I think it is an excellent idea, but that a significant number of states should adopt it before the measure takes effect.  The minority party will always naturally be in support of this, and the majority party will generally want to hold onto its power.  If the situation were reversed as far as what party were in the majority, I strongly suspect that the opinions of the parties would be reversed as well.  There was a good discussion about this on CSPAN not long ago, and a professor at Stanford who was involved in that discussion has published material on this subject.
-----

A Really Good Idea!
If this Initiative passes California’s votes will no
longer ALL be controlled by the big city political
machines (LA/SF) and the major market conservative/liberal media. 
California will become competitive again. 
Presidential candidates will have to campaign
for votes - in suburbs, small towns and rural
areas - and your vote WILL matter.
If it passes, the reform will help stamp out corruption
by making vote fraud ineffective - those schemes
would only affect one electoral vote in one
district - and not all 55 votes for the whole state.
It will virtually eliminate the chance of a repeat
of the Florida debacle in California in the event
of a close vote - preventing both the uncertainty
and the anger and long-lasting animosity created
by that dispute. 
Of course, there is the chance minor parties may
be able to get 5 electoral votes - the
Greens along the coast, the Libertarians in a
foothill or suburban district.
What is important is EVERYONE’S vote will
matter and everyone will know it. 
The social impact will mean less bitterness -
resulting in more social and political stability.
ElectoralReformCalifornia.com is the website.

This California proposal is good start, but abolishing the Electoral College is the national goal.  Also, reforming Iowa & New Hampshire’s monopoly on early (and creeping) primary contests:  Sort states by population, then count off into 5 groups.  Each group of 10 states would represent high and low population, and different regions.  In 2012, Group A votes first in April, followed every two weeks by groups B, C, D, and E.  Primaries over by July 4th.  In 2016, Group B goes first.  Etc.  Campaigns would be rotated ... and last only 9 months!  //

I don’t think your vote going the way the rest of your district voted is any more fair than going the way the rest of your state did. Which you like better probably depends on which group your opinions are more similar to. Eliminating the Electoral College and going to a straight popular vote—one person, one vote—is the only thing that’s fair.

This is the best idea.  It brings us just a little closer to the one man, one vote concept.  It has always irritated me that, as a member of the minority political party in this state, my vote wouldn’t be counted toward the election of the president.

This is a cheap political trick engineered by a Republican minority, in a desperate attempt to extend the ruinous Bush regime four more years with an equally destructive successor.

Yes, it’s an attempt to steal the 2008 election, no question…

Because of gerrymandering, California’s districts are already strongly Republican or Democratic....There are 53 districts in CA., in the 2004 election, only 3 were decided by 6% or less...The others were won handily (in most cases by 20% or >)...This initiative will ABSOLUTELY not make CA. competitive, just as Texas is a solid Republican state, California is a solid Democratic state....Both parties have states that they write off, you have to, campaigns are too expensive..Campaigns are going to spend their money in TRUE swing states; like Ohio, Florida, New Mexico, Pennsylvania, etc, NOT CA....

To top it off, the initiative has serious constitutional issues w/it, so if it were to make it to the ballot, it will likely wind up in court…

This is a terrible idea!  It is a Wolf in Sheep’s clothing,
pretending to democratize the election process while in fact
it will bias nationwide elections to one party.

Unless enough states with sufficient electoral votes to win an
election adopt the same method, California’s electors will be
split between 2 major parties and California’s electors will
be competing against virtually every other state which awards
votes to a single party.  With the way voters are currently
distributed nationwide this will inevitable bias the election
further AWAY from the popular nationwide vote winner to the
Republican party.  Look at who is sponsoring this measure.

Even if these reforms are adopted, California’s electoral
districts are so Gerrymandered that only a small fraction of
districts offer competitive races.  Presidential candidates
will focus on these small markets and still ignore most of
California.  My district is very lopsided and so my vote still
will NOT count.

Anybody hear of one man one vote?  This is a system most
countries use where each person in the country gets one vote
which counts equally to electing the president or Prime
Minister.  We already have a Senate which is horribly biased
towards unpopulated states.  Do we need to keep this bias in
the Presidency also?  If that concept is too difficult to
grasp, a collection of larger states (California, New
York, Texas...) can give their votes to whoever wins the
popular nationwide votes as has also been proposed.

This is just a Republican attempt to steal another election; one that they expect to lose if democracy really prevails.  If they really want to re-establish democracy and fairness, eliminate the Electoral College so there is One Man/Woman, One vote!  I don’t think they favor that.  QED!

I agree with many of the comments above. This is nothing but a cheap political trick to have the Republican Party steal another election, just as they did in 2000 when Al Gore actually won the popular vote by over half a million votes.  Al Gore would then have been re-elected in 2004.  If you want to make things fair, then you need to abolish the anachronistic electoral college.  If all states adopted the above proposal at the same time, then you would obviate the unfairness of the Republican Party proposal.  I also agree with the above comments that support a random choice as to which states hold caucuses or primaries first.  This should be done on a completely random basis, based on population (one man, one vote).  There is no legitimate reason why Iowa, New Hampshire, and South Carolina get a disproportionate voice every four years in deciding who our two major party candidates will be.  The fact that North Dakota and South Dakota have twice the representation of California in the United States Senate is ridiculous.  If this Republican Party proposal were really fair and just, it would resolve the above problems with our system first.

Haha..

The GOP is desperate and it is showing. I hope they spend tons of their own dough on this futile effort.

Just thinking about what Jerry Brown has in store for them warms my heart:)

GOP= Greedy Old Pigs

Overhaul of the electoral college is long overdue. It was established because the founding fathers felt that the common folk (farmers mostly) were too ignorant or busy to vote, and felt that the electors would cast a vote in their favor. this is an abysmal system where an elector can vote how they like, after the real election, and also gives the impression that voting doesn’t really matter. It should have been done in 2000 when Gore really got elected...where would we be today?

Finally, we can become a Represenitive Republic and not a banana republic.  The problem is that the leaders in our state assembly would rather keep us as the latter...there is more money in it for them.

TIME FOR TRULY DEMOCRACTIC ELECTIONS

This concept of allotting electoral votes based upon congressional districts is something I have advocated for years.  It is more democratic, fair and representative than then current winner-take-all idiocy.

I believe that the US Constitution should be amended so that ALL states follow this procedure.

As things are now, presidential candidates spend most, actually--all of their campaign time in the 8 or 9 SWING STATES. As the last several elections have shown we ARE A NATION OF BLUE VERSUS RED STATES.

California, NY, NJ, WA, HI, CT, MA, MD, HAWAII, are undeniably and indelibly BLUE STATES.

SEEING RED:
Take all of the states of the old Confederacy (except VA); add the Great Plains and Rocky Mountain states--AND ALASKA--voila--THE RED STATES!!

Do you knowe that NO PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE OF EITHER PARTY HAS EVER CAMPAIGNED IN ALASKA OR HAWAII, SINCE THEY JOINED THE UNION IN 1959 AND 1960???
WHY? IT HAS ALWAYS BEEN ATKEN FOR GRANTED THAT: AK=REP.; HAW.=DEM.

This leaves the switch-hitter states of Ohio, Florida,
VA, NM, PA, MN, ME, and one or two others, where there is any chance of a truly contested election between a Rep. and a Dem presidential candidate.

So the candidates of both parties SPEND 99% of their time in these lusted after swing states.

If one electoral vote were allotted to each Congressional District, candidates would be foolish to pass up campaigning in any state; with just a few exceptions--Mississippi, Alabama, Wyoming, Idaho....

All of the BIG STATES-CA, TX, NY, FL, IL, PA, VA, NM, AZ, MO, MN, have a reasonably balanced share of Republican and Democratic Congressional Representatives. All of these states are neither ALLRED OR ALL BLUE. They are checkerboard.

The Constitutional Crisis of the 2000 Bush v. Gore fiasco would never occur again; since the electoral votes of FLORIDA would have been divided up according to Cong. Dist. --instead of the winner-take-all system--WHICH ALLOWED THE LOSER OF THE NATIONAL POPULAR VOTE (BUSH) TO TAKE ALL OF THE ELECTORAL VOTES OF FLORIDA, and win all of FL’s electoral votes; and thereby the national election.

Americans need to undertake these changes to help assure that the will of the people is honored in a democratic fashion in presidential elections.

This is nothing more than a DNC fueled scam. If they can’t win elections via the courts, then change the electoral college. The liberal cowards have been bent since the 2000 elections, and this shows it.

The most logical change would be to eliminate the ELECTORAL COLLEGE ALTOGETHER. It has absolutely no purpose for being.

Bear with my arithmetic.

When you vote for President in California, your vote is worth only 1/4 the value of a vote for President by a voter in Wyoming.

If a vote in Wyoming is worth $1.00. Your vote as a Californian is worth 25 cents.

Stay with me on this.

California has 53 members in the HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES.

CA, like all states, has two senators. Acc’d to the US Constitution that means CA gets 55 electoral votes 2+53+=55

Using the same Constitutional formula, Wyoming has three electoral votes. It has two SENATORS, LIKE ALL STATES. But it has only ONE congressperson, (instead of 53 as CA does.) 2+1=3

Now that sounds like CALIFORNIA MUST BE QUITE BIG DEAL. Well yes and no.  We do have 55 electoral votes.

BUT---stay with me-- proportionally we still lose out big time.

Wyoming has just over 600,000 people. --half the size of the city of San Diego.

California has 36,000,000 people.

On a per capita basis,
Wyoming has ONE ELECTORAL VOTE PER 200,000 PEOPLE.

California has ONE ELECTORAL VOTE PER APPROX. 655,000 PEOPLE.

PER CAPITA, the vote of a person in Wyoming has a value well over three times the value of a voter’s vote for President in California.

The concept of ONE PERSON, ONE VOTE IS a pillar of our democracy; ----except in presidential elections, using the Electoral College System.

If we do not go to an all popular vote; let’s at least make the voters of each Congressional district on par throughout the entire nation.....

“This is nothing more than a DNC fueled scam"…

Try RNC fueled scam...Republicans are the ones who want to cherry pick the 2008 election by changing the rules in California ONLY...Republicans KNOW they’ll lose CA. next year, this scam is nothing but a way for a bunch of sore losers to attain 20+ electoral votes that they don’t deserve....Not only will Republicans lose CA., but will likely do so in a landslide, 10% or >....You don’t deserve ANY electoral votes when you lose in a landslide…

I’d love to see how Republicans would react if Democrats proposed a similar stunt in Texas & Florida..They’d fight it, & probably take the initiative to court, which is exactly what the Democrats are going to do with this CA. initiative…

Oh, another thing, the backers of this proposal have ties to Rudy Giuliani, what a surprise, NOT....

I will gladly agree to this when Texas, Alabama, Mississippi, Arkansas, Nebraska, Idaho, Arizona, Florida and Utah do. In fact, after just one presidential election in which they agree to, in order to illustrate red-state good faith.

I can’t wait to see the GOP driven out of the state’s legislature. You thugs need a good beating so Californians can get back to the real question: How do we repeal Proposition 13?

POLITICAL SCIENCE AND MODERN GOVERNMENT 101

INTRO:
It is important to remember that in the process of politics and governing, at every level of government, there are certain ETERNAL truths to keep in mind ALWAYS.

MAKING CHANGE IN POLITICS AND GOVERNMENT is a form of negotiation.
This negotiation involves the ability to create FORMAL AND INFORMAL contracts.

These contracts are based upon fair, reasonable, and diplomatic negotiation and persuasion; and the principle of “GIVE-AND TAKE”.

TRANSLATION BELOW:

THAT MEANS:
1. If you have enough money, politicians will say whatever you want them to say.
2. If you have even more money, politicians will DO whatever you want them to do.
This is THE LAW OF FINANCIAL-POLITICAL RECIPROCITY

II. FLEXIBILITY- Politicians and all government officials must take a FLEXIBLE VIEW OF REALITY.

THIS IS KNOWN AS THE “ LAW OF RHETORICAL FLEXIBILITY AND CREATIVE LICENSE"--- WHEN IT COMES TO TELLING THE TRUTH.
THE TRUTH IS SUBJECT TO CHANGE ON SHORT NOTICE.

III. SOCIAL SKILLS OUTWEIGH KNOWLEDGE AND INTELLIGENCE.

This is summed up in the famous quote by (Karl Marx, I think.)

“IT AIN’T WHAT YOU KNOW, IT’S WHOM YOU KNOW!”

END OF LESSON 1 (POLITICAL SCIENCE AND GOVERNMENT)

Prof. Greg

Today, in a news report for Morning Edition, the reporter commented casually that if Bill Richardson of NM doesn’t come in A STRONG 4TH in Iowa, he’s history, as far as the presidential campaign goes.
So, too is true of Biden, Dodd, and Voinovich.

This may well be true. If it is, how crazy is our primary system for selecting candidates?

A relative handful of US voters in Iowa can kill off half of the field of candidates, if the candidates don’t reach the arbitrary measure of success which the media moguls and pundits devise in their wisdom.

The current primary system puts way, way too much power in the hands of the media, as they interpret who the “ winners” and “losers” are, just a few days into this election year.

The willing collaboratiors of the media are the voters in Iowa and New Hampshire, whose judgment substitutes for the will of the nation as a whole.

How does that make sense? Aren’t the opinions and choices of people outside of Iowa and NH relevant?

Who surrendered this right of all other states to have an equally meaningful voice in the selection process to the sages of Iowa and New Hampshire alone?