Ironically, it may be new electoral reforms championed by Brown's predecessor, Arnold Schwarzenegger, that adds most to Brown's own powers of persuasion on Republicans not permanently imprisoned by the Cult of No. Politicians will soon have to run in open primaries, in districts drawn not by partisan gerrymanderers but by a citizens commission.
A group of political scientists wrote last year in Political Research Quarterly that Republican-backed voter-I.D. laws "mobilize the base and champion electoral reforms that incidentally may demobilize Democratic supporters".
Like the original People's Party in the US, the European parties operated within the electoral arena and championed the "people" against an "establishment" or "elite".
Gripping a can of lager and muttering darkly about the foreigners on the east side of town, Pete Johnson makes an unlikely champion for electoral reform.
His death in 1914 deprived the national leadership of its guiding force, and the electoral law he had championed opened the gates of power to the Radicals.
Then, in 1993, after the party refused to enact electoral reforms that he championed, Mr. Ozawa and his allies bolted, helping create a brief-lived opposition government.
Johnson-Weinberger, who has championed alternative electoral systems like proportional voting in Illinois, found Obama's practical approach to be a welcome respite from traditional law-school fare.
So when the referendum comes, I promise to be open-minded, though wary of panaceas and acutely aware that some of electoral reform's doughtier champions have punted daft panaceas before and not apologised when they went pear-shaped.
If the alternative vote (AV) referendum itself is lost – and only a fool could at this stage be optimistic about a positive result – then the Lib Dems, those diehard champions of electoral reform, will themselves have set back, for a very long time, not just their own party, but also all near-future hopes of replacing first past the post (FPTP).
