by Andrew Malcolm
A close friend and major fundraiser of former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani has identified himself as the mystery financer of the proposed California initiative to apportion the state's 55 electoral votes by congressional district instead of winner-take-all.
He is New York hedge fund billionaire Paul Singer.
He said he provided the $175,000 to initially finance the petition drive to get the measure on the June 2008 ballot. But as the Los Angeles Times Dan Morain revealed in an exclusive story, the drive has foundered on internal disputes and lack of further financing.
The petition drive's backers had remained a mystery since the effort was first revealed in July. Democratic critics portrayed it as a power grab to wrest away some of the state's electoral votes, which have all gone to the Democratic candidates for the past four presidential elections.
Some 19 of the state's 53 congressional districts would seem likely to vote for a GOP presidential candidate, enough to swing some recent national elections.
A Giuliani campaign spokeswoman, Maria Comella, said that Singer's donation "was completely independent from our campaign."
Singer oversees Elliott Associates, an $8 billion investment fund.
He is also chairman of Giuliani's northeast fundraising operation that produced a third of the New Yorker's $33.5 million campaign war chest in the first six months of 2007. Singer and his employees have donated at least $182,000 to the Giuliani campaign so far this year.
"I made the contribution without any restrictions," Singer's statement said.
Some Democrats have threatened legal action, complaining that federal campaign finance laws were violated if the Giuliani campaign was involved.
Howard Dean, chairman of the Democratic National Committee, issued a statement demanding to know "the truth about Rudy's involvement in and knowledge about this shameful effort to disenfranchise voters."
Andrew Malcolm writes for Top of the Ticket, the Los Angeles Times' political blog.
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
Comments
No surprise that one of Rudy's pals cheats all the way.
Not only is the scheme despicable, but he had to launder the money through Missouri to hide its origins. Nice criminal tactic, that.
Posted by: athena | September 29, 2007 1:09 PM
The winner-take-all system is antidemocratic. Ironic that Democrats would oppose getting rid of it, no?
Posted by: Anonymous | September 29, 2007 1:50 PM
Rudy & his organization are slime. They bitched publicly about the price the NY Times charged MoveOn.org for their ad - and when Rudy had a rebuttal attack ad printed a few days later he DEMANDED THAT HE GET THE SAME DISCOUNTED PRICE!
Now that MoveOn has paid the NY Times the difference, I wonder if Rudy will do the same?
Posted by: BC | September 29, 2007 3:48 PM
The democrats may be against it because it is selective.
IF the republicans would like to get rid of the system of electoral votes and simply base outcome of Presidential elections on population by state i'm pretty sure they would play ball on this issue:)
Posted by: bd | September 30, 2007 2:15 AM