California's June 3rd election could be the most important of 2008

If you think that the most important election of 2008 is for the new president of the United States, then you may want to pay attention to California's primary on June 3rd. That's not the day California will hold their presidential primaries. It's the day that an initiative may be on the ballot to change the way California apportions its electoral votes in the general election for president. Right now, as with the overwhelming majority of states, the recipient of all of California's electoral votes is the winner of the popular vote within California. Initiative # 07-0032, the Presidential Election Reform Act, would instead apportion California's electoral votes by the winner of each congressional district, with the remaining two going to the winner of the popular vote. The most likely practical effect of this change is that the Republican nominee for president will receive a bump of about 20 electoral votes. If this had been the case in 2000, then we wouldn't have had Bush v. Gore decided by 9 judges in D.C. and no one would have had to pay much attention to Ohio in 2004.

I am all for reform of the Electoral College, or more precisely for its elimination entirely. It apportions votes in a "winner-takes-all" manner that ascribes greater value to the votes of persons in states with smaller populations or lower turnouts. However, the proponents of this initiative can't argue it's about changing the system to make it more fair, because it doesn't fundamentally change the methodology of how votes are distributed. There would still be a "winner-takes-all" system; it would just be at the district level instead of the state level.

I'm not sure the backers of this initiative are making the fairness argument though, at least not the one I would make. While the "organization" backing it is called Californians for Equal Representation, their mailing address leads back to the law firm that represents the California Republican Party. And the spokesman for this organization seems to be focusing on how this is more "fair" to Californians, because it will encourage candidates to campaign in the state instead of taking for granted what the result will be. However, this claim doesn't hold up to scrutiny either. The problem with that argument is that because of gerrymandering, almost none of the districts are competitive. Of the fifty-three 2006 U.S. House races in California, a whopping three had a less than 10% margin of victory, and only one had a less than 5% margin. I'd surmise that about 50 (or over 94%) of those districts still won't get much attention. Sooo...what this all boils down to is the Republicans wanting about 20 more electoral votes than they would likely get otherwise, which may be just what they need to get the presidency. Since Californians for Equal Representation's spokesman said the "...backers want to create a better democracy," I wonder if they'll help fund a similar initiative in a nice big red state like Texas. Or perhaps they'll lobby on behalf of the measure being pushed in the Democratically-controlled North Carolina legislature to do the same thing, except North Carolina has also been red in presidential elections for the last 30 years.

As I said before, I'd support Electoral College reform, but I don't think it should be done in a way that is clearly geared towards helping one of the political parties. After all, President Bush would still be in office if there had been no Electoral College in 2004, but an individual's vote in California would have carried the same weight as one in Ohio.