California Initiative 07-0032
I haven't seen any discussion of this here at the Cafe, and though I don't really have much to add to Hendrik Hertzberg's excellent note in the New Yorker, I feel compelled to spread the word.
This initiative would change the way California apportions presidential electoral votes, from a statewide winner-take-all rule, as almost every other state does it, to a system where electoral votes are awarded to the winner in each congressional district. As Hertzberg writes, this would "spot the Republican ticket something in the neighborhood of twenty electoral votes — votes that it wouldn’t get under the rules prevailing in every other sizable state in the Union."
At a first, superficial glance, this seems more "fair" than awarding all 55 electoral votes to the winner, but as Hertzberg points out, the system is still winner-take-all, just on a district by district basis. And since big Republican states like Texas and Georgia aren't going to change the way they do it, the possible outcome would be to snatch a Republican victory in '08 from the jaws of ignominy and defeat.
This is not a shortcut to the elimination of the "injustice" of the electoral college, but it may just appear to be that to California voters if they aren't paying attention.
Given the gerrymandered structure of Congressional Districts, this should be nonstarter. Look at how Tom DeLay was able to change the composition of the Texas Congressional delegation by retooling the districts outside of the normal cycle associated with the decennial census. Why would anyone even consider tying Presidential elections to the same (obviously broken) Congressional district designation system?
August 16, 2007 1:01 PM | Reply | Permalink
You have put your finger on the crucial aspect of this. Gerrymandering. And then how that would play out to the advantage of Republicans.
August 16, 2007 4:10 PM | Reply | Permalink
This slick Republican Trojan Horse shows how important getting out the vote is. Republicans will be at the polls, will Democrats?
August 16, 2007 1:41 PM | Reply | Permalink
Republicans will be at the polls, will Democrats?
But who will they vote for? With the field the way it is, they may come to the polls, but only to continue trying to disenfranchise Democratic voters.
August 16, 2007 9:50 PM | Reply | Permalink
California voters rarely demonstrate any intelligence or any evidence that they have bothered to become informed before voting. Based on that, I suspect that this initiative will be passed during the February primary, where most likely, only 30% or so of the voters will even bother to vote.
I'm not even sure that getting Democratic voters off the sofa and into the voting booth will make a a difference. Remember, these are the voters who, less than a year after electing Gray Davis as governor, voted to recall him for doing exactly what he had done for 4 years, and replacing him with an actor, a steroid freak, who had zero chance of ever being governor thru a normal electoral process. Evidence of our state voters' IQ is abundant.
Hoppy in Sacramento
August 16, 2007 2:06 PM | Reply | Permalink
I lived in CA for 17 years, from 1988 to 2005, and I was there during the recall of Davis and the passage of a lot of other unfortunate initiatives, so I feel your pain.
Yet, I think this one could be defeated, if the Democrats pour the necessary money into defeating it, if not keeping it off the ballot in the first place. It isn't rocket science; it should be possible to explain to the electorate why this is such a bad idea. Or at least to the Democrats.
Just put ads up telling people that if this initiative had been in place in 2000, Bush would have won without the help of the Supreme Court -- that oughta scare people!
Or it should be possible to mount a completely different sort of attack on it -- fight fire with fire -- for example, by putting up a counter-initiative which specifies:
1) electoral votes that are perfectly proportional to the popular election results for president (and therefore, a "purer" and better solution to the problem than 07-0032);
2) invalidation of 07-0032;
3) a poison pill that neither initiative can take effect unless all other states go to direct elections too.
In my dreams, anyway.
August 16, 2007 4:01 PM | Reply | Permalink
Or it should be possible to mount a completely different sort of attack on it -- fight fire with fire -- for example, by putting up a counter-initiative which specifies:
1) electoral votes that are perfectly proportional to the popular election results for president (and therefore, a "purer" and better solution to the problem than 07-0032);
2) invalidation of 07-0032;
3) a poison pill that neither initiative can take effect unless all other states go to direct elections too.
That first part still has the same problems as 07-0032, at least as long as California remains a safely blue state (or for that matter, if it were a safely red state).
As long as the same party that predominates in the state dominates the presidential elections, they have nothing to gain and everything to lose by going against "winner-take-all." Doing anything other than "winner-take-all" in California will benefit the Republicans, as Democrats are pretty much guaranteed the majority vote in any competitive Presidential election (that is, California could conceivably vote Republican (Massachusetts, after all, voted for Reagan in 1984), but not in any election where the outcome was in any doubt).
Only in purple states, where each party is betting that it wil lose the state but win in certain districts, or will get enough votes to get an elector in a proportional system, would this type of policy be viable or could it be voted on without it being largely done for partisan reasons. (On second thought, the policy might be approved in a state where the people voted for one party at the state level and another at the national level, although it would be for largely partisan reasons).
(Actually, I like the district-by-district policy [not so much the porportional policy], but for it to be realistic, it would have to be adopted nationwide simultaneously).
"You say I'm a dreamer. We're two of a kind. Looking for some perfect world that we both know that we'll never find." - Thompson Twins, "Hold Me Now"
August 16, 2007 4:45 PM | Reply | Permalink
Of course you're right, and my suggestion was intended completely facetiously. My point was to propose something which would be more attractive to the voters (even "fairer" than 07-0032), but with some additional provisions that would ensure that it would not be enacted unless 07-0032 was eliminated and also unless all other states joined California in direct elections.
August 16, 2007 5:08 PM | Reply | Permalink
From what I understand, Davis f**ked up a few times, as most do, but the recall was a coup by the Repugs. Another instance of how hard the Repugs can fight. Clinton and Davis, hard assed political recall/impeachment. Bush, Impeachment Immunity from the Democrats, regardless of what he does.
Go figure.
Subtract Davis being Impeached and add Davis being recalled.
August 16, 2007 4:51 PM | Reply | Permalink
Hoppy or Ned, on the off chance that somebody might be listening, is the CA Democratic party making efforts to educate the voters on what this initiative means?
In particular, the difference between apportioning the electoral votes and eliminating the electoral college?
The worst thing you can do to a dogma is give it an empire. Anon
August 16, 2007 9:24 PM | Reply | Permalink
"California voters rarely demonstrate any intelligence or any evidence that they have bothered to become informed before voting."
True about California, my home state.
True about the nation's electorate.
True about the House and Senate.
Members of the House and Senate are generally required to vote - given the results of their votes for the last more-than-six years, an unfortunate requirement.
Might it be better to have a small turn-out of informed voters rather than a large turn-out of the uninformed? (A large turn-out of informed voters? Don't bank on it.)
August 17, 2007 11:00 AM | Reply | Permalink
The problem is that you can't get a small, informed turnout. What we'll probably get instead is a small turnout of the un- and selectively-informed. If you assume that the Republican party knows who its voters are, and that it costs a certain amount of money to move each of these to the polls, then it's cheap to fix the outcome of an under-attended election.
I agree about the general ignorance of the electorate. I don't think Californians are, on the whole, much more ignorant than average (even, like, in the OC!), but the system makes it much easier to take advantage of this ignorance. The whole California ballot initiative process is just infuriatingly stupid and corrupt. As I understand it, you choose an off-year election, write an obfuscated initiative with at catchy title, and pay a few million dollars to gather enough signatures to put something on the ballot (they're $1-$2 apiece). Then pay a few more for advertising and GOTV, and you can get all sorts of things to become laws. And the current state of California reflects this.
My take-away from this is that large-scale direct democracy is a terrible idea. For all the corruption in our current system, it at least seems a bit harder to game.
August 18, 2007 5:56 PM | Reply | Permalink
Davis wasn't impeached. He was recalled. Totally different process. The voters voted for the recall and for the actor as governor, with heavy Democratic support for both. Californians just can't avoid drooling when faced with a chance to vote for a faux he man for any office.
Hoppy in Sacramento
August 16, 2007 2:49 PM | Reply | Permalink
Hoppy,
you're right, he was recalled. I seem to have impeachment on my mind often. :-)
August 16, 2007 4:49 PM | Reply | Permalink
Kinda like the national voting population drooling to vote for a faux 20-mule team cowboy he man for president in 1980?
Right Kimosabe?
~OGD~
August 16, 2007 5:06 PM | Reply | Permalink
muleteam cowboy is an oxymoron.
Granting Bush is a moron, people who go to Chote and Davidson and live in multimilltion dollar houses aren't Cowboys and don't drive mule trains.
If you think Bush is a cowboy then you have swallowed a large chunk of his propoganda.
August 17, 2007 3:37 AM | Reply | Permalink
Maybe you missed the adjective before "cowboy": faux.
Jan
August 18, 2007 6:24 PM | Reply | Permalink
Gosh, I wonder where right wingers who check out the liberal blogosphere get the idea that the liberal blogosphere is a bunch of anti-democratic snobs who are publicly dismissive of the intelligence of the majority of voters.
August 17, 2007 4:53 PM | Reply | Permalink
Dude, he was like totally going to crush the car tax (that car-smashing stunt has to rate as one of the low points of my political life). The irony is that Arnold has not been a terrible governor, and actually seems reasonable compared to a lot of the national Republican party.
August 18, 2007 6:01 PM | Reply | Permalink
The firm of Bell, McAndrew, & Hiltechk "... specialize(s)in initiatives that are the opposite of what they sound like—the Fair Pay Workplace Flexibility Act of 2006, for example. It would have raised the state minimum wage slightly—by a lesser amount than it has since been raised—and, in the fine print, would have made it impossible ever to raise it again except by a two-thirds vote in both houses of the legislature, while, for good measure, eliminating overtime for millions of workers.
“Equal Representation” sounds good, too."
Hence our dread concern and most critical problem. Theright, the GOP, and the fascist warmongers, profiteers, and pathological liars in the Bush government are sadly, expert in the black arts of disinformation warfare (perception management, information domination, disinformation, propaganda, and slime campaigns). Baker Botts, the Rendon Group are other examples of therights manipulation, perversion, and domination of the "message" that ends being pimped relentless and incessently by the complicit parrots in the socalled MSM.
Theright, the GOP, and the fascist warmongers, profiteers, and pathological liars in the Bush government steal elections and the elections process. The socalled voterfraud initiatives, the terrorizing, or otherwise disatvangtaging of populations, (primarily minorities and black, brown, and basically NOTWHITE) their legions of truebeliever robots who organize getoutandvote campaigns, and focus on churches, - and tragically - their total control of the socalled MSM enables these pathological liars to subvert, and in many pernicious ways undermine or render moot the elections process.
Unless and until HUGE majorities of Americans resoundingly denounce and lable repugnant every single word and policy pimped by the fascist in redneck America, theright, the GOP, and the fascist warmongers, profiteers, and pathological liars in the Bush government - the entire elections process will continue to be corrupted, perverted, and manipulated by these very same fiends.
If enough American muster the courage to forcefully denounce and reject all the fascist policies and agendas, - America is doomed to continue blindly supporting nazification of America, and a end to everything that America once stood for, and proudly defended.
August 17, 2007 1:08 AM | Reply | Permalink
Sorry, I got ahead of my self! What I meant to print was: - If enough American muster the courage to forcefully denounce and reject all the fascist policies and agendas (we may have a chance to salvage our once more perfect union, - If not?????!!!! - America is doomed to continue blindly supporting nazification of America, and a (bitter) end to everything that America once stood for, and proudly defended.
August 17, 2007 1:12 AM | Reply | Permalink
When I began voting few if any states had a winner take all rule. It is a political tool that helps maintain the diumvirate dictatorship that has ruled this country for most of its history. It gave us unelected George Bush dictatorship.
The electoral college makes a farce of one man-one vote and of democratic rule in this country. Among its other evils is the way that political parties, which together only represent about 40% of the electorate can manipulate the "vote."
The winner take all rule is actually another giant step away from one man-one vote and rule by the electorate, and is just another vile tool for the politicians to use to cheat the voter.
I would recommend that Californians vote to get rid of their electoral college system and go to one man-one vote. As large a state as California is, Congress would have to react to this move in some, hopefully constructive way, and seriously deal with the dictatorship by political party that the electoral college has created. Thus hopefully preventing another creature like Bushrove ever taking over our government.
August 17, 2007 3:34 AM | Reply | Permalink
Interesting. I'm wondering, however, whether this legislation or ultimately any legislation establishing "winner take all" could stand a rigorous constitutional challenge. (The emphasis is on rigorous)
Here's the reason: Electors can vote as they wish, regardless of whom they were pledged to in the election itself. There have been "Faithless Electors" The link doo-hickey doesn't seem to be popping up vigorously this morning, but there's an interesting article on the legal implication of "faithless elector" laws published in Slate. Here's the URL: http://www.slate.com/id/1006644/
The pertinent issue might be this:
By extension, any instruction at the state level to the electors, including whether to apportion votes, could be challenged as unconstitutional, and the Federal Constitution trumps the state constitution. In other words, the procedure in the Constitution, silent on proportional voting and silent on states "instructing" electors, may prohibit any attempt to instruct them. I'm not sure who would have the standing in court to challenge this...it might have to be an elector, in which case, I suspect an elector from the party winning the majority of electoral votes might immediately mount a challenge.
What do people think? I'm going to lurk before I get arrested for impersonating a Constitutional Lawyer. (None of this is meant to argue for or against the electoral college.)
aMike
August 17, 2007 7:02 AM | Reply | Permalink
aMike, I don't have the knowledge here. But is the existing system, with the state winner take all, itself a sufficient precedent toward instructions? Other states, too, have alternatives to winner take all, I believe, so that might be a precedent, too. And of course the Court could always as it loves to do fall back selectively on states rights so long as it benefits Republicans.
Hoppy's line, "California voters rarely demonstrate any intelligence or any evidence that they have bothered to become informed before voting," is a straight line that I hesitate to go near. Unlike, say, Texas voters?
John
http://www.haberarts.com/
August 17, 2007 10:12 AM | Reply | Permalink
It's the blind leading the blind, John, which I guess is better than the bland leading the blonde, I guess <grin></grin>. We need a Constitution historian or Constitutional Lawyer to chip in and talk about this (wouldn't it be nice if Obama dropped by?...he taught Constitutional Law)
I'd guess this, and if I'm wrong, I'll take my whupping and go stand in the corner.
If the Constitution expresses a procedure...it trumps whatever the states want. A State couldn't decide, for example, to elect its Senators from districts within the state. I'd argue that the procedure established concerning the electoral college as originated and amended (the above link), is specific enough so that any additional "instructions" given by the state, either through legislation or by amendment to the State Constitution would be challengeable. I suspect both national parties, having a number of "safe" states, would finance a court challenge.
If, on the other hand, the Constitution is mute...then the 10th Amendment applies, and the states can do what they want, and even individual localities, for example. Cambridge, MA, for example, has a Proportional Representation System. There's no problem with this constitutionally.
(The math above is enough to make me whimper--but it is fair and representative. Only a city housing both Harvard and MIT would use this, I think)<grin></grin>
But suppose that California said that in the national election California Voters could have as many votes individually as they are entitled to by the representation in the electoral congress. Each voter could cast up to 55 votes, and they could cast these votes proportionately, for individual electors, as many as they wished for each, ranking the electors in order of preference. Would this pass Constitutional Muster? I don't know. It would assure that the vote in the college was quite closely approximate to the vote of the people directly. (The lines would be a little long).
In my wicked moments (I have those) I'd like to see "Election Central" keep tabs on this system. I suspect that there would be a large number of "analysts" taking their Prozac, their Viagra, or both.
aMike
August 17, 2007 1:44 PM | Reply | Permalink
John and amike - This party would not be complete without Florida voters.
The worst thing you can do to a dogma is give it an empire. Anon
August 17, 2007 4:12 PM | Reply | Permalink
phelicity: "Might it be better to have a small turn-out of informed voters rather than a large turn-out of the uninformed?" That's been argued by a conservative analyst recently, but it's misguided. There's no way to limit turnout to informed voters and no evidence that limited turnout produces informed voters.
First, as with California initiatives or the rabble in Ohio stirred by Rove's all gay marriage all the time strategy, too often the reverse happens: a small group of highly partisan voters take the choice away from the rest of us. Second, efforts to raise or limit turnout typically amount to enfranchising or disenfranchising black districts. That has nothing to do with the quality of the voter, and it is in our interest to increase turnout out, on grounds of both justice (blacks should not be excluded) and outcomes (they vote against Republicans). Ex-con voting is a similar issue.
Finally, this is allegedly a democracy, not Plato's republic. We are not supposed to decide that a few men in their infinite wisdom know best.
John
http://www.haberarts.com/
August 17, 2007 11:38 AM | Reply | Permalink
The Constitution has "Each State shall appoint, in such Manner as the Legislature thereof may direct. . . " And the states do currently vary in how they name electors. So the only challenge I can think is that the state's voters, through a referendum, are taking power from the state legislature unlawfully. You sure that's a case?
John
http://www.haberarts.com/
August 17, 2007 2:02 PM | Reply | Permalink
I am demonstrating that I'm a fool, no angel as illiterate on this subject would rush in to tread on this one. I think that this needs to be taken in the context of what the word "appoint" meant back in the late 1800s... we'd probably use "name" now. This would be something a little different from how they were selected or elected. And all of this would be qualified by amendments 13, 14, and 15...probably all of which were violated by Scalia, Bush and What's her name, the Secretary of State thingy, oh yes, Harris.
I don't think, for example, if a state decided to "appoint" electors by throwing darts at the phone book or using a lottery or every 13th person with the middle name of Fred or Frederica, such a method would pass Constitutional Muster. It might get us a few better electors, however. <snicker></snicker> There are some Constitutional restrictions on who may be named...no federal officers, representatives, senators, as I recall. I don't think pets are allowed, though again, that might raise the pool of electors some.
While I was thinking about this, I wondered if I knew any of the Rhode Island electors from 2004... or if I could find them. I could, though it wasn't intuitive. And when I did find them, they were all nonentities.
Here's the source, if you want to see who your nonentities are. <grin></grin> Electoral College Members 2004 version. The certificates of attainment give the names of those competing for the college. Strikes me these are not the wise men envisioned by the Founding Fathers.
I can take comfort in saying, however, that I didn't elect Bush.
Evan Lips of North Dakota Did. I'm tempted to say "loose lips sink ships" but I won't (except that I did). Then I found this little tidbit:
So I guess I call up Jackie to complain instead of Evan (who in fact may be dead at the age of 86... or maybe it was Evan W. his son who was the elector... oh well).
aMike
August 17, 2007 9:29 PM | Reply | Permalink
I'm not a Constitutional lawyer. Actually, I hate to admit it, or maybe I should be proud to proclaim it (???) I'm not a lawyer of any kind. That is something I see as an advantage when debating constitutional law.
So, back to the debate, assuming I can remember what it was about. The problems with how we select a president are all due to the writers of the Constitution fearing that common people, like California voters, would lack the ordinary good sense required to select a president. (Events have proven them to be prescient in their fear, but forget that for a moment.) So, they instead set up a system where trustworthy, property owning, dependable sober men would make that choice. Then, to be sure that those men owning massive pieces of land wouldn't have their choices diluted by men owning only small pieces of land, they set up a "some men, more votes" system for selecting the president, and called it an "electoral college".
So, my point is,.....damn, I forgot the subject of the debate again!
Hoppy in Sacramento
August 18, 2007 11:03 AM | Reply | Permalink
Brilliant. I'm still chuckling. I'm glad you're around, Hoppy.
aMike
August 18, 2007 10:40 PM | Reply | Permalink
"John and amike - This party would not be complete without Florida voters." No party is complete. In fact, I'm thinking of having Jeb and Ms. Harris over this evening. Scalia's coming, too.
John
http://www.haberarts.com/
August 17, 2007 4:31 PM | Reply | Permalink
<chortle></chortle>
aMike
August 17, 2007 8:25 PM | Reply | Permalink
We need to make room for one more from the Florida contingent. A state representative, Bob Allen (R-Titusville), was arrested in a public restroom after he offered another man $20.00 and oral sex. Unfortunately for Rep. Allen, who at the time was also McCain's state chair, the other man was a cop.
The novel aspect of this story came two weeks later when Rep. Allen went public with his denial of the obvious.
From the state that brought you Katherine Harris and Mark Foley...
The worst thing you can do to a dogma is give it an empire. Anon
August 18, 2007 1:47 AM | Reply | Permalink
I would have a case against throwing darts, but I'd base it on the Civil War amendments, I think. If California voters don't have a say, while other states do, then there's a one man one vote problem.
John
http://www.haberarts.com/
August 18, 2007 8:24 AM | Reply | Permalink
What's interesting to me about this is that this system is in place in Maine and partly in place in Nebraska. But because those districts aren't gerrymandered, it hasn't had an effect.
This guy has a better idea. Instruct the state's electors to vote for the guy who wins the national popular vote.
August 18, 2007 11:46 AM | Reply | Permalink
Hertzberg's note in the New Yorker that started this thread provides some information some of you are not aware of. One point in particular is that the referendum will be voted on the Tuesday after the first Monday in June, in an election that has no other interest. So the inveterate voters (Republicans) will vote as usual, and the Democratic turn-out will be way down.
This is a slam-dunk for the GOP unless some serious money is spent during the next nine months.
August 23, 2007 11:11 AM | Reply | Permalink