From Bill Clinton to Barack Obama, through every recession and rise in the economy, we’ve had one constant this century: A flood of money to the California far-left from Dr. John Koza. Check out “Do NPV & Koza really ♥ California Republicans?“ and “Who is John Koza?“ for the full scoop on Koza’s background pushing scratch-ticket lotteries and National Popular Vote (NPV).

Now certainly there’s nothing wrong with participating in politics, as long as it’s honest. The question is how seriously anyone should take Koza’s current campaign to convince California Republicans to back NPV.

To investigate for yourself (there’s over 50 entries) click here.

California may cast a critical vote on AB 459 as soon as tomorrow and Dr. John Koza couldn’t be happier. This isn’t his first foray into matters of the state. He has succeeded in using the government as a tool to secure his fortunes, and he believes he will win on more serious matters. California would supercharge his anti-Electoral College alliance and shoot them from 77 votes to 132 (toward their objective of 270). However there are a slew of reasons why legislators on both the right and the left shouldn’t bow to Koza’s financial and political prowess.

Is Koza confident? Perhaps. He’s spent millions pushing NPV, with a recent drive to convince Republicans that he’s on their side. It’s a tough sell, given the evidence.

Exhibit A: Koza acted as a California Elector (in the Electoral College) for both Bill Clinton and Al Gore.

Exhibit B: The only states to pass NPV have been dark blue.

Exhibit C: Koza’s hundreds of thousands of dollars in campaign contributions.

Here’s just a sampling. (Come back for updates.)

Check out the full PDF of Koza’s FEC-registered contributions here.

And some more via California’s database:

2007-2008
2005-2006

Traveling around the country defending federalism and the Electoral College, I have heard an amazing array of different–sometimes contradictory–claims made by National Popular Vote (NPV) advocates. Some of this is reasonable, since different NPV backers have different complaints about the current system and very different explanations of how NPV would work. Other contradictions appear more calculated.

Examining the claims and breaking down some outright NPV myths is the topic of this and several upcoming posts at SaveOurStates. (NPV’s website contains a “responses to myths” page–we will test some of these as well, though most are mere strawmen and attempts at distraction.)

NPV Myth #1: “What long-term effects?”

The first myth perpetuated by NPV proponents, this mostly by implication, is that wiping away state lines in presidential elections will not change the rest of American politics. This is NPV’s most dangerous myth, although probably an unintended one.

NPV inventor John Koza is a computer scientist, after all. He is clearly brilliant–in his field. But that is no substitute for the real study and contemplation of politics, law, and history. While Koza can explain very well the math and mechanisms of NPV, he appears never to have considered how it might interact with actual human beings let alone the turbulent and often tenebrous waters of American politics.

Consider Koza’s first foray into politics: pushing state governments to create lotteries using his patented scratch ticket. Koza certainly did the math–he made a fortune and states gained new revenues. But did he ever even consider the social cost?

According to the National Conference of State Legislatures,

[s]tate lotteries posted more than $53 billion in ticket sales in 2006 (the last year for which data are available).  The states’ take from that amount was a little less than a third of the total—around $17 billion.

So lottery participants, including buyers of Koza’s scratch tickets, spent $53 billion so that states could gain $17 billion in new revenues. And lottery ticket buyers are more likely to be poor, even as these same state revenues often flow to the middle and even upper classes. The math just doesn’t tell the whole story: Koza’s scratch ticket lotteries prey on the false hopes, fatalism, and poor education of society’s most vulnerable–and on state governments’ never-ending quests for more revenue.

The social costs of NPV could be even worse. It might take decades, but NPV’s proposed alteration of the incentives that govern national politics would eventually reshape the American political landscape. The kind of structural change that NPV proposes–wiping away state lines in presidential elections–would present campaign strategists and political parties with new and different parameters and would thus produce different outcomes (and it would not make “every voter equal”–NPV’s most attractive and preposterous claim–in any practical or tangible way).

I believe the outcomes of NPV would tend toward less moderate, less national, and less stable politics. But these are topics for another post. The point here is that NPV doesn’t even ask let alone answer these questions–the big questions about how this process of government interacts with those things that are in fact the very purposes of government.

Dr. John Koza, creator and chairman of National Popular Vote, is a pioneer in his field—not political science but computer science.

Koza designs computers that he hopes will in turn design their own inventions without “being encumbered by preconceptions that limit human problem solving….”

While a graduate student, Koza created a board game called “Consensus” about presidential elections.

When it didn’t catch on, Koza blamed his failure on the Electoral College and decided our method for electing the President needed to change.

But Koza’s first political claim to fame—and fortune—comes from co-inventing the scratch-off lottery ticket and then lobbying state governments to sell them.

With his scratch-ticket payoff, Koza has funded not only National Popular Vote, but has become a generous donor to far-left and even Socialist political candidates.

I recently had the opportunity to speak with Charlottesville, VA’s Rob Schilling on The Schilling Show. We covered topics like the difference between “democracy” and a “democratic republic”, why the Electoral College is a key component in preserving American liberty, and how NPV threatens to undo its benefits. You can listen here.

As Colorado prepares to debate the Koza scheme, I wrote the following editorial.  It appeared in the April 20th edition of the Denver Daily News and is available on the Independence Institute Web site.

If National Popular Vote wins, we lose

By Amy Oliver

This week the Colorado Senate will debate the relevance of our state in the next presidential election and the legitimacy of our nation as it considers HB 1299.

If passed, our state will join a compact of other states. All nine electoral votes will go the leader of the national popular vote, regardless of the will of Colorado voters. This end run around the Constitution is known as National Popular Vote or Koza scheme, named after multi-millionaire John Koza who concocted the plan to destroy the Electoral College in favor of a national popular vote without a constitutional amendment.

Ever since the 2000 election when Al Gore narrowly won the popular vote but lost the electoral vote to George W. Bush, some Democrats have been on a mission to destroy the Electoral College. It’s important to remember that had Gore been able to win even a single southern or border state–such as his “home” state of Tennessee or Bill Clinton’s home state of Arkansas, he would have been President. George W. Bush won the popular vote in 30 states, therefore giving him the necessary number of electoral votes to win the presidency. Middle America was able to avoid the tyranny of the East and West Coasts.

Inherent in this movement to rid the country of the Electoral College is a misguided notion that the United States is a democracy rather than a republic. Our Founding Fathers recognized the danger of a democracy where 51 percent rules 49, and thus created a republic where the rights of individuals are protected from the whims of the majority. The Electoral College is vital to maintaining our republic. It forces a presidential candidate to garner support that is both broad and deep, not concentrated on the coasts or urban areas.

Previous attempts to destroy the Electoral College in Colorado have been unsuccessful.

In 2004, a handful of Democrats bankrolled by a Brazilian millionaire asked Coloradans to change how the state awards its nine electoral votes. In a vote that wasn’t even close, nearly 66 percent of voters said, “NO!” and rejected proposed Amendment 36.

In 2007, Senator Ken Gordon introduced legislation that would force Colorado to be part of the Koza scheme. It passed the Senate but died in the House.

This year, State Representative Andy Kerr introduced the Koza scheme in the House where it passed on a 34-29 vote. It passed the Senate State, Veterans and Military Affairs Committee along a party line vote and now awaits Second Reading in the full Senate.

Supporters of the Koza scheme are undeterred by arguments that the United States is a republic rather than a democracy and that Colorado will be little more than “fly-over” area during the next election. Perhaps supporters should consider other arguments.

For instance, what about a regional presidential candidate? A candidate could enjoy overwhelming support along the Eastern Seaboard and the Northeast and not even be on the ballot in Colorado. If he is the winner of the national popular vote, Colorado’s electoral votes would go to a candidate on whom Coloradans had no say.

Another problem is that no national standards exist about who can vote. In Vermont, a state considering the Koza scheme, a convicted felon serving time in prison can vote. In Colorado only those convicted felons who have completed their parole may vote. As a result, Colorado may have to award its electoral votes to the candidate that felons serving time in Vermont prisons support but that didn’t win the support of Colorado voters.

Also, political instability would be the rule rather than the exception especially in close elections as states demand recounts if their candidate of choice does not win the national popular vote. In Senate Committee testimony, University Law Professor Robert Hardaway concluded that had the Koza scheme been in place during the 1960 election between Democrat John Kennedy and Republican Richard Nixon, the country would have endured years of lawsuits with no declared presidential winner until the 1964 election. In this case, the Speaker of the House would serve as an interim president.

After the 1960 election, some Republicans called for the abolition of the Electoral College. It was the late Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan (D-NY) who warned in 1979 that without the Electoral College,

“the drama, the dignity, and decisiveness and finality of the American political system is drained away in an endless sequence of contests, disputed outcomes, and more contests to resolve outcomes already disrupted….That is how legitimacy is lost.”

HB 1299 is not only bad for Colorado but also for our nation.  Colorado legislators should ask themselves if it is worth it.  After all history proves that power is cyclical.

Amy Oliver is the Director of Operations for the Independence Institute and can be reached at amy@i2i.org.