Democrats fight GOP scheme to steal votes in CA

[fedupfisherman]

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/blogs/sfgate/detail?blogid=14&entry_id=20449

[rusty quoin]

1. My understanding of this is,

if passed in CA, bad for Democrats. If passed in every state, good for Democrats. I like democracy, but this stinks like Delay's redistricting.

[fedupfisherman]

2. I have heard the Democrats in North Carolina are trying the same thing

I don't think the Democrats should do it either.

[Warren DeMontague]

5. I read they backed off in North Carolina, and good on 'em.

Either it's done everywhere, or it's done nowhere AFAIC. Bullshit on trying to break up the biggest Democratic Electoral Powerhouse state.

And frankly, if we're so concerned about fairness in governance, while we're at it we should change the structure of the United States Senate, so 400,000 Wyoming Residents don't control the same 1/50th percent of the Senate as 33 Million Californians.

[madfloridian]

11. Dean told NC that they could not fight CA doing it if NC did it.

Do it all at one time or not at all.

[madfloridian]

3. Here's a very good explanation...Video. Dean and others.

http://abclocal.go.com/kgo/story?section=politics&id=5666088

"This isn't about good government or reform. It's just about plain old partisan politics," said Howard Dean, Democratic Party Chairman.

Dean joined local Democratic leaders to condemn the proposed ballot measure.

"We all want reform, but if you reform one state at a time and you start with a Democratic state -- look, if they were doing Texas and Florida at the same time, we wouldn't be having this press conference," said Dean. Dean told reporters if it's good for California, it ought to be good for a red state like Texas.

But when I asked the spokesman for "Californians for Equal Representation" if he would endorse a similar ballot measure for Texas, he said he wouldn't

"No. Texas can do whatever Texas wants to do," said Eckery.

But in the spirit of fairness, wouldn't it be more fair to change the system for both a big red and a big blue state, I asked.

"What good would it do to talk about hypothetical initiatives in other states? We're from California. We're doing a California initiative. I'm not going to go telling other states what to do," said Eckery."

[fedupfisherman]

4. Thanks

n/t

[Warren DeMontague]

6. The good news is, Californians don't tend to fall for their bullshit.

The Republicans here are a bunch of anti-choice, anti-contraception, frothing at the mouth puritannical fundy fucks, and the majority of the state doesn't want what they're selling. They had to cheat, lie, and engineer a phony energy crisis to get even the most marginal of Republicans into the Governorship, and even he doesn't want anything to do with their idiotic social agenda.

I'm not losing too much sleep over this one- I think it will go down in flames.

[madfloridian]

7. I notice in the video that Arnold is against it.

That's good.

[pinto]

8. Recent polling has CA support for this ploy at a measly 25%, iirc.

I think it was in the Chronicle, I'll look for a citation.

Given the stakes, seems few here want CA to make this jump solo.

[Warren DeMontague]

9. It was Matier & Ross, today I think.

Here you go:

http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2007/09/19/BAVJS8Q77.DTL

[pinto]

10. Ah. Thanks.

:thumbsup:

[Hawaii Hiker]

12. Can you imagine this scenario:

The Democratic candiate wins Ohio or Florida, but since California splits its electoral votes & the Republican candiate loses CA. by 10% or greater, but still picks up 20 or so EV's (the equivalent of winning PA or OH) & the Democrat ends up losing the election because of this f-ing initiative...

That would be worse than the 2000 debacle & 2004 combined....I hope Democrats can defeat this measure & prevent it from ever getting on the ballot...

[Steve_in_California]

13. Schwarzenegger nixed this idea

California's governor said the electoral system must not be changed. The issue is moot.

[pinto]

14. Thanks for the follow up. I agree, it's going nowhere.

[Hawaii Hiker]

15. I hope you're right, but I thought the shady group behind all this,

was in the process of getting the signatures to try to get this garbage initiative on the ballot...

I'll feel better when its defeated outright, if it got on the ballot, then who knows what could happen...