SACRAMENTO -- When Gov. Jerry Brown recently signed a bill to move all voter-generated initiatives to November ballots, Republicans responded with a fury that suggested their political world had been turned upside down.

Senate GOP leader Bob Dutton, well aware that the fall electorate tends to be larger and more liberal, called it a "blatant power grab" by public employee unions.

Assembly GOP leader Connie Conway claimed it took away "a power reserved to the people." And prominent Sacramento attorney Tom Hiltachk filed a referendum aimed at overturning SB202 on the day Brown signed it.

Now, in the latest indication of the growing feebleness of the California Republican Party, the GOP may be forced to abandon the referendum because it can't even afford a signature-gathering campaign to put it on the ballot.

"This has to come together in the next week or two," said Hiltachk, who needs to gather more than 500,000 valid signatures by Jan. 5, which will cost at least $2 million. "It's ready to go."

Hiltachk feels it's crucial for Republicans to overturn the law because they're about to lose one of their last remaining levers of power in California, the June primary -- a political battleground Republicans have used to tap into a smaller, typically more conservative electorate to press for a broader agenda than they can otherwise seek in a Democratic-dominated state.

Proposition 13, the landmark June 1978 measure slashing property taxes, is a monument to the heights that the GOP soared through the use of elections in the spring.


One Republican strategist acknowledged that his party's ability to raise money is in such disrepair that it's doubtful it can pull enough money together to qualify the referendum.

"It depends on whether they can find a golden angel who'll fund this," said the strategist, who asked not to be identified so he could speak candidly about a sensitive issue for Republicans. "If a specific industry was affected, there would be money. But there's not a lot of ideological money out there."

Tom Del Beccaro, chairman of the state GOP, said he has some interest in the referendum, but is more focused on another referendum effort to overturn the legislative boundaries drawn by the citizens redistricting commission. The state GOP last week contributed $400,000 to that fight.

"We have a lot on our plate," Del Beccaro said.

Larry Gerston, a professor of political science at San Jose State, called the inability to fight more than one big battle at a time a symptom of a party in decline.

Indeed, GOP registration dropped from 34.2 percent in February 2007 to 30.9 percent in February 2011. During that same period, Democratic registration rose from 42.5 percent to 44 percent.

Punctuating California's shifting demographics and politics was last year's Democratic sweep of all statewide offices.

"To the extent that they are suffering losses on so many fronts, perhaps they see the redistricting referendum as a way to preserve a stake in the Legislature, to keep Democrats from overrunning them," Gerston said.

"That may be seen as the best way to make their last ditch stand."

Still, as a minority party in the Legislature, the only real power Republicans would be preserving is the ability to block tax increases, which require a two-thirds vote of both legislative chambers.

Patrick Dorinson, a former state Republican Party spokesman who writes a conservative blog called The Cowboy Libertarian, wonders whether Republican leaders have misplaced their priorities.

"What is their power going forward? It's not with the Legislature," Dorinson said. "The only avenue they've got left is the ballot. They should, with all their might, try to overthrow SB202."

Hiltachk says he's not yet ready to hoist a white flag.

Though the odds of qualifying the referendum are long, the risk is worth it, he argued. If he simply gets the referendum qualified for the ballot, he noted, the law will be suspended -- and the June election would be back on schedule.

And that would give that smaller, more conservative corps of primary voters a chance to fundamentally alter California politics -- by voting on an initiative, dubbed "paycheck protection," that would take away the ability of unions to use members' dues for political purposes. It would also block unions from contributing directly to candidates.

The suspension of the initiative law also would allow a vote on a constitutional amendment on establishing a stringent "rainy-day" reserve fund -- precisely what Democrats and labor groups wanted to avoid when they put together the bill to restrict initiatives to November ballots. Under the law that Brown signed, that measure was pushed back to the November 2014 ballot.

The steep climb for qualifying referendums has thwarted two attempts this year already. Earlier this month, a conservative group ended its bid to overturn SB48, the newly signed law that requires school curricula to include the role of gays, lesbians, bisexuals and transgender individuals, people with disabilities and members of different cultural groups. And in August, backers of a referendum to overturn a law effectively killing redevelopment agencies could not gather enough signatures in a 90-day period.

One potential Republican "angel" who would be a natural backer for the referendum on the initiative law is George Joseph, the billionaire owner of Mercury Insurance who lost an initiative fight in last year's June primary elections but is preparing to qualify a similar measure for next year that offers some drivers discounts but penalizes those who haven't held insurance for more than 18 months.

But Jeff Green, a spokesman for Joseph, told the Bay Area News Group that the billionaire would not financially back the referendum.