Donors with fat checkbooks have long been the A-listers in political campaigns.

But the 2012 election cycle may extend membership in that gilded group to small donors - and their cell phones.

California is poised to become the first state to allow residents to donate to a state or local political campaign on their cell phones, an idea that election officials say could bring millions of voters of all economic levels into the campaign donor club.

The state's Fair Political Practices Commission, which enforces political campaign laws, is backing the idea, which is on track to be approved by October and could be in force by the 2012 elections.

"Sounds like a good idea to me," said Gov. Jerry Brown, adding his support to the proposal.

The plan would make donating any amount to a state or local campaign as easy as texting a donation to a disaster relief fund or a charity, said FPPC Chair Ann Ravel.

"The goal is democratizing the campaign process - making sure that people at every level are more involved in politics," Ravel said.

FPPC Executive Director Roman Porter agrees: "If we can get more people to engage in political campaigns - even if they're giving just $5 - they're more likely to want to learn about what's happening with their candidate. And they're more likely to go out and vote."

The move by the state's FPPC underscores the increasing importance of smaller donors in political races - a trend seen at the national level as well in the 2012 presidential races.

President Obama's 2012 campaign already boasts that 85 percent of its supporters are donors who have given $80 or less to his re-election effort.

To woo more of them, the campaign recently offered a raffle prize - dinner with the president and Vice President Joe Biden.

Republican candidate Michele Bachmann, a Tea Party darling, has also been especially astute at turning out donors who write checks in the $5 to $50 range - she had 88,000 donors bulking up her most recent quarterly fundraising report to $3.6 million.

Porter said that California officials pursued the idea after the Federal Elections Commission denied a request from the wireless industry to implement a similar idea at the federal level.

"We're never going to take away big money from politics," Porter said, especially with the 2010 Supreme Court decision that did away with the ban on contributions by corporations and labor unions to presidential and congressional campaigns. "But that made us think about the opportunity for smaller donations."

The proposal, which does not affect federal races, allows a donation to a candidate instantly - without going on the Internet and without the hassle of a credit card. The donations are texted on the phone, and charged to the phone bill.

Porter said the FPPC is seeking Californians' views on the proposed regulations, which will be the subject of an Oct. 13 hearing. So far, there's been no opposition to the idea, which is expected to be adopted and in effect for the next election cycle, Porter said.

Broadening voter participation, says Ravel, is a key goal of the FPPC and the state's Political Reform Act of 1974 - co-written by then-Secretary of State Jerry Brown.

Brown himself was in the vanguard in encouraging small donors in his 1992 presidential race - when he saw his candidacy get a significant boost when he became the first candidate to put up a 1-800 number to encourage contributions to his campaign.

The increasingly effective - and important - efforts to build up armies of smaller donors in political campaigns has been noted by campaign operatives and candidates alike.

Politicalwebscience.com, a site devoted to elections and strategy, recently detailed a handful of ideas to encourage the activism of smaller donors in political campaigns.

"When you ask for donations that are smaller than the cost of eating out at a Ruby Tuesday, you can typically garner more support," the site advised in a recent post.

Among the other ideas they offer to mine supporters for small donations were to "ask supporters to give donations as a birthday present to a candidate ... $1 or $2 for every year of age."

Or, they advised, campaigns can offer a prize for a small donation, like "a signed pocket Constitution to donors who meet a small donation amount" of $25 to $50, the website said.

Porter says efforts to widen the donor circle make sense for political campaigns, whether they're done via cell phone or through more traditional methods, because the payoff can be huge.

"When you have someone who is willing to invest in an issue, whether it's a product or an idea, they will want to see that succeed," he said. "They're going to want to see their horse win, and they're going to carry through."

That very personal stake that a small donor has in a race, he said, has been shown to have "a different mentality" from wealthy people or business interests who "max out" on donations. "They see it as a cost of doing business," he said.