Federalism 1, Brazillionaires 0

Good news in the WSJ Political Diary:

In 2002, Colorado voters soundly rejected two schemes put forward by liberal groups to allow same-day voter registration and a massive liberalization of absentee ballots. This year, the state's voters are having a sour reaction to the latest liberal attempt to game the system in the form of an initiative that would split Colorado's nine electoral votes along proportional lines. A new Mason Dixon poll shows the idea, the brainchild of a Brazilian born tycoon who lives in California, losing by 44% to 35%.

No doubt the initiative's plummeting popularity had an effect on the decision of state Attorney General Ken Salazar, the Democratic nominee for U.S. Senate, to announce he would oppose it on grounds that it would dilute the state's influence in presidential politics. The measure is still supported by the League of Women Voters and the AFL-CIO but in the absence of support from big-name Democrats it now looks like a loser.

--John Fund

This scares me. I told some people the other day that if we lose the election, we have a chance in two-four-six years, but if the state gives away its influence and betrays the concepts of Federalism, we are plain screwed.

The CW, if I recall, is that a change initiative turns toward "NO" at the end. Such a referendum would have to be up significantly today. We may have dodged a bullet.

UPDATE: There are some blogs and web pages devoted to defeating this: No on 36, and 86-36

Posted by jk at October 13, 2004 11:08 AM