With a historic deal between Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and the Legislature, California took the national leadership role in global warming issues, becoming the first state to put a cap on greenhouse gas emissions. In a much less noticed measure, California also can take a national leadership role in fixing the broken, obsolete way Americans elect the president.

Our system, the Electoral College, can produce the perverse result that the winner of the national popular vote can lose the presidential election. And because states give all their electoral votes to one candidate, using a winner-take-all method, presidential candidates concentrate on only a handful of battleground states. The vast majority of states, large and small, are neglected. For example, Democratic presidential candidates ignore California as safe and Republicans write it off as lost.

With Assembly Bill 2948, which sits on the governor's desk, the states take matters into their own hands by creating a binding interstate compact to assure that the winner of the national popular vote becomes president. Tom Campbell, a Republican former state senator, congressman and Schwarzenegger's director of finance, is among the leaders of this bipartisan campaign. Schwarzenegger should sit down with Campbell, hear him out and sign the bill. Here's how it would work: Each state wanting to join enacts the same 888-word bill giving all of its electoral votes to the candidate receiving the greatest number of votes nationally (see nationalpopularvote.com). The compact only takes effect when enough states join to form a majority of electoral votes (270 of 538).

At the 1787 Constitutional Convention, some delegates wanted direct election of the president; others wanted indirect election by Congress. At the very last minute, under the "hurrying influence produced by fatigue and impatience," in the words of James Madison, they settled on the Electoral College. Nobody wanted it. It's not a venerable institution. It broke down immediately and has been amended many times.

After 55 presidential elections, it's time to acknowledge that the presidency is a national office calling for direct election by the American people. With California's leadership, this can happen.

Schwarzenegger should sign this historic bill, as he did the greenhouse gas emissions bill. Both bills put California at the forefront of states providing 21st century solutions to much older problems.