G.O.P. Electoral Vote Scheme Blows Up – Spreading Egg All Over Faces of Republican Operatives, Shills

[courtesy of California Progress Report]

By Bill Cavala
A veteran of over 30 years in Sacramento

Willie Brown used to say that Republicans could screw up a one car funeral. Their latest scheme to steal the Presidency (once again) just blew up in their collective faces.

Here was the plan. Since the distribution of California’s electoral votes is done along California statutory lines, G.O.P. operatives could change California’s law by initiative to eliminate the ‘winner take all’ result in place for generations and substituting winner-by-Congressional district. Instead of no votes, the Republican Presidential candidate would get at least 40%. That’s enough to swing a close election decisively to the Republican.

The plan was to change the rules of the game here in California while leaving winner take all outcomes in the 11 states of the old Confederacy.

Pretty clever, no?

Mavens like Dan Walters thought it a “fair” reform. Of course, any change in the rules that favors the Republicans is a “reform”. In any case, it could be used by the Republicans as leverage to force changes in California’s redistricting laws. Or at least it would cost Democrats a lot of money to restore the status quo.

But there were some problems.

First, the lawyer fronting the plan was from an obscure small town in the Midwest. His bio included a beef involving allegations that he bit a woman in the buttocks (!)

Second, the $175,000 put into the scheme wasn’t disclosed. Now that was bright.
Just as Hillary Clinton stumbles over the involvement of a fundraiser with a criminal background, the GOP decides to publicize their own mistakes by hiding a $175,000 donor. (Was it the mafia? Red China?). After days of bad press, it turns out to be a Guliani fat cat ostensibly acting on his own – who somehow found this obscure attorney in the Midwest who arranged to submit the plan for title and summary here in California.

Hmmm.

Third, these operatives forgot that Jerry Brown does “title and summary” for ballot measures. Remember Jerry Brown? He’s the guy who emphasized that the term limit reform measure punishes politicians by limiting their total take in the Legislature – rather than emphasizing the fact that it provides more time in each House than does current law.