That hoary left-wing idea for functionally disposing of the Electoral College is still a terrible idea. It technically only comes into force if ratified by enough states to make it binding, but it’s still worth pointing this out.
That hoary left-wing idea for functionally disposing of the Electoral College is still a terrible idea. It technically only comes into force if ratified by enough states to make it binding, but it’s still worth pointing this out.
10 comments:
The best argument against dispensing with the Electoral College is the 2000 Florida vote and recount. Dispensing with the Electoral College would mean the 2000 Florida vote and recount being done fifty times.
Interstate compacts are legal only when Congress approves them.
This would look enough like an interstate compact that it would be of questionable legality.
Getting enough States to act overtly independently to enact the relevant State laws would be a dicey affair. Especially since subsequent State legislatures could undo their State's laws.
Eric Hines
How many states have committed to it, so far? I haven't heard a recent tally.
Seventeen, but 39% of the Electoral College votes.
We can go to a national vote, if you want the east and west coast populations to pick our president every four years. I think keeping the electoral college is a better idea.
As in the comments above. The blue exceptions on the map are all places that were quite purple this year. Strongly blue places like CA, DC, and NY liked the idea of signing on because they thought their votes would count with more weight. The founding fathers were quite aware of the possible dominance of a few well-populated states and quite intentionally balanced area and boundaries against it.
Something similar happened in the 3/5 Compromise, where the negotiators and designers saw clearly that giving too much advantage to one type of person, i.e. large slaveholders, would ruin the country. Some people have the control of money, others have the control of land or resources, others have the power of burrowing in and controlling institutions, while others can control the popular imagination. Power is distributed in America with uncertain and shifting balances, and that is a good thing.
Many of our enlightened friends on the left currently view the 3/5 Compromise as a putdown of blacks--that blacks were viewed as only 3/5 of a person. This ignores the original purpose of the 3/5 Compromise: to lessen the political power of the slaveholding states in Congress and in Presidential elections, i.e., to lessen the political power of the slaveholders.
It is a bitter irony that the slave holders could recognize their full and complete humanity when it came time for apportionments, but saw nothing at all they needed to respect at any other occasion.
Here is an example of the lefty view of the 3/5 Compromise from The Guardian: Will the American project survive the anger of white men?
The three-fifths clause, which partially counted each enslaved human being by that fraction, gave the slaveholding south disproportionate and unearned power in the US House of Representatives.
If each enslaved being were counted as the equivalent of one white being, the South would have had even more "disproportionate and unearned power in the US House of Representatives" and the Electoral College.
Yes, as illegal immigrants are currently counted for the purpose of giving out 'disproportionate and unearned power.'
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