Doesn't matter who our nominee is - if this CA. initiative isn't defeated NO Dem. can win

This initiative, dead a few weeks ago, is back & gaining strength...No Democrat can win in 2008 if CA. is the only state to split its electoral votes!......

Legal challenge on electoral change
Democrats say initiative violates U.S. Constitution and vow a suit to fight it.
By Kevin Yamamura - kyamamura@sacbee.com
Last Updated 12:00 am PDT Friday, November 2, 2007
Story appeared in MAIN NEWS section, Page A4
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California Democratic Party Chairman Art Torres vowed Thursday to challenge a proposed initiative to change how the state's electoral votes are counted if it qualifies for the ballot.

Torres insisted the initiative would be illegal because the U.S. Constitution gives state legislatures the power to determine their presidential electors. The proposal being circulated by Republican consultants would assign California's electors on a district-by-district basis rather than award the statewide winner all 55 electoral votes.

"(The Constitution) states very unequivocally in my mind that the state legislatures determine how electoral votes are counted, not the people or an initiative process, which is not even mentioned when the framers wrote the Constitution," Torres said. "That has never been tested from what I can tell. We plan to test it."

Democrats have charged that the initiative is a ploy to ensure Republicans obtain 20 or more electoral votes next year in California, a state that no GOP presidential candidate has won since George H.W. Bush in 1988. But Republicans behind the initiative said it would force presidential candidates to visit California more often and give GOP voters here more say in the presidential outcome.

Dave Gilliard, a Republican consultant spearheading the initiative effort, said he believes the ballot proposal is constitutional.

"The lawyers who looked at it for us think it's perfectly fine in California because under our initiative process, basically the people are the Legislature," Gilliard said. "We're not worried about that."

Only two other states, Maine and Nebraska, allocate electoral votes by district. In both cases, state legislatures passed the change.

Richard L. Hasen, a professor specializing in election law at Loyola Law School Los Angeles, said there is no clear answer as to whether the California initiative is constitutional.

He said that if the Constitution's reference to state legislatures is literally interpreted as applying only to legislatures, the initiative would not be legal. But if the Constitution is interpreted as referring to legislative powers – which California gives to the initiative process – then it would be legal.

"It is an exceedingly difficult constitutional question," Hasen said. "There are arguments on both sides, and it's not clear how the courts will resolve it. ... The bottom line is, this is not an easy question. For Democrats to say, of course this isn't constitutional, and for Republicans to say, of course this is constitutional, is just spin."

Torres spoke Thursday at a Capitol news conference in which he raised questions about signature-gathering techniques used by Arno Political Consultants, the Sacramento-based firm working for Gilliard. Torres was joined by Kristina Wilfore, executive director of the Ballot Initiative Strategy Center, a national group backed partly by labor unions that released a 63-page report Thursday accusing Arno of past petition abuses.

Wilfore and Torres have asked Attorney General Jerry Brown to scrutinize Arno's methods. Brown's office did not return a call Thursday. Torres said the Democratic Party fielded complaints last week that petitioners tried to fool voters into signing the Electoral College initiative, a misdemeanor under state law.

Michael Arno, the firm's president, denied wrongdoing and said his firm is not under investigation in California or any other state. He also said BISC's report was politically calculated.

"The allegations made by this partisan organization are unfounded and are being made to score political points and done with malice," Arno said in a statement.

Initiative proponents need about 700,000 signatures to have confidence their proposal will qualify for the ballot.

They can use 100,000 signatures collected from a previous effort that disbanded in September. Arno estimated that proponents collected 150,000 signatures last week and expect to collect more than that this week.

Arno acknowledged Thursday he made an "adjustment" Wednesday to slow down petition gatherers because the signatures are coming in faster than expected.

Gilliard said he and Arno agreed to lower the price paid per signature to conserve money for now.

"The funds are coming in at the pace we thought they would, but the signatures are coming in faster," Gilliard said.

1) Article ll Section l of the Constitution clearly states that the legislatures of the respective states gets to say how Electors are chosen...


2) What if the Secretary of State refuses to certify the results on her own advice or the advice of the Attorney General that it is unconstitutional... Would they then have to start an initiate to recall him or her?

games? WE will see.

Lying, cheating, stealing ... it's the Republican way of doing things