Talk Elections

http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2007/07/31/california-could-sway-2008-race/

Aren´t there more Democratic voters turning out for the CA Primary next year, so that this proposal will be easily defeated ?

I doubt this will pass.

Yeah, Californians are going to vote for such a proposal.

Not going to pass.

I cringe at the thought that anyone would be sufficiently ignorant to believe that the Republican Party leadership is somehow completely uninvolved with a blatant proposal to convenient modify the system in favour of Republicans. Cheap tactics, really. Not particularly subtle either. Nice try, but we aren't passing this rubbish.

I support this being done in all states with over 25 EVs (California, Florida, Texas, New York) just to make it interesting, but I don't support the reasoning for it given by this douche.

Likewise, I support this measure (and intend on voting for it if it comes to the ballot), just as I support the North Carolina measure. However, I don't think they should be done for partisan reasons so much as localizing politics.

As for me, it will have only a small effect. I will go from living in a place that will almost certainly go Democratic to living in a lace that will almost certainly go Republican.

I'd support it.

And not just CA, but every other state as well.

Ford would have won in 1976 had this been in place..

See?  It's a good idea.

Bush would've won by a larger margin in 2000 with this. Do you want it in place in every state with current gerrymandering? Just take a look at Florida or Ohio.

and Michigan, too..
This proposal would basically kill the democratic party because at that point, the dem would have to crack 54% to even come close to winning.

Bad proposal, and I doubt it will pass.

Did Perot win any congressional districts (CA or elsewhere) in '92?

I would support a measure like this nationally if the districts weren't gerrymandered.

If this does make it to the ballot, it should have a qualifier so that it starts in 2012.  That way, all parties have a full term to begin their ground-work operations to prepare for the next election fairly.

Crud. I hope this doesn't pass.

That would be a good thing, as long as it would be done will all states nationwide.

Great proposal. 

I hope it passes.

It beats having California's huge stash of electoral votes being decided by a bunch of San Francisco crack head pot smoking dope addicts every time.

Eh, it doesn't have a chance.

^^^

I think the GOP loses California not because of San Fran but because Southern Cal isn't as Republican friendly as it used to be.

Indeed. The Bay Area and LA county have trended hard left in the 1990's. I mean, LA County's the only thing keeping SoCal from voting Republican.

You remove San Francisco, and California still votes Democrat. Of course you'd rather mindlessly bash San Franciscans.

Just because San Francicso's a liberal place does not mean there all potheads, and that was a bit of an elitist remark, no different from all the Democrats who mock the religious right. San Francisco goes Democrat for many reasons, not the least is it’s large LGBT population who the Republican party has enjoyed pissing off over the years. What real reason do the socially progressive folks in the bay area have to support the GOP?

Still, I only support this passing if the North Carolina measure passes. Tit for Tat then. Either every state does this, or none of them do this.

Crack-head pot-smoking dope addicts.

Damn, that's quite a trifecta.  Are they homos too?  How about baby-killers?

Silly Alcon, they're all the same.  His fingers just got tired typing.

Good grief man, lighten up already!

And MODU, Relucant Republican, and jfern as well.

By the way, I have never ever used, nor would I ever use, the term you just used, to refer to homosexuals and lesbians.

I would be for this... though really all states should go this way anyways (though gerrymandering would HAVE to finally be stopped)

Until the drawing of congressional districts is removed from the hands of partisan hacks I cannot support these types of measures.  I would very much like to support this but gerrymandering is just too great a problem and I'm not sure anything can be done to solve it anymore.

A federal law requiring that all states use the Iowa-and-Minnesota system. if we could get a President elected who thought it important, he or she could get the Senate lockstep on it and probably guilt/threaten the House into passing it.

What is the MN-Iowa system?

I am sure this would be defeated just like the Colorado proposal.
The only way I would support this is if it was passed federally and gerrymandering was stopped.  Otherwise some states deciding to do it this way would favor one party or the other in national races.  Imagine California, New York and Pennsylvania decide to do this, but no large Republican states do, that would obviously help the Republican candidate, or vice versa.
Oh and Maine and Nebraska should stop doing it to.  They are going to mess up an election some day.

We should abolish the elecitons and install me as Fuhrer.

California voted Republican at the presidential level until the 80s, and the Bay Area was just as liberal then as it is now, if not more so.

I wouldn't vote for it. Hey, that's just me. :P

But it was nowhere near as Democratic then as it is now.

Even if this passes in next years primary (which I highly doubt) it could look like this in the end:

The Democratic candidate wins with a 3% swing compared to 2004, but loses all districts in CA, with all 55 EVs going to the Republican (another unlikely scenario, because Bush just won 20 or so in 2004):

()

Result: The Democratic candidate still wins with 270-268 ... :)

Or in this scenario - Romney vs. Clinton - Romney takes 25 out of California's 55 electoral districts and wins Michigan:

()

It ends in a 269-269 tie. Clinton could win NV though and 274-264.

Not even close.

1988:
()

2004:
()

It voted Democratic, but note the shading. Hell Bush, Sr. got over 25% in San Francisco even. And Dukakis won Contra Costa county by less than 4 points, which Kerry won by over 25 points.

Also note the shading of Los Angeles County, which Dukakis only won by about 5 points, and Kerry won by almost 30 points.

Defining the Bay Area as Alameda, Contra Costa, Marin, San Francisco, San Mateo and Santa Clara counties, here's how it voted:

1988:
Dukakis - 58.48%
Bush - 40.19%

2004:
Kerry - 70.43%
Bush - 28.12%

In 1988 that's about 26 points more Democratic than the national average, while in 2004 that's almost 45 points more Democratic than the national average. HUGE swing.

For fun, try the 1976 election.

agreed.  Ted Kennedy 1980

Gays in San Fransisco?  Next thing you'll be telling us is that there are fundies in the "bible belt".

Amazingly enough, I heard that the abortion rate among homosexuals is very low.  Who'd have thunk it?

We need a Constitutional amendment to change the popular vote to prevent this kind of idiocy about changing how the electors are determined every year. Of course the least populated 13 states, with their 5% or whatever of the US's population will block it.

A compact to get 270 EV of states to give their votes to the popular vote winner (or the winner of the states in the compact) would work. The California legislature passed such a law, but Arnold vetoed it because he hates CalEEEFornia.

^^

Unless at the same time a constitutional ammendment is adopted giving the redistricting authority to an Independent Boundary Commission, this is an invitation to terrible mischief. Aside from everything else, imagine what would the California state legislature do to congressional boundaries in 2012: at that point incentives to gerrymander will by far exceed incentives to protect incumbents.  I'd be shocked if, say, Orange County is not cut into multiple narrow threads all converging on LA (40% from OC, 60% from LA in each).  And you'd have, literally, hundreds of millions of dollars going into a single State Senate race in NY if they did it there: at that point, getting rid of the remaining few Republican-leaning districts in the state becomes imperative for Dems, and that means that the single-party control of the state legislature is worth any amount of money.  The end result of it all would, likely, be that not only a bunch of states are uncompetitive at presidential level, but that in Congress and in state legislatures most big states would look like Massachussetts or Idaho.

The appropriate remedy could be allocating electors by PR. There is simply no justification for doing it by congressional district.

Independent commissions draw the boundaries rather than the state legislature.

Maryland passed it at least.

New Jersey has that, too, and yet they took great care to have 6 Republican districts.

The NJ plan was basically a compromise plan that protected all the incumbents including the recently elected and at the time vulnerable Rush Holt and Rodney Ferguson. The Democrats agreed to it to protect Holt figuring they had maxed out. It was pretty stupid in hindsight, but whatever.

And Minnesota's districts are not drawn by an independent commission.

I don't think there's much chance of this passing, just as the Colorado proposal had little chance in 2004, because it is so obviously politically motivated. (It's the only way the GOP is going to win any electoral votes in CA in 2008, too.)

If you're going to do things like this, why not abolish the electoral college and have the Presidency decided by straight popular vote, just like every other election?

what's the chance that this thing even makes it onto the ballot?

Article Two, Section One of the US Constitution:

"Each State shall appoint, in such Manner as the Legislature thereof may direct, a Number of Electors, equal to the whole Number of Senators and Representatives to which the State may be entitled in the Congress: but no Senator or Representative, or Person holding an Office of Trust or Profit under the United States, shall be appointed an Elector."

Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't the proposed ballot measure a clear violation of this?