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.
Joe Gandelman is a former fulltime journalist who freelanced in India, Spain, Bangladesh and Cypress writing for publications such as the Christian Science Monitor and Newsweek. He also did radio reports from Madrid for NPR’s All Things Considered. He has worked on two U.S. newspapers and quit the news biz in 1990 to go into entertainment. He also has written for The Week and several online publications, did a column for Cagle Cartoons Syndicate and has appeared on CNN.