By Brian Leubitz

Gov. Brown just signed AB 459, Jerry Hill’s bill to join the national popular vote compact:

Gov. Jerry Brown signed legislation this morning committing California to an interstate compact to award electoral votes to the presidential candidate who wins the most votes nationwide.

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For too long, presidential candidates have ignored California and our issues while pandering exclusively to the battleground states,” the bill’s author, Assemblyman Jerry Hill, D-San Mateo, said in a written statement. “A national popular vote will force candidates to actually campaign in California and talk about our issues.” (SacBee)

Basically, the Compact would become effective when enough votes in the electoral college are bound by the compact.  Before today’s signature, 8 states and DC signed up for 74 votes committed, California’s 55 gives a total of 129.  If the remaining 142 votes commit, we could be looking a vastly different political landscape.

California could be the first state to sign on to the national populat vote compact.  The compact would not come into effect until enough states sign on to guarantee 270 electoral votes.  The law would make California relevant again in the presidential elections by making every vote worth exactly the same amount.  As it stands right now, California is ignored completely, unless you count the Dem candidates running to SF and LA for money and the Reps running to the OC and SD for money.

George Skelton gives Arnold some advice:

In a previous incarnation, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger was a self-described reformer and champion of direct democracy. That worked fine for him one year, but was a disaster the next. Now he gets another crack at shaking things up.
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No more battleground states or spectator states. Every state would be in play. Every vote would count.

Schwarzenegger’s signature on the Umberg bill would make California the first state to ratify an interstate compact obligating each signatory to cast all its electoral votes for the presidential candidate who wins the national popular vote. (LA Times 9/21/06)

This can only be a good thing for California.  Even if California gave 54.4% of its vote last time to Kerry, this compact would force the Dems to come here to the high population centers to campaign for ever last vote.

Plus, if this would have been law in 2000…well, you know…