Comments (25)

Carolyn wrote on December 7, 2007 6:24 PM:

Geez. I'm starting to believe there IS a god. Something the repubs couldn't find a way to steal?

Joe Bonham wrote on December 7, 2007 6:43 PM:

What this translates out to is...

We got the fix set up with the machines again. Don't need to waste the money.

Bushie wrote on December 7, 2007 6:44 PM:

Gosh; this is the second time this group folded withing three months. Chop its head off and two more take its place.

Mary wrote on December 7, 2007 8:06 PM:

But not dead and gone. The San Diego Union-Tribune this morning ran an article that indicates that the backers intend to try to qualify this proposition for the Nov. ballot and then use it to apply to the Nov. election.

Samsara wrote on December 7, 2007 9:30 PM:

Republicans don’t quit when it comes to stealing elections.

RepubAnon wrote on December 7, 2007 10:22 PM:

We need to make sure these folks get indicted for their clever "to qualify the cancer victim initiative for the ballot, you need to sign in 4 places" scam, where one of the other 3 petitions was the "California-only" electoral college initiative.

If we let down our guard, it wouldn't at all surprise me to see them suddenly change course and try another stealth signature campaign...

Perfidius wrote on December 7, 2007 10:50 PM:

A snoozer!

The constitution gives these powers to the legislatures of the states alone.

Why does no one point this stuff out?

Scy wrote on December 7, 2007 11:51 PM:

Perfidius is absolutely correct. This would never survive a court challenge even IF it passed. It's unconstitutional.

Carolyn wrote on December 8, 2007 1:31 AM:

Thanks Perfidius, Scy. maybe there is no god, BUT there's a constitution! Even better.

txgirl wrote on December 8, 2007 1:45 AM:

>This would never survive a court challenge even IF it passed. It's unconstitutional.
i don't think they give a rat's a** whether it's unconstitutional or not. it's never stopped them before.

it's my understanding that since the electors don't meet until early january, and the initiative (if passed) would come into force on january 1, it is entirely conceivable that the backers would argue it should apply to the Nov 2008 election -- and then it would of course be argued all the way to the Supreme Court, and...well, we've seen this movie before.

Hopefully the voters of California see through this craven political ploy. we will likely have to keep an eye out for it to pop up over and over again. it's the beast that would not die.

but, hey, a lot of lawyers are going to make a lot of money.

Kibitzer 2006 wrote on December 8, 2007 3:52 AM:

Glad though I am that it failed, it's a little sad that the real reason it failed was that: "[the bakers] conceded that they were unable to raise sufficient funds."

--Kibitzer

freepatriot wrote on December 8, 2007 4:29 AM:

sorry, perfidus AIN'T correct

"The constitution gives these powers to the legislatures of the states alone."

geez, I guess you didn't understand that each State also has it's own Constitution as well

and according to the Constitution of the State Of California, we the People of the State of California, have the right to place infinitives on the ballot directly

so I guess your gonna have to rethink that whole "Unconstitutional" argument, huh ???

parrot wrote on December 8, 2007 4:38 AM:

How come I don't feel sad about Guiliani's bid to waterdown California's electoral power?

carwinrpc wrote on December 8, 2007 9:19 AM:

The issue about the Constitution would come down to whether the courts recognize this sort of initiative as equivalent to having come from the legislature. I have no idea of the answer to that, and given the current Supreme Court, I have no doubt that they'd find a way to uphold any outcome favorable to the Republicans. But freepatriot's condescending gloating aside, this doesn't seem to me to be obvious either way.

carwinrpc wrote on December 8, 2007 9:19 AM:

The issue about the Constitution would come down to whether the courts recognize this sort of initiative as equivalent to having come from the legislature. I have no idea of the answer to that, and given the current Supreme Court, I have no doubt that they'd find a way to uphold any outcome favorable to the Republicans. But freepatriot's condescending gloating aside, this doesn't seem to me to be obvious either way.

Slippery Slope wrote on December 8, 2007 10:55 AM:

So why doesn't someone start a drive to do the same thing in Texas?

Beau (D) wrote on December 8, 2007 12:57 PM:

Slippery Slope has a good point. If Republic (if they can call us Democrat I can call them Republic) then they would be make this move in a Red state and not a Blue state.

I favor the idea of the initiative but not until it is applied nationally. Anything else is just partisan politics.

P.S. I am a California Voter.

Skepti Cal Voter wrote on December 8, 2007 1:31 PM:

Perhaps they realized that passing it in June would provide enough time to challenge it effectively in court before the November presidential election.

By waiting until November, they can play to the same kind of pressure on the judiciary that played in Bush v. Gore. The statements might go something like this, "The people of the State of California expressed a clear desire to distribute electoral votes in what they perceive to be a more fair manner. At a moment of such criticality to the nation, we are loathe to override the clear intent of the people. The electoral votes shall be distributed according to the enrolled language of the proposition."

R Johnston wrote on December 8, 2007 10:31 PM:

Sometimes lawyers tell the truth and it's a good thing. They step in and tell initiative backers that if they knowingly submit thousands upon thousands of fraudulently obtained signatures in an effort to get an initiative on the ballot that those backers will end up in prison for a long, long time. The fraudulent signatures are withdrawn and the idiotic initiative is suddenly dead in the water.

I seriously doubt this was a money issue as being claimed, because the legal issue is just so bloody obvious.

Calif Voter wrote on December 9, 2007 2:30 PM:

I have NO doubt this isn't over yet and, given all the political connections involved in this initiative effort, I'm not holding my breath on a positive outcome until November.

By the way, not sure if some of you have seen this ....

http://www.wikio.com/news/Kevin+Eckery\

Issa needs to be dumped too.

Captain Nemo wrote on December 9, 2007 8:51 PM:

The Republican attempt to unilaterally change the rules in California rightfully goes down to defeat.

But one problem with the current political system is the duopoly of the Republicans and Democrats. With only two parties, many voters are forced to vote for "the lesser of two evils".

Could the country function with multiple parties, not 2, or 3, but 5 or 6? Multiple parties are common in many European countries, and are a normal part of a Parliamentary system.

If Congress consisted of 5 or 6 parties, there would have to be a lot of negotiating, and coalition building, to obtain a consensus. Congress would not be under the control of a single party. All the current rules in Congress would have to be rewritten, not a bad thing in itself.

How would the election for President work? The original formulation of the Electoral College, as framed in the Constitution, provides for the DIRECT election of the President by the people.

If there were several parties, the people would choose the Electors of the Electoral College directly to represent them, and then the bargaining and coalition building would begin. The Electors, who represent the multi-faceted electorate, would convene just after the November election, and make a decision by, say, January 1. Then multiple points of view could be included in the selection of the President.

This would of course be violently opposed by the current Duopoly. But the Democrats and Republicans together have handed us a 9 trillion dollar debt, denied us health care, gotten us into two, if not three, disastrous wars, have formulated no sensible energy policy, and put 4 Catholic men onto the Supreme Court in order to stop abortion.
They have also turned the country over to the Corporations, who regularly finance both parties.

Isn't it time to start seriously thinking about multiple parties in U.S. politics? The present two party system is not working.

bnb wrote on December 10, 2007 1:33 AM:

Would have been nice to have a national discussion of the horrible electoral college.

Phoenix Woman wrote on December 10, 2007 9:22 AM:

The thing is that once they were caught fraudulently obtaining signatures -- and it must have been widespread, as they'd claimed before the fraud was caught that they'd had enough or nearly enough signatures to qualify, so a goodly number must have been found to be nabbed under false pretenses -- they had to start spending money on lawyers instead of on signature gatherers. Plus, the bad odor this thing's now emitting is keeping the Usual Suspects from coughing up any more dough. (This probably won't last: It's too important for the GOP to let die without exhausting every avenue of appeal, though if more sleaze gets revealed the Republicans may be compelled to distance themselves from it anyway.)

As for trying to get on (and apply to) the November ballot: That's a rather tall order. The June ballot was the preferred target as it's going to have much lower turnout than the November one, and Republicans like to place their pet bills up for a vote during low-turnout elections as their base votes more readily than does the Democratic base. But presidential elections have the highest turnout of all, which is not an ideal scenario for this sort of measure.

heretic wrote on December 10, 2007 12:32 PM:

With regard to state versus federal constitution, CA does indeed have the right to pass laws via initiative referendum. However, I do not believe they can pass laws that violate the federal constitution. States are only allowed free reign in areas not defined for them by the federal constitution. The federal constitution puts very few limits on states, but one of them is that the allocation of electors is determined by the state legislature. It took an amendment to the constitution to allow voters to directly elect senators (who were formerly chosen by the legislatures of each state). States were not free to make this decision themselves. This seems a pretty analogous situation. Thus, my sense is that Perfidius is correct.

Dan wrote on December 10, 2007 1:19 PM:

1. If the Republicans could have succeeded with "more moeny" then there is definitely something wrong with the system.
2. Captain Nemo is right (see above)