So far it’s only affected California, but that means it soon may
be heading your way, for what begins in California often spreads
across the land. Take, for example, auto emissions, clean air
standards and talentless Hollywood “celebrities” In this case, it’s
a new strategy devised by the California Republican Party. Call it
the Table Scraps strategy.
The party leaders have taken a leaf from the circa 1975 playbook
of Congressional Republicans. In those days, after so many years in
the minority, the Capitol Hill Republicans had settled into what
conservative publisher William Rusher called “Yes, but” status.
Their response to the highly partisan Democrat majority was “Yes,
but a little slower; yes, but a little less.” The Democrats, in
effect, had told them to sit down and shut up and, if they did,
they would get some table scraps in the form of desired committee
assignments and minor concessions in House rules.
In California, the GOP has long been in the minority in the
state legislature. With the exception of a handful of Republican
State Senators who are currently depriving the Democratic majority
of the two-thirds vote it needs to pass a profligate budget, the
party has become accustomed to table scraps. In the 2000
reapportionment, incumbent Republican legislators made a deal with
the majority: draw the lines so we are safe and we’ll agree to the
rest of your plan. That is, a more-or-less permanent Democrat
majority.
Now comes the direct descendant of that loser mentality, a
scheme to hive off a few of the state’s electoral votes following
the 2008 election. Party leaders reason this way: The state
“always” goes to the Democrats, thus giving them all its 55
electoral votes. If these were apportioned by Congressional
Districts, they say, the GOP would get at least 19 votes, for that
is how many House seats they hold. They point out that while John
Kerry won the state over George Bush by 55-to-44 percent, Bush
carried 22 Congressional Districts. So, the GOP leaders are out
circulating a petition for a ballot initiative that would require
the state’s electoral votes to be apportioned according to how many
House districts each party wins in 2008. That’s where the 19-vote
figure comes from.
What’s wrong with this picture? Two things. It plays directly
into the hands the left-wing movement to ditch the Electoral
College altogether, declaring the aggregate winner of the popular
vote to be the president. This means that a handful of large cities
— voting mostly Democrat — would decide the national outcome.
The Electoral College was one of the nation’s Founders’
ingenious checks-and-balances devices that have been the foundation
of our successful 231-year-old system of representative government.
In this case, less populous states were protected from being
swamped by the most populous ones.
Other than playing into the hands of the opposition for the
purpose of a getting a few election votes in the short-term (based
on the assumption the GOP will always be in the minority), the
Republican strategy will almost certainly end up being
hypocritical. If the Republican nominee were to win in 2008, the
state party will rue the day it trumped up this device and will
clamor to change it back to winner-take-all.
Some of the putative Republican nominees — Giuliani in
particular and probably Thompson, too — think California is
winnable. It is hard to imagine them thinking this short-sighted
approach is a sound one.
The only idea out there worse than this one is embodied in
California Senate Bill 37, dreamt up by Sen. Carol Migden who is
better known for having pled nolo contendere last week to a
misdemeanor charge of reckless driving over a 30-mile stretch of
I-80. Her bill, if it became law, would mandate that all of
California’s electoral votes would be rewarded to the winner of the
national popular vote, regardless of how Californians had voted.
This would turn the Electoral College upside down, which is her
purpose. It is a case of myopia, based on left-wing ire over the
2000 Bush-Gore race.
Neither Republican loseritis or Democratic peevishness are good
things on which to base public policy.
