Dems Oppose Calif. Electoral Vote Split

Leading are uniting with Hollywood producer Steven Bing and a prominent hedge fund manager to oppose a proposal in California they fear could hand the 2008 presidential election to the Republican nominee.

A lawyer with ties to the Republican Party wants California voters to change the way the U.S.'s most populous state awards its electoral votes — a proposal Democrats call a power grab but that supporters describe as a blueprint for fairness in presidential contests. California has voted Democratic in the last four presidential elections.

Under the U.S.'s electoral system, a candidate who wins the most popular votes in a state also wins all that state's electoral votes — which are the ones that put a president in office. The number of electoral votes is equal to the state's number of U.S. senators and representatives.

But the California proposal — dubbed the Presidential Election Reform Act — wants to split up that block of electoral votes and award them to the winning candidate in each of the state's congressional districts. It would, if approved by voters next year ahead of the November 2008 presidential race, in effect create individual races in each of California's 53 electoral districts.

Democratic officials plan to announce the formation of a political committee Thursday to fight the measure.

"Democrats would lose 20 electoral votes and very likely the presidency if California abandons the winner-take-all system while large Republican states like Florida and Texas do not," hedge fund manager Tom Steyer, who will head the new committee, said in a statement. That is a number equal to winning Ohio, another key election state.

Nineteen of California's 53 congressional districts are represented by Republicans. President Bush carried 22 districts in 2004, while losing the statewide vote by double digits.

In what is shaping up as an important subplot to the 2008 race, the new committee would raise possibly tens of millions of dollars to defeat the Republican-backed idea.

Steyer, who is raising money for Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton's presidential campaign, is a longtime Democratic donor. He also raised funds for John Kerry's 2004 presidential campaign and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.

The committee, Californians for Fair Election Reform, is being supported by Sens. Dianne Feinstein and Barbara Boxer, San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom, Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa and Democratic leaders in the Legislature.

The proposal is a "power grab orchestrated by the Republicans," Feinstein and Boxer said in a joint statement. It's "another cynical move to keep the presidency in Republican control."

The proposal is being pushed by Thomas Hiltachk, a lawyer in a Sacramento firm that represents the California Republican Party and has worked with Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger.

"In a state as large and diverse as California, what can be fairer than using congressional districts to apportion electoral votes," said Kevin Eckery, a spokesman for Californians for Equal Representation, a committee backing the proposal.