Remember back to 2007. It was the days of George W. Bush, and you had your mullet. Well, maybe not the mullet, but there were some serious Republican Dirty Tricks going on. In the continuing effort to a) steal power for the Republicans and b) do some seriously dirty tricks, right-wing initiative filer extraordinaire Ted Costa has brought back the Dirty Tricks Initiative. He filed it with the AG's office last week. More from Dan Morain:
With no fanfare, Costa last week submitted to the attorney general's office an initiative he calls the "Electoral College Reform Act." On its face, the populist proposal would play to voters' sense of fairness and desire for competition among candidates.
In reality, this initiative would be a Republican power grab with national implications. The change contemplated by Costa and other consultants could push a Republican to victory in a close presidential race.
"It is the kind of thing that puts the metal to the grindstone and sparks fly," Costa told me.
Under the proposal, California's 55 electoral votes no longer would go to whoever wins the popular vote. Rather, they'd be apportioned based on the candidate who wins in particular congressional districts(SacBee)
Here's the thing. Costa loves to put these initiatives out there, and see what he gets. Normally, it's nothing. But on occasion, see the 2003 recall, he catches lightning in a bottle and he's off to the races. The scarier part is that if President Obama doesn't have any challengers in the primary, we are looking at a very Republican electorate in the presidential primary.
It could be something of a perfect storm, if Costa can get Darrell Issa or some other rich Republican to fund this one. It was a nightmare last time, and it will be a nightmare again. If the Republicans take 15-20 electoral college votes from California, it becomes extremely difficult to challenge them.
At this point, there is a long way to go, but if it does grow, we'll need to rally again to kill the Dirty Tricks once again.
A couple weeks ago, Secretary of State Debra Bowen visited San Diego to participate in a panel discussion on election integrity. She talked about the double bubble trouble we had with Dean Logan. She talked about catching Dirty Tricksters red handed. But mostly she talked about how vital a role the activists of the grassroots are to keeping her informed when they see something that just doesn't seem right.
Today's Los Angeles Times has an article about the dirty trickster's attempts.
As you may recall, Debra Bowen suggested a deadline of November 29th to get the signatures in. Well, that was Thursday.
According to the article, the campaign manager Dave Gilliard says that they'll be out all weekend attempting to get people to sign the ballot. And would expect to turn in the signatures by the middle of next week. Gilliard also said that they haven't raised the $2 million to pay the petition circulators. But he's sure the money will come along.
I especially enjoyed this bit of the article:
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.
And they say that if they can't get it on the ballot for June, well, they'll just keep trying for the November ballot.
The big Rudy Giuliani supporter Paul Singer is back in the news. The New York Times did a story about the "vulture capitalist" fund manager recounting his plan to steal 20 electoral votes for his main man, Rudy G. A sneak peak:
Howard Dean, the chairman of the Democratic Party, questioned "Paul Singer's involvement in this dirty trick aimed at stealing the White House." A group of Democrats filed a complaint with the Federal Election Commission charging that Mr. Singer had been acting on behalf of Mr. Giuliani in his efforts to change the California law - which Mr. Singer and the campaign deny. And the Democratic National Committee drew attention to the part of Mr. Singer's business that involves buying the debt of poor countries at a discount and then seeking repayment in full - prompting an article in The Times of London labeling his firm, Elliott Associates, a "vulture fund."
***
Mr. Singer, who has given millions of dollars to Republican candidates and causes over the years, said that he met Mr. Giuliani in 2006 and decided to support him. He signed on as one of the campaign's earliest major fund-raisers. For months, Mr. Singer made a jet leased by one of his companies available to Mr. Giuliani. This June, he said, he stepped down as the campaign's Eastern finance chairman to become a policy adviser.(NYT via MSNBC 11/22/07)
I took a video camera up to UCSB and found some folks luring students in with "help us cure cancer" when in fact one of their petitions is the so-called "Electoral College Reform Act" -- a blatant attempt to steal the White House in 2008.
Last week, University of California student Steven Attewell discovered a team of petitioners on the university campus at Santa Barbara. After discovering that the petitioners were trying to get signatures for the Dirty Trick Act, Mr. Attewell immediately contacted the Courage Campaign to help shine a spotlight on these illegal tactics. The following day, we found the petitioners using their deceptive tactics to get signatures from unsuspecting college students. And we had a video camera.
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.
In a story highlighted by a recent Democratic Party email, the LA Downtown News is reporting that signature gatherers are giving out food for signatures for a variety of initiative petitions:
It was about 10 a.m. on Tuesday, Oct. 16, when Fred Crawford walked to the back of a short line at Sixth and San Julian streets on Skid Row. The queue, a dozen or so people on a trash-strewn sidewalk, crept forward, and when Crawford reached the front a clipboard was pushed in front of him. The 40-ish man, who currently lives on the street, signed his name and scribbled an address. When he finished, one of the men behind the table handed him a bag of Ruffles potato chips. Crawford opened it on the spot and lifted the bag to his mouth.
In recent weeks, Downtown News observed petitions being gathered on Skid Row for four initiatives to be placed on ballots next year: two on eminent domain, one concerning bonds for children's hospitals, and another on electoral votes.
That "electoral" one is likely to be the "Dirty Trick" initative, and the eminent domain initiative is likely the Howie Rich finance successor to Prop 90. But look, I'm all for feeding the poor. In addition, it'd be great to see campaigns actually campaigning in areas like LA's Skid Row. But they don't. And this has nothing to do with listening to the concerns of the community, but rather it is all about using a community that is susceptible to abuse.
Not only is this unethical, it is against the law. Paying people for signatures is tantamount to selling your vote, and therefore we have seen fit to ban this action. (Although paid signature gathering is still legal due to 1st Amendment concerns.) We need to treat the Skid Row, and all other disadvantaged communities, with respect, and not toss them about as a political football or treat them as a dumping grounds.
(full disclosure: I work for Courage Campaign, which is working on defeating the dirty trick)
The state campaign finance disclosure laws say that you have to report your contributions within 10 days of receiving them. The relatively short turn around means that we know what kind of money the dirty tricksters have and where it is coming from. Though they have been swearing up and down they have $3 million to get this on the ballot, the initial round of contributions only adds up to about $539,000 in the last two weeks. That is nowhere near enough money to get it on, though they could have cash rolling in over the next few days. John Meyers has the names.
So who are some of the donors? The larger contributions come from people like Glen Holden, an insurance investor and former ambassador to Jamaica under the first President George Bush; Duane Roberts, an Orange County businessman who's also given money this year to GOP presidential contenders Rudy Giuliani, Mitt Romney, and John McCain; money manager Robert Day, listed on Forbes' 2006 list of "The World's Richest People"; venture capitalist Floyd Kvamme, appointed by President George W. Bush in 2001 as co-chair of the President's Council of Advisors on Science and Technology; Jerrold Perenchio, former CEO of Univision who's also been a financial backer of Governor Schwarzenegger; and Bill Leonard, an elected member of the California Board of Equalization and former Assembly GOP leader.
I am sure Lehane and company with their oppo-research team are digging into these guys. We already know about Issa.
And as publicly reported before, seed money has also been contributed by U.S. Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Vista) -- from both his own checkbook ($50,000) and from his campaign account ($9,500).
The last one is interesting, though not surprising. I say interesting because I am wondering where they are getting the money from.
The single largest contribution so far to the campaign known as California Counts: $80,000 from the California Republican Party.
The California Republican Party is bankrupt, so where did they find the cash for this? And is someone using the CRP as a way to funnel money into the campaign, without having their name disclosed.
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.
As reported and later expounded on by the Calitics web of newshounds, Dirty Tricks is back. Unfortunately it's not a Halloween gimmick, and thanks to Courage Campaign, you can now see this new video from Bradley Whitford on the shady power grab and help financially support the incredible work that the Courage folks are doing. But as the Dirty Tricks continues its haphazard course between various life-support systems, it's found a big money home in the wallet of recall-champion Darrell Issa.
Issa, who represents the 49th Congressional District, is one of the richest people in Congress, making a fortune off the Viper car alarm (step back, you are too close to the vehicle). Issa is a veteran of throwing gobs of personal money into campaigns. He dropped $12 million of his own money to lose the Republican Senate primary in 1998. He was a bit more successful in 2003 when he dug into his wallet for $1.6 million in personal cash to fund the signature gathering for the Gray Davis recall which, when asked if it was worth it earlier this month, he said "Yes, of course." Well, Rep. Issa is ponying up the big bucks again, lining up behind Dirty Tricks in its hour of need. If new polling from Greenberg Quinlan Rosner is any indication though, he may have picked himself a loser this time. The poll finds just 22% in favor and 53% opposed (25% undecided) to the measure throughout the state with uniform opposition throughout every region of the state. So the question is...why?
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.
You might remember Ed Rollins, from his role as Reagan 1984 National Campaign Director, or perhaps from his fallout with Senator Katherine Harris. But, he's got a new gig now: Doing Dirty Tricks...booooooo! And already he's dissembling:
This initiative is NOT about helping any one party or candidate and it is not about changing the system our founding fathers created for the success of our democracy. It simply makes sure that every vote cast in our state counts in the Electoral College.
For instance, in 1988, Democratic nominee Michael Dukakis received 4.7 million California votes but received ZERO electoral delegates from California.
And in 2004, Republican nominee George Bush received over 5 1/2 million votes of Californians, but received ZERO electoral delegates from California. (FlashReport 10.30.07)
Sure, that's why every Democratic leader has condemned this plan, and all of its supporters are Republicans. Oh, yeah, and it would virtuallty hand the 2008 presidential race to the Republicans by giving them 20ish electoral votes. And the whole, doing this only in California and not in Texas. This would make California irrelevant, not more relevant. Only one or two seats would actually be play as the Congressional lines are drawn heavily towards one party or another. But, you've heard all of these arguments before. Are there problems with the electoral college? Should we go to national popular vote? Yup. But this dirty trick does nothing towards the end of fairness, but is just a GOP dirty trick.
The addition of Rollins to the campaign indicates that a) the deceptively named "California Counts" campaign has a nice chunk of money to hire somebody of this caliber and b) this is very real. So, back to the battle, I suppose. Just say No Dirty Tricks!
