Tom Hiltachk could not have been surprised with the shrieks coming from the California political ruling class, when he filed his Electoral College reform Initiative last week. The initiative would eliminate the "winner take all" rule that gives all 55 California electoral votes to the winner. 

Republicans and democrats both eliminated the winner take all rule for Presidential Primaries. Reasoning that to have a powerful campaign in California you needed retail politics in each congressional district. Since 1992,  California has not had a serious Presidential campaign. We were ignored. All that voters for both parties were supposed to do was to give money to influence Iowa and Ohio. 

California for Equal Representations (CER) will blow up the rules. Candidates who want California electoral votes will have to campaign in all 53 congressional districts. California will once again become the battleground state, as it has been since Lincoln was elected in 1860. 

Hiltachk typically is closed mouth. He won’t divulge his donors or his strategies or who he is working for. Still, it is now public knowledge that the Governor’s chief fundraiser, Marty Wilson is leading the effort to finance the campaign. 

Who knows who are the major backers?

Democrat consultant, Chris Lehane argues  this will "guarantee" Republican control over the White House if  voters approve the initiative on the June 5 primary. Interesting that Chris would have a problem with congressional districts his party gerrymandered in 2001. Maybe he ought to reconsider how they gerrymander in the future. 

Politically, there isn’t much more important than electing a US President. My guess is that voters will like reform initiative. Why not use the same system both parties already use in selecting nominees?  Clearly, populist democrats will be put on the spot on this initiative. Do they vote for expanded democracy or merely keep the status quo? 

You can bet the growing independent DTS voters will like this.

The Attorney General is expected to return the Title and Summary by September 5th. CER will have 5 months to collect only 433,971 signatures.  CER expects to get 750,000 good signatures by Christmas in plenty of time to quality for June.

Once again we have our great republican Governor Hiram Johnson [1910 -1916 – pictured above, working in his office] to thank for introducing the initiative to California voters. Rulers hate change that threaten their castles.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, August 8th, 2007 at 12:00 am and is filed under Blog Posts.