Californians! The Presidential Election Reform Act is a right-wing power grab.

Eli over at Firedoglake warns us:

In case you haven’t heard, the Republicans don’t even want to wait until Election Day to steal 20 electoral votes this cycle. The CA GOP’s law firm, cloaked behind the admirable-sounding name Californians for Equal Representation, is sponsoring a ballot initiative called the Presidential Election Reform Act. If passed, it would apportion 53 of CA’s 55 electoral votes based on the ballots in individual congressional districts rather than winner-take-all for the whole state, thus throwing a bonus Ohioful of electoral votes to the Republican candidate without him winning a single additional state.

To be honest, this initiative scares the crap out of me. It’s like Joe Lieberman all over again: The GOP will back it, Republican voters will know it for their own, and low-information Democrats and Independents will be taken in by the semblance of reasonable moderateness. With enough suckers and crazybase Republican turnout, it could very well cobble together a majority of the total vote. Also worth mentioning that since CA decoupled the party primaries from the initiative primary, turnout will be low and GOTV will be decisive.

So, here is the petition:

Pledge To Oppose The Right-Wing Power Grab

We, the undersigned, pledge to oppose the initiative that has been filed with the California attorney general known as The Presidential Election Reform Act.

The measure, if passed, would reduce California's voice in electing the president of the United States by moving California from a winner take all electoral system to one that allots electoral votes proportionally by congressional district. This would mean that California would award the Democratic presidential candidate around 35 electoral votes instead of the normal 55, essentially giving the Republican the equivalent of Ohio on a silver platter. While reform of the electoral system is certainly needed, it must be a national process, not an effort by a few right-wing activists to slice California into a partisan pie.

Like the Supreme Court stopping the recount in 2000, Tom Delay's 2003 Texas redistricting and the recall here in California, this initiative is merely the latest in a long line of right-wing power grabs that put Republicans' own electoral ambitions ahead of the will of the people. California Republicans know they're on the wrong side of the issues AND the people so they need to change the rules in the middle of the game in order to win and that's exactly what they're doing with this initiative.

Therefore, we hereby pledge to vote NO on this right-wing power grab.

Update: Todd Beeton of MyDD:

As I wrote on Tuesday, this latest scheme comes in the form of a ballot initiative submitted to the CA Attorney General's office by a prominent right-wing elections lawyer for the June 2008 ballot called The Presidential Election Reform Act. The measure would, as Erik Love writes at calitics:

reduce California's voice in electing the president of the United States by moving California from a winner take all electoral system to one that allots electoral votes proportionally by congressional district...the net result would be that the Republican candidate could win as many as 20 of California's 55 electoral votes or the equivalent of Ohio.

The good folks fighting this are calling themselves Californians For Fair Election Reform and they're up on the web HERE. Also, my friends at the Courage Campaign have a petition up asking people to pledge to oppose the initiative if it makes it onto the ballot (sign it HERE.)

In addition, yesterday, Senator Boxer had a piece up on Huffington Post explaining why this is nothing but a blatant power grab on the part of the increasingly desperate California right-wing.