CO Rejects Bad Improvement

What could have been a great step for electoral reform in a major state and one of the best monkey's-paw gifts of the year has instead become another might-have-been. Colorado voters have rejected Amendment 36, which would have established proportional electoral voting. Sounds good (Nebraska and Maine already assign electoral votes this way), but there was a Catch 36, which would have made the amendment binding on this election.

I like the idea of proportional electoral representation, and I like it enough to wait four years to see it implemented, but this retroactive (or maybe lateralactive) business was a weasel deal by state Democrats to salvage a few electors for Kerry in a state that was expected to go for Bush. (Details, and a quote from this year's best-named political committee—Coloradoans Against a Really Stupid Idea—here.) Thus it was fun to see the squirming in the last few weeks, as it looked like Kerry might win the Centennial State and still get rooked. In the event, the Democrats lost, and lost again (though they managed to rack one big win in the JonBenet State).