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

If I were a Republican from California, it would be tempting to dislike the Electoral College. And it would be tempting to join the handful of Republican leaders who advocate passage of the recently proposed National Popular Vote plan, pending in the California Assembly as AB 459.  Their claims that NPV will benefit conservatives and Republicans in the state feel so true, don’t they?

Many Californians feel ignored, brushed aside during presidential elections. Californians contributed $151,127,483 during the 2008 election year, only to have a mere $28,288 spent on advertising within the state, as NPV advocates are quick to note. When election results came in, 5,011,781 Californians had cast ballots for John McCain and Sarah Palin, yet not even one Californian elector was awarded to that presidential ticket. Instead, 55 electors were awarded to Barack Obama. Democratic presidential candidates take California for granted, even as Republican candidates ignore the state altogether.

How can a big state such as California take a back seat to smaller states like Ohio, Missouri and Iowa during presidential election years? It feels unfair. Anything that changes this system has to be good for California . . . right?

Wrong. To see why AB 459 is a bad idea for California, two questions must be answered: First, does the Electoral College still serve America and California or should it be eliminated? Second, even assuming the Electoral College needs to be replaced, is NPV the best route toward change?

Further evaluation of the Electoral College and the NPV proposal will show that the current system, while it has its frustrating moments, is by far the best available alternative for a country as large and diverse as our own.

To loosely steal a line from Winston Churchill: The Electoral College is the worst form of presidential elections, except for all the others.

The rest of this article appears at FlashReport.org.

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.

The balance of power between state and national governments was one of the most contentious issues for the American Founders.

The states were important historically, but also as a way to keep government close to the people and to divide government power into as many hands as practical in order to preserve liberty.

At the Constitutional Convention small states wanted every state to have an equal voice in the national government. Large states desired just the opposite—representation based on population would give them more power.

It was a compromise that created the U.S. Congress, where states are represented equally in the Senate but according to population in the House. That compromise not only broke the deadlock that threatened to derail the Constitution—it became the foundation for the unique American system of Federalism.

The national government was set up to provide national defense, manage foreign trade, and referee disputes between the states—in short, to provide the states with safety and commerce similar to the way the British Empire did for the 13 original colonies. The states were left to manage their internal affairs and to compete with one another; thus the states are sometimes referred to as our “fifty laboratories of democracy.”

Federalism fosters diversity by allowing groups of people in different states to manage their affairs differently, to innovate or remain the same, to address local needs. And by keeping government local, dividing it up, and making it compete, Federalism protects freedom.

The American system of states is not just unique—it has been uniquely successful. Federalism is an American invention worth preserving.