In 2007, right-wing political operatives tried to place a measure on the June 2008 ballot that - if successful - would have awarded California's electoral votes by Congressional District. Democrats and progressives strongly opposed it, because everyone assumed it would give the G.O.P. presidential nominee an extra 19 votes. California is a deep blue state, but parts of Orange County and the Central Valley are still reliably Republican. New data from last November's election, however, suggests that "Red California" is becoming less and less relevant. Barack Obama carried eight Congressional Districts that had long voted for Republican presidential candidates, and John McCain came close to losing three more. All these districts are currently represented in Congress by Republicans, but a few incumbents came close last year to losing to Democratic challengers. It's only a matter of time before some of these districts will eventually flip. None of this is a surprise, however, because the state's Republican base is older, whiter and shrinking in size. But the rate of this change is quite staggering, which explains why Republicans in the state legislature have clung to the "two-thirds rule" for passing a budget. After all, it's the only reason they have any power left in the state.
It appears the GOPigs "Steal the State" initiative will not be on the June 2008 ballot but it could still make it to the November 2008 ballot if it gets enough signatures, or a second version of it could be introduced after a low-turn-out June 2008 primary as a new but similar initiative. A re-introduced initiative could require fewer signatures based on a low-turn-out election in June, if I understand the rules correctly. So, either the initiative is dead or it isn't. Either it will be on the November 2008 ballot or it won't. Either it will pass in November or it won't. Either it will be challenging in court or it won't. Either it will be upheld or it won't. Either the final court decision will come before the electors cast their votes in December or it won't.
Well, I say "enough!" We need to take the lead and not depend on or react to events beyond our control. We need to quit responding to the GOPigs. We need to make the GOPigs respond to us.
No, not dead, just delayed. They kept pushing their luck on turning in the signatures and now have conceded that they will not make the June ballot. (Got this via email, but Meyer's blog has technical problems, will update with link later)
The initiative to change how California's Electoral College votes are awarded in the race for the White House will not appear on the June statewide ballot, according to campaign officials.
In a brief statement e-mailed to reporters this afternoon, the California Counts political team said they are now shooting for the November ballot after being unable to gather enough signatures in time for this week's drop-dead June deadline.
"Due to the tight calendar we are operating under and the challenge of raising money and gathering signatures during the Holiday season," says the statement, "we understand that submitting signatures and having them counted in time to make the June ballot, is no longer a realistic goal."
They are now shooting for the November ballot. However, like Meyers notes that there are two major problems with that strategy. 1) The turnout will not be as favorable for the Republicans as it would have been in June. 2) If it were to pass there would be a court challenge over whether it would count for the election occurring on the same day.
We have killed it twice now and we will for a third time if necessary.
[UPDATE] 3:20 pm Here is the SacBee breaking story that has a crucial piece of information:
California Counts has until Feb. 4 to submit their signatures, a deadline representing six months after the initiative was approved for circulation. Gilliard's statement 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 a state threshold.
"CalCounts will continue with its fundraising and signature drive because we believe Californians deserve the right to vote on this important initiative to reform the Electoral College and to make our state count again in presidential elections," Gilliard said in the statement.
There has been a lot of confusion over when the dirty tricksters needed to turn in their signatures. The hard deadline was Feb 5th, but that is also when they need to be certified by, so they obviously had to turn them in before then. The County Registrars need time to do the random counts and if that failed, to do a full count.
They are busy preparing for the primary, thus can't be devoting a lot of resources to a count. The dirty tricksters pushed it so far that it is now impossible to get certified in time for the June primary. But if they get the 200,000 more in by February, it will make the November ballot.
Yesterday, I posted a diary about possible ballot petition fraud going on in Santa Barbara, California related to the Electoral College Initiative that seeks to split California's electoral votes by congressional district.
There have been some developments, so I've decided to post an update.
Buried inside this Politico article about Rudy Giuliani's many ties to the Dirty Tricks initiative is this nugget:
There are actually two potential ballot initiatives. One would allocate California's Electoral College votes proportionally, as opposed to the current winner-take-all format. The other affects redistricting.
Where they connect? California Republican Reps. Devin Nunes and Kevin O. McCarthy have asked the Federal Election Commission for a legal opinion on whether they can raise unlimited donations to help the redistricting initiative. But a money-and-politics watchdog group argues that would blow a hole in the 2002 campaign finance reform law that bans federal officeholders from soliciting such big checks - and pave the way for presidential contenders to urge their supporters to shovel money into the proposed Electoral College initiative.
Nunes and McCarthy may be the safest two GoOPers in the state. They are acting as the battering rams to knock down the walls of campaign finance reform, not just for the Dirty Tricks initiative but a whole host of pernicious ballot measures.
In a way, they're trying to retroactively immunize people like Rudy and Darrell Issa for their already-questionable efforts. It's just a hop, skip and a jump from soliciting for signatures, which both campaigns have done, to soliciting for money.
As for the bait and switch techniques being employed to gather signatures, there's going to be a LOT more on this to come.
(An interesting personal account of the dirty tricks. - promoted by shayera)
NOTE: cross-posted from DailyKos.
First, I should explain that I'm a graduate student at the University of California Santa Barbara.
Today I witnessed what I think is an incidence of ballot petition fraud relating to the electoral vote apportionment initiative - the proposal to apportion California's electoral votes by congressional district, unilaterally giving 19 of California's electoral votes to the Republicans in 2008.
Outside the UCEN (student center plus bookstore plus food court) at UC Santa Barbara, there were a number of people with cardboard clipboards soliciting people to sign ballot petitions for a proposal to spend $1 billion on cancer hospitals for kids. If you agree to sign, they tell you "you need to sign 4 times." What they do not tell you is that the three pages after the ballot initiative on cancer hospitals are different ballot initiatives: the second proposes to abolish eminent domain, the third proposals to abolish rent control, and the fourth is the proposal to apportion California's electoral votes by district (the so-called Dirty Tricks Initiative).
I should note that the clipboard is arranged such that a rubber band holding the petitions to the cardboard is positioned on the top of the page, across the actual ballot language in question - thus, partially hiding the text of the ballot initiatives on pages 2-4 unless you actually stop and pull down the top of the page.
I agreed to sign the cancer initiative, but the comment about signing four times raised a red flag, because I'm familiar with the structure of ballot petitions, so I paused before signing and looked at the other initiatives. However, I'm absolutely sure that most of the people signing, young college students on a rush to get their lunches and off to class, did not take this step.
What they are doing is getting people to sign for ballot initiatives without their knowledge or informed consent, using young peoples' desire to do a good thing and their lack of familiarity with the legal paperwork of initiative petitions. If this is not illegal it is certainly deeply unethical. The moment I realized what was going on, I told the petitioners that they shouldn't be telling people to sign for ballot initiatives they're not aware of. Immediately after, I called the school newspaper, the Daily Nexus, the Courage Campaign, the Santa Barbara Democratic Central Committee, and the California Democratic Party. After that, I have sent in a form to the Sec. of State as well, reporting this.
Today's Blog Roundup is on the flip. Paid work is nuts this week, so just a link dump. Look for categories to return next week. Let me know what I missed in comments, or just use this as an open thread.
In a story printed in today's Sacramento Bee, Republican Congressman Darrell Issa is said to be "sending out letters to the same voters who signed the recall position in 2003".
But that's against the law. California Elections Code 18650 states clearly that, "No one shall knowingly or willfully permit the list of signatures on an initiative, referendum, or recall petition to be used for ANY PURPOSE other than qualification of the initiative, referendum or recall". [Emphasis added] Violation of this section is a misdemeanor.
That's pretty clear, isn't it? Wouldn't you expect a Member of Congress to know the law? Well, maybe we can't expect a Republican Member of Congress to obey the law??
Somebody alert Jerry Brown. Darrell Issa is breaking the law, and look what the result could be:
While the violation involving the use of the data is only a misdemeanor, providing the signatures, database, and anything else owned by the Recall Committee is an "in kind contribution"-- an unreported contribution. The Recall committee needs to approve it in order to provide this asset to the "California Counts" committee that is trying to qualify the Electoral College scheme on the ballot. Such a use could be in violation of the trust provisions that govern ballot measure expenditures (felonies). And the unreported contribution and the person controlling the committee could be prosecuted under the criminal misdemeanor provisions of the political reform act. (Where the penalty is loss of office) (emphasis mine)
I don't think that you could remove someone from federal office at the state level, right? But dare to dream. Would that be some sweet justice for the architect of the California recall, or what?
Today's Blog Roundup is on the flip. I'm experiencing some ennui this evening, so it's just a link dump. Let me know what I missed in comments, or just use this as an open thread.
While the turnout model for a June non-Presidential primary is unknown, this should cheer people who don't want to see California's electoral votes stolen by an unbalanced dirty trick.
When voters are read the title and summary of the proposed initiative, a solid majority opposes the measure - 53 percent would vote NO if the election were held today and only one out of five voters (22%) support the initiative while a quarter of the electorate (25%) is currently undecided. This is one of the lowest levels of support we have ever seen in our polling for a statewide initiative in California.
It doesn't sound like this is a tilted poll designed to get a certain result. It sounds like the months of harping on this both through the netroots and in the media are having an impact. They may yet get this dud on the ballot, but we'll crush it on Election Day.
Of course, we wouldn't even be talking about this if it weren't for the splitting of the primary races allowing for a low-turnout election in the middle of the summer to be an inviting target for Republican dirty tricksters. The real reason for moving up the Presidential primary was not just to keep up with the Joneses and "make California heard" in the Presidential process - if that was the goal they're failing miserably - was to ensure that termed-out lawmakers could serve again in the Legislature, by putting the term limits change on the February ballot in time for them all to run again in June. And now that initiative is starting to falter. So the Legislature created the conditions for any number of pernicious Republican ballot measures because they wanted to stay in power - and now they may not even accomplish that.
A top official of the effort to steal up to 20 electoral votes in California sent out an email to supporters of the Rudy Giuliani campaign asking them to sign petitions to get the measure on the ballot. This could be a violation of federal election law, which prohibits coordination between Presidential campaigns and separate ballot issues. Top of the Ticket has the latest.
The missive, obtained by The Times' Dan Morain, is addressed, "Hello Fellow Rudy Supporter!" Its author, Tony Andrade, is a Republican activist who helped draft the electoral college initiative. Previously, he was among those who helped place the ultimately successful recall of Gov. Gray Davis on the ballot in 2003 [...]
Chris Lehane, a Democratic activist who is organizing the campaign to block the measure, said of the Andrade e-mail: "It sounds like something that the Federal Election Commission and Department of Justice will be very interested in seeing."
Maria Comella, spokeswoman for Giuliani's White House bid, previously has stressed that neither he nor his campaign has had anything to do with pushing the ballot initiative.
It's unclear how Andrade would have gotten a list of Giuliani supporters in California without some form of coordination. The initiative's new backers, most of them connected to Giuliani in one way or another, are running from this as fast as possible.
Veteran GOP strategist Ed Rollins, who is overseeing the attempt to put the initiative before voters, distanced himself from Andrade's note.
"None of us has anything to do with any [presidential] campaign; we understand the law very, very well," Rollins said. Pledging to try to "make sure that [the e-mail] gets stomped," Rollins added, "We need to be very sensitive to the fact that people have speculated that this is part of the Giuliani campaign."
The email included a link to the petition and asks signers to get 10 other people to sign it as well. A campaign confident in their ability to get the necessary signatures wouldn't rely on an email ask, and they certainly wouldn't come this close to violating election law.
This is not the first time that a link has been uncovered between the Giuliani campaign and the dirty tricks initiative. In fact, almost every connection we've seen has gone in this fashion. You'll remember that the first incarnation of the measure was derailed when a murky donation from a shell group in Missouri was eventually traced to Paul Singer, Giuliani's northeast finance director.
These are serious charges, and the Federal Election Commission needs to address them immediately. Steve Benen has more.
Today's not-the-fires Blog Roundup is on the flip. I thought about doing the fun categorization thing, but (a) there aren't all that many posts, and (b) I've gone through right around 1,000 posts just for blog roundup in the last 2 days, not counting any reading I've done on my own account. My eyes are a little glazed over. So, it's just a link dump.
Let me know what I missed in comments, or just use this as an open thread.
Frank Russo has so far had the best coverage of Rudy Giuliani's involvement in the Dirty Tricks campaign to steal a bunch of California's electoral votes. It appears that practically everyone associated with this campaign had a tie to Rudy Giuliani in some form or another. We already knew that the lone funder, laundered through a hastily assembled LLC in Missouri called "Take Initiative America," was actually the chair of Giuliani's northeast funding operation named Paul Singer. What we didn't know was that this laundering, crafted to skirt the strict election laws in California, was part of a pattern of interlocking front groups that would hide who was behind this whole thing - perhaps even the candidate himself. This quote is from Chris Lehane, who was running the opposition to the Dirty Tricks campaign and was in a position to delve pretty deeply into what was going on here. (I know not everyone here's a fan of Lehane, but this sounds genuine)
Never mind the partisanship behind Republican lawyer Tom Hiltachk's so-called Presidential Election Reform Act, an initiative that seeks to peel off about twenty of California's electoral votes to Republican presidential candidates in 2008 and indefinitely into the future. Let's just consider the question, does the US Constitution permit a state to determine via a ballot initiative how to cast its electoral votes?
I was up half the night putting together this little video for the Courage Campaign's effort to fight the Republican dirty trick to split California's electoral votes and steal the Presidential election. We got a handful of semi-famous bloggers together (Jane Hamsher from Firedoglake, John Amato from Crooks and Liars, Howie Klein from Down With Tyranny, some Kos diarists, and more) and sent a message that we can fight this thing, energize California Democrats, and make the Republicans wish they never brought it up in the first place.
The Courage Campaign is setting up a conference call featuring Bradley Whitford of The West Wing to discuss the next steps. You can RSVP for it at the link.
In 2007, right-wing political operatives tried to place a measure on the June 2008 ballot that - if successful - would have awarded California's electoral votes by Congressional District. Democrats and progressives strongly opposed it, because 