The Next California GOP Attack on Democracy: California's Electoral College Votes

[courtesy of The California Majority Report]

What's the sleeper issue in next year's June blockbuster election? If you ask me, it's an initiative in the works by right-wing Republicans to steal a chunk of California's electoral votes.
 
As this excellent piece in The New Yorker tells it, the initiative would split California's 55 winner-take-all electoral college votes. It would award electoral college votes to the winner of each Congressional district. The extra two would go to the overall winner in the state.
 
Since Bush carried 22 districts in 2004, that means Republicans would have gotten the equivalent of a Pennsylvania or Illinois in the form of California's electoral votes.
 
The initiative's sponsor is an outfit called "Californians for Equal Representation." But as the article points out, the force behind it is Thomas Hiltachk, Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger's top election lawyer hack. Hiltachk has masterminded a variety of anti-union initiatives in the past, fought campaign finance laws, and helped with the recall that propelled Schwarzenegger to office.
 
The argument for the initiative likely will be based on "fairness" and an attack on the unpopular electoral college. After all, if the Republican candidate wins 22 districts, shouldn't they get 22 votes? And heck, isn't the electoral college an institution that needs to go?
 
Not so fast.

There's more...

Image courtesy New York Times.