Giuliani Fundraiser Was Behind Collapsed Effort To Change California’s Electoral College Process
So who was behind the GOP effort that recently collapsed to pass an initiative that would make California’s votes be distributed via proportional representation rather than the more traditional winner-take-all method?
According to the Los Angeles Times, it was a prominent backer and bank-roller of former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani:
A close friend and major fundraiser of former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani has identified himself as the mystery financer of the proposed California initiative to apportion the state’s 55 electoral votes by congressional district instead of winner-take-all.
He is New York hedge fund billionaire Paul Singer. He said he provided the $175,000 to initially finance the petition drive to get the measure on the June 2008 ballot. But as The Times’ Dan Morain revealed in an exclusive story on this website last night, the drive has foundered on internal disputes and lack of further financing.
Here in California, expect this to be a story with “legs.” And it will not be something that will look good for Giuliani or the Republicans because it seemingly underscores what Democrats and those critical of the plan have said from the outset: this did not seem to be a plan to make for more effective government, but to bring to power one party in government by instituting this only in California — not demanding it in states such as Ohio, Florida, Texas and others. MORE:
The petition drive’s backers had remained a mystery since the effort was first revealed here in a July Top of the Ticket item. Democratic critics portrayed it as a power grab to wrest away some of the state’s electoral votes, which have all gone to the Democratic candidates for the past four presidential elections. Some 19 of the state’s 53 congressional districts would seem likely to vote for a GOP presidential candidate, enough to swing some recent national elections.
The Giuliani response is predictable:
A Giuliani campaign spokeswoman, Maria Comella, said today that Singer’s donation “was completely independent from our campaign.”
That kind of explanation will not be accepted at face value by many voters, unless they believe furry bunnies hide painted eggs in their houses on Easter Sunday. These are the days of government credibility gaps. There have been too many stories in the past decades of dirty tricks and the use of the phrase “plausible deniability” in news stories and in popular culture, such as films.
Singer oversees Elliott Associates, an $8 billion investment fund. He is also chairman of Giuliani’s northeast fundraising operation that produced a third of the New Yorker’s $33.5 million campaign war chest in the first six months of 2007. Singer and his employees have donated at least $182,000 to the Giuliani campaign so far this year.
“I made the contribution without any restrictions,” Singer’s statement said. Some Democrats have threatened legal action, complaining that federal campaign finance laws were violated if the Giuliani campaign was involved.
Tonight, Howard Dean, chairman of the Democratic National Committee, issued a statement demanding to know “the truth about Rudy’s involvement in and knowledge about this shameful effort to disenfranchise voters.”
The problem for Giuliani: it won’t just be Howard Dean and the DNC that will be pressing this. But the L.A. Times now has a red hot, story that it broke and developed. Other outlets will want to do their own or find new twists. And Times editors will legitimately ask their reporters if there is more to learn — and see if they can track down how this idea came about, whose idea it was, and who signed-off on it.
The only certainty: it was not an initiative brought about by high-minded citizens who sought more effective elections for California.
See our earlier post HERE which also notes that Democrats also sought this unsuccessfully in one state (but didn’t try to do it in Massachusetts, New York or New Jersey).
UPDATE: The San Francisco Chronicle did some work on this story as well:
The Chronicle reported earlier this week that Missouri-based attorney Charles Hurtt III was the legal agent for a tax-exempt corporation called “Take Initiative America,” which provided the sole donation – $175,000 – into the effort to qualify the measure for the California ballot.
But Hurtt and his organization would not reveal the source of their money – even as Democrats in California threatened legal action and charged the GOP-backed effort smacked of money laundering. They suggested there were numerous links between the ballot effort and the Giuliani campaign, and challenged the former New York mayor’s campaign aides to reveal where the money originated.
Giuliani spokesman Jarrod Agen told the Chronicle earlier this week “we are absolutely not involved in that effort. We’ll play by whatever the rules that Californians decide are in their best interest.”
The Presidential Election Reform Act would have changed the winner-take-all election rules for the 55 electoral votes in Democratic-leaning California. It would have required the electoral votes to be distributed based on the popular vote winner in each individual congressional district. Many political observers said that would likely have provided an unexpected windfall for Republicans – perhaps as many electoral votes as could be gained in a major state such as Ohio or Pennsylvania – and possibly changed the outcome of the 2008 presidential election.
PREDICTION: This story will NOT play well with Californians for the GOP or Giuliani and will not advance the state Republican Party’s chances during Election Day. And, as noted, it will NOT play well with independent voters and make Giuliani and the Republicans more endearing to them. Just watch upcoming polls.
18 Responses to “Giuliani Fundraiser Was Behind Collapsed Effort To Change California’s Electoral College Process”
[...] an interesting post today on Giuliani Fundraiser Was Behind Collapsed Effort To Change …Here’s a quick [...]
For me, the most interesting part of the story was that this is another example of how the meaning of state initiatives and state laws has been obfuscated and twisted..
Much like out-of-state developers finance ‘public’ proposition drives in a state where they currently neither live nor operate, out-of-state politiacal operatives back pollcy initiatives.
It’s hard to tell what states rights or state laws mean anyomore.
Considering the issue in California forced the Democratic governor of North Carolina to drop the idea in his state, I wold say that it was more of a draw than a Democratic win. However, since moveon.org or media matters did not but out an activist alert about the issue in North Carolina, I guess that very few liberals would even know about it.
Since the Repubican Party in California is irrelevant to the political process and will never be the majority party again, the effect of the initiative in California is also irrelevant. Of course, this means that neither party will spend a single dollar during the 2008 election in California because it is an automatic win for the Democratic Party.
[...] You can read the rest of this blog post by going to the original source, here [...]
[...] Joe Gandelman, who lives in California, believes that Giuliani may be in trouble: this issue isn’t going to go away like that. Not only will Democrats “press” this issue, the media smell blood as well. Furthermore, according to Joe, Californians, not just Democrats but also Independents, will not take this lightly. They’ll jump to conclusions and blame Giuliani of… of what exactly, I’m not sure since I don’t quite see how Democrats and indepdents can oppose a proposal that Democratizes America more. [...]
“don’t quite see how Democrats and indepdents can oppose a proposal that Democratizes America more.”
kind of like “support the troops”, right? – let’s try and rig the rules of an election and call it democracy!! brilliant logic!
I think proportional distribution of electoral votes really is a good idea, but it needs to be done in all states, preferably all at once.
This “revelation” probably didn’t surprise anyone. I don’t think anyone awake really ever though the proposal was really a disinterested move. If the democrats did it in Texas they would be accurately accused of wanting it only for their own gain.
Parties wanting the best for their party and not necessarily the best for the country….yeah BIG surprise.
It’s a “so what” partisan fever-swamp scream issue. It’ll generate a lot of faux outrage from waving it at the base, but there was nothing illegal about it and none of the GOP candidates were going to take California anyway. Nor would it have passed had it gotten on the ballot.
Just like the previous California Democrat’s proposal to award all of the state’s electoral votes to the national popular vote leader regardless of the Claifornia winner, or the Colorado Democrat’s attempt with Amendment 36 to award their votes based on the proportional results of the state, this proposal was a non-starter at the polls.
I’d love to see Joe’s headline style translated over to the Hsu affair. “Hillary/Obama Fundraiser Behind $70 million Pyramid Scam!” Have fun with it.
Apologies for the double-post, feel free to delete the one with typos…
I said the one with the typos! Ah, well. *I* know how to spell California, but my fingers don’t.
I actually like the proportional distribution idea but also agree that it’s one of those ideas that would need to be implemented on a national level instead of state by state if it’s going to be fair to all the voters and both parties.
Now I see how it works. George Soros can spend his money to influence public opinion, but this Singer fellow can’t.
Which proportional distribution idea, Jim? The electoral-college-votes-by-district, or the electoral-college-votes-by-share-of-total-vote-returns?
Neither can be implemented on a national level save by Constitutional amendment, which isn’t going to happen. Any state legislature that wishes could implement either on their own. (Indeed, both Maine and Nebraska have already done so, awarding the Senate EC votes to the state winner, and the House EC votes to the district winners.)
The thing people like to ignore is that we don’t really vote for President. States vote for President, by constitutional design. What we vote on is who to tell the state EC delegation to vote for. The Founder’s reasons for that layered construction remain valid–namely, to help keep the more populous states from riding roughshod over the less populous ones.
But how to select those state delegates to the EC remains the exclusive right of the state legislature, per Article II, § 1 of the Constitution. The only way to change that from the national level is to change the Constitution. Otherwise it’s state by state or not at all.
So, the Democrats did it too. Not a surprise.
Unless a mind reader is doing the analysis, there is no way to distinguish betwee real and ‘faux outrage,
and judgments like that seem rather ‘faux’ in themselves. There may just be folks who feel real outrage at both political moves.
The disgutst with minipulation by refistricting, for example, is beginning to get a lot of criticism from
Citizen groups independent of political parties.
In this case, it’s legimiate to ask is it’s oksy
for out-of-state entities to be on the steering
committe of in-state initiatives?
What if a private zillionaire from Floriada bankrolls a campaign to change state law in Oregon? Shouldn’t that be a factor for consideration?
What I would like is for all 50 states to work together to come up with a method they could all agree on, Tully. I know that the current design is that it is the states, not the populace that votes. I think it’s time that it was changed to whatever degree is possible.
Since it’s true that states vote, not the populace, then it follows logically that the votes should not be split up unless the state is plit in two.
What do 100 electorate votes for a national candidate mean anymore if some of them represent one thing and some of them represent something else?
That some states got away with doing this just shows hoe the letter of the law can be used to twist the meaning of the law. It woudl be a bad mistake, IMo, to have a mish-masy of rules among the states allowing variously defined electorate votes determine the final tally.,
If there is to be a change, it should be a uniform change for all states. Then, at leat, we would know want ‘elecotorate vote’ means.
I really am getting tires of the ‘it’s not illegal’ argument. ‘Not illegal ; no more represents what is right, true or best that ‘no evidence’ does.
Legalese is used as often ot obfuscate a principle as to clarify it.
This shouldn’t be a partisan issue, but one of principle.
What I would like is for all 50 states to work together to come up with a method they could all agree on, Tully.
Which can only be done through the amendment process, unless they all spontaneously decide to go with one of the other means of assigning EC votes available to them. Like Maine and Nebraska have.
I know that the current design is that it is the states, not the populace that votes. I think it’s time that it was changed to whatever degree is possible.
What most people who want to change the system overall (as compared to just changing one or two of the bigger states to favor their party) desire is to shift the presidential electoral system partially or wholly to a direct-popular-election model. Which means a very fundamental change in our two-century-plus system of federal government, one that would diminish the power of both the state legislatures and that of all but the few largest states. Namely a change from a federal republic to a direct democracy.
Which is why it won’t happen. It would disadvantage more states than it would advantage, and the power to make the changes is entirely in the hands of the state legislatures. Which was the purpose of setting it up that way in the first place, to keep the few and the large from imposing their will on the many and the small. Kinda like the Bill of Rights, that.
That reasoning still applies, even if the particulars have changed over the last couple of hundred years. To protect the “little guys” in the community of states, and to impede the tendency of direct democracies to stampede about with the passions of the moment. Like, say, France after the 1789 revolution.
Just because the current system is messy doesn’t mean that the alternatives might not be worse.