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Rep. Issa downplays role in California initiative |
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By Susan Crabtree
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Posted: 11/01/07 07:51 PM [ET] |
Rep. Darrell Issa, the wealthy California Republican whose cash infusion jumpstarted the state’s 2003 gubernatorial recall election, downplayed reports Wednesday that he will underwrite a proposal to split California’s Electoral College vote.
If passed, such a measure could hand the presidential election to the GOP nominee.
“I have made a small contribution [to the campaign behind the proposal],” said Issa, who refused to disclose exactly how much he gave. He did say the amount was in the tens of thousands of dollars, not hundreds of thousands of dollars.
Issa also confirmed that he would additionally provide access to his own extensive fundraising network, which includes e-mails, as well as home addresses, of those who helped out in the 2003 recall.
“This is about making people’s votes count,” he said. “It’s about proportional representation.”
A political consultant for Issa, David Gilliard, is managing the campaign to qualify the measure, which would divide California’s Electoral College votes by congressional district, for the June 2008 election. Democrats have charged that the measure would be the equivalent of an electoral gift the size of Ohio to any Republican nominee.
Issa previously has said members would be unwilling to commit resources because the initiative doesn’t directly affect them, unlike ballot initiatives on redistricting and limiting congressional terms.
Issa ponied up a reported $1.6 million to jumpstart the signature-collecting effort required to place the recall of Gov. Gray Davis (D) on California voting ballots. The drive and subsequent raucous recall resulted in the election of Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger (R).
Faced with a well-organized Democratic counter-effort, the Electoral College measure has sputtered in recent months and seemed all but dead by the end of September. The initiative collected just $175,000 from a Missouri-incorporated group, Take Initiative America. That group refused to reveal the source of its funds before Paul Singer, a major fundraiser for GOP presidential hopeful Rudy Giuliani, came forward to say he was the source.
Other ties to Giuliani are spurring Democratic charges that the GOP presidential hopeful is fueling the effort. Anne Dunsmore recently left her position as a Giuliani fundraiser and now is working on the electoral initiative.
Giuliani’s campaign has denied that the campaign has any involvement in the California initiative.
Issa insists that he has not endorsed a candidate for president and said the effort is not motivated by politics, but by a desire to increase voter turnout in the state.
“If Florida had proportional representation [in 2000], Al Gore would be president today,” he said.
However, those supporting the measure are all Republicans who have argued that they want to give Californians more influence in selecting the next president. Presidential candidates make numerous fundraising stops in California, which wields the most Electoral College votes, but rarely travel there, presuming that the state will support the Democratic nominee.
A Republican has not taken California since George H.W. Bush beat Michael Dukakis in the 1988 election.
If the initiative succeeds, there could be a down-ballot boost for Republican candidates as energized GOP voters become more motivated to vote.
Rep. David Dreier (R-Calif.), who has survived tough election fights in recent years, predicted that the initiative could rally Republican voters and give all California voters a bigger role in the presidential selection process.
“California is relevant in every other way – this could make us relevant politically as well,” he said.
California Democrats have called the ballot-splitting drive a boldface GOP power grab. Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D-Calif.) labeled the move a “last, desperate attempt by Republicans” to gain ground in California politics.
“In the end, [the effort] will be heavily contested,” she said.
Rep. Ellen Tauscher (D-Calif.) simply said she thinks the idea “stinks.”
Rep. Howard Berman (D-Calif.) predicted the effort could backfire and motivate more Democrats to go to the polls to defeat the measure.
“It’s an example that a very smart guy is capable of doing something very stupid,” he said.
Berman noted, however, that if Issa’s contribution is very small, it could be a smart political move to benefit some of his supporters but not produce any real momentum behind the signature-collecting effort.
Rep. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.), who chairs the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, also said he believed it would motivate Democratic voters and have a minimal down-ballot impact on races.
Gilliard has said the campaign has gathered some 100,000 signatures, but it must collect 434,000 to qualify for the June 3 ballot. Officials in each county in which they were collected must verify the signatures before Feb. 4. Based on the recall experience and other recent California initiatives, hundreds of thousands could be thrown out.
Wednesday was the deadline for ballot-measure committees to report contributions through Sept. 30 to the California Secretary of State’s office. |
