The day before I sat down to write this letter AB 1121, our bill to give a few general law cities and counties the right to try IRV and PR, passed out of the Senate Appropriations bill on a party-line vote (see this article). In fact, all of the votes to date on AB 1121 have been divided on party lines; not a single Republican legislator has voted for it so far.

This is disconcerting. We know that PR and IRV are politically neutral in their long-run effects on the major political parties; that is, they don't systematically favor Democrats over Republicans, nor vice versa. Yet many Republicans in California are hostile to these reforms and only a few have endorsed them. While we are winning support for IRV and PR from legislators, that support is not sufficiently bipartisan. The lack of significant support from Republicans hurts us. For example, Governor Schwarzenegger vetoed AB 1294 (our 2007 local option bill) in part because it got only one Republican vote.

When we table at Republican events, we generally get a good response. Yet this has not translated into support by Republican legislators. We need to figure out why this is so, and what to do about it. To this end, CfER founder Jim Lindsay has volunteered to lead a task force to study our relationship with Republicans and conservatives, and to recommend actions to improve this relationship. We want it to include CfER members from the entire political spectrum. We'd especially like our more conservative members to join in. We also need the varied perspectives of members who have been working to get conservatives involved in electoral reform.

The task force will probably operate primarily as an email discussion group and through conference calls, so that geography will not be a barrier to participation.

I urge everyone who would like to participate to contact Jim at . Getting more Republican support for our issues is crucial to our success. A small investment of your time could have a large payoff for our movement. I will be grateful for your help.