(Wow!! We did it. You did it. Amazing. We drove them into disarray. Awesome work everybody!! – promoted by Julia Rosen)

Here’s the full article from the L.A. Times: GOP electoral initiative dealt major blows. I’ll highlight this paragraph:

There remained a chance that the measure could be revived, but only if a major donor were to come forward to fund the petition drive. However, time is short to gather the hundreds of thousands of signatures needed by the end of November. And backers said Thursday that they believed the measure was all but dead, at least for the 2008 election.

Well. That was quick. The L.A. Times is reporting that the BREAKING NEWS: Electoral initiative backers give up

Plagued by a lack of money, supporters of a statewide initiative drive to change the way California’s 55 electoral votes are apportioned, first revealed here by Top of the Ticket in July, are pulling the plug on that effort.

In an exclusive report to appear on this website late tonight and in Friday’s print editions, The Times’ Dan Morain reports that the proposal to change the winner-take-all electoral vote allocation to one by congressional district is virtually dead with the resignation of key supporters, internal disputes and a lack of funds.

(bumped – promoted by Julia Rosen)

(also up in orange)
In what can only be described as yet another dirty trick, the campaign pushing the initiative to steal California’s electoral votes disclosed its main donor in a campaign finance report earlier this week.  The lone $175,000 donor was attributed to a Missouri based company called Take Initiative America (T.I.A).  The only name we have is Charles A. Hurth III, an attorney in the small town Union, MO and big donor to Rudy Giuliani’s campaign.  He is the guy who registered the company, way back on September 10th.  The donation came in on the 11th.  The proponents of the ballot measure swear they have no idea who actually gave the money.  (See also Shane Goldmacher’s story.  He broke it)

Let’s get this straight.  A ballot initiative was filed by the lawyers for the California Republican Party (CRP) to try and steal 20 of California’s electoral votes.  The only donor we know about appears to be a front company, set up the day before the donation was made in Missouri.  And we know that the lawyers for the CRP have done work for Bob Perry, the Switfboat guy in the past.  Is Bob Perry running money through a Giuliani donor in Missouri?  If not, who is?

This is clearly a front group.  Under the law we don’t have any right to know who wrote the original check.  We only know the name of the guy who is the registered agent for the LLC that gave the money to the campaign.

The Fair Election Reform folks point out in their email that the Giuliani connections go beyond just Hurth.

But the connections to Rudy Giuliani don’t stop there.  Two law partners of Tom Hiltachk — the Sacramento attorney who authored and filed the power grab initiative here in California — are also strong supporters of Rudy and contributors to Giuliani’s campaign, including a lawyer serving as the Deputy Treasurer for the Republican pro-initiative organization in California.

They are using this as an opportunity to go right after Giuliani.

When asked directly about this, Giuliani’s campaign spokesperson tried to dodge the question by saying they’re prepared to compete in 2008 based on “whatever the people of California decides is best” — while refusing to answer whether or not the money funneled through TIA had any connections to Rudy.  What’s more, a spokesman for the right-wing pro-initiative campaign here in California said that Rudy “probably” wasn’t involved.  Probably?  Isn’t this something their campaign would know for sure?

Why won’t Rudy Giuliani stop hiding and come clean on this?  The voters of California deserve to know the truth about who’s behind this effort to rig the 2008 election by splitting up California’s electoral votes.

The only way to do that is to put pressure on the donors to disclose who they are on their own and disavow any ties to the Giuliani campaign.  All along he has said that one of the bonuses to his campaign is that he would be competitive here.  Is he trying to guarantee that is true?