions under threat of felonies. The result is, under the Jeb Bush Republican Party, Florida has become a banana republic with no real participation of the electorate. Clearly, the Republicans only hope to stay in power is to make sure that as few as many voters participate.

[JimK2]

Good chance it may pass in a low turn out primary were republican ussually vote, never under estimate the california democrat voter, they did recall and through out gray davis and gave us schwarzenegger

[ednadumpling]

they have eight more days

[gpr-2007]

How about we just get rid of the electoral college all together?

Then we can eliminate federal postering for redistricting and let states deal with their own redistricting and it will have no effect on the national elections.

[HollywoodBill]

Half a million? Puh-leeze. Signatures cost $3.75 each. The backers of this bill need about 400,000 more signatures just to get on the ballot.

Assume they get the bucks. And then the signatures. Let the war begin. The only way to win initiatives is to have a strong backer, like the Governator who can get free publicity, or else buy ads. Talk to Steve Westly about that one. He spent between $35-40 million just for the nomination for Governor out here. And he lost.

Successful campaigns are very expensive out here because they have to be conducted on tv. The GOP could spend around $40-50 million with no guarantee of success, much less the court challenges that are sure to follow.

Besides, the voters of California usually get it right. Preliminary polling indicates that while there is support in getting rid of the electoral college, once it is explained to voters that this gives an unfair edge to either political party, support plummets well below 50%. And should the Governator come out against it, which he could very well do, this thing is doomed.

So, feeling lucky, punk?

[ibsteve2u]

Perhaps it is time somebody rammed the elimination of the electoral college down the throats of the Republicans.

I daresay they'd gag on the thought of having to win the popular vote.

By the way - isn't the state deputy political director of the Republican Party in California a Canadian on a H1B visa?

[starrianna]

BIG DEAL! Some fat ass wrote a check.

[Tod]

You're exactly right, Liam. But everyone on the right will immediately dismiss that because it benefits them if it passes. It's a mental illness.

[Liam]

Fine, I'm all for this... if we also do it in Texas, Florida and the other 40+ states that currently have a winner-takes-all apportionment. Otherwise we'll end up with another case of the winner of the popular vote losing the election.

The current system is perfectly fair in that the winner of the election is almost always the winner of the popular vote, and the one time in recent past where it was not, it was not the Republicans who were harmed by it.

This is clearly just a ploy, in the name of "fairness" to steal Presidential elections through legal trickery.

Liam.