I’d support having every state adopt the Maine/Nebraska approach, and even more I’d support direct popular election. The Colorado proposal is along those lines, the most a state can do on its own authority.
But the rules have to be the same for everyone. The President governs the entire country. If the rule change isn’t going to happen nationwide, it shouldn’t happen at all.
So you’re saying that absent a nationwide change, you do NOT support Colorado’s division of electoral votes?
I had thought my last sentence was in clear enough English, but yes. Wanna discuss it?
Well… yes. How do you feel about Maine and Nebraska?
The legislature has nothing to do with this. From the Colorado Constitution, Article V, Section 1:
No legislative endorsement is required here.
Please. I posted that already, and you copied it yourself in its entirety. Two opportunities for you.
Let me expand on that before a possibly-wasted excursion into the realm of political principle: Are you looking for a substantive discussion about how to improve the electoral process? Or, based on the tone of your OP (“lock people into positions”), are you simply looking to store up Gotchas you can use to score in a November 3 “Ha, ha, you losers” thread? Disturbingly, it is not at all clear that you’re willing, or perhaps able, to recognize that the principles involved in a functioning and stable democracy are larger than simply having one’s own candidate take office. But you can show otherwise.
So, what do you want to talk about? Yet another Electoral College thread, or just cheap point-scoring?
Sorry - let me clear up my question. I know you’d support the Maine/Nebraska/proposed Colorado approach were it done nation-wide, and I know you do not support the proposed Colorado approach now, since it’s on its own.
My question – which was admittedly not clear - is as follows: do you discern any difference in palatability between the Maine and Nebraska approach, which award two votes to the overall winner and split the remaining votes pro-rata, and the proposed Colorado approach, which divvies up all votes pro-rata?
I think the people of Colorado - or Maine, or Nebraska - are foolish to dilute their influence in this way. I am a strong believer in the need for and viability of the dual-sovereign system. States - and the residents thereof - have different needs and interests in federal government, and it is abolsutely vital to have fifty functioning sovereign entities in our country. It’s one of the thigns that’s made us as strong and vibrant as we are. While it’s true that citizens of less-populous states have a greater impact, per citizen, on the selection of the President than those of more populous states, that’s just fine by me.
This one’s really easy, actually. I don’t think Colorado should split its votes (nor Maine nor Nebraska) because if the rules by which votes are counted in one state differ materially from the rules in another state, then the person installed in the presidency becomes more and more likely to be someone other than who the polity have chosen. That said, it is currently left to the states to decide this question – while I think it shouldn’t be (and that this wouldn’t impair the sovreignity of the states), it is.
–Cliffy
Not much, compared to the winner-take-all approach. Since, as a lower-case democrat, I’m really in favor of direct popular election, as I also stated, I’d prefer the closer-to-democratic CO approach to the not-as-close-but-still-much-better-than-what-we’ve-got ME/NE approach, obviously. But either one has the immense advantage over direct election of being politically feasible. You take what you can get - politics is the art of the possible. The ME/NE approach we know is feasible because it’s in place in 4% of the states. The CO approach may fail but still meets the test of real-world feasibility.
Perhaps, or perhaps they simply have the courage to move forward. The best way would be for every state to make the change simultaneously, yes, but that isn’t realistically going to happen. A split result that fails to cause the sky to fall just might help the process quite a bit - and even so, if CO is only worth 5 instead of 9 EV’s, that’s still more than some other states that will decide it this year. Candidates would not ignore the place when they certainly would if either had a solid statewide lead, so I don’t really see that much disadvantage.
I agree it would probably be a mistake to go it alone, and so apparently do a majority in CO, but it might not be. At the very least, it establishes the idea that winner-take-all is not a given and can be changed without involving the Feds at all, and you may well see it pop up in a lot of other states fairly soon if it gets decent support this time.
Sigh. The question of our being a nation vs. a federation was settled by the Civil War. We’re *one * nation, indivisible etc., with one national government. If some of us have more say in it than others, that goes against the spirit and arguably the letter of the right to equal protection under the law. You are a strong believer in *all * of the Constitution, aren’t you?
The Civil War did not dissove state lines not do away with state sovereignty. It did establish - as a practical reality - the federal Constitution’s claim to being the supreme law of the land - a point I do not dispute.
It’s not only the law that supports fifty sovereign states in our union - it’s simply wise. States may experiment with laws, policies, and other staes (and the federal government) may observe the success or failure of those experiments before embarking on their own changes.
Sure, we’re one nation, indivisible. But that does not mean that all states’ residents have the exact same voice in electing the President, or in passing federal legislation. It never has. We are not a democracy - we are a democratic repuplic.
Actually, this is exactly what I think any serious minor party (or candidate, Mr. Nader) should try to do.
Under the present system, Ralph Nader (ex gratia) accomplishes nothing by campaigning nationwide for, what, 7% of the vote? He should pick a state & try to win a majority there, so that a deal will be made in the Electoral College under threat of Congress naming the President. With proportional electors, he can campaign to his supporters across the country to accomplish this. As for people voting for a candidate other than who the third-party voters voted for, well, they’re not getting their choice anyway, are they? Politics is about compromise & coalition. A system that just goes with the biggest plurality of dittoheads over a majority coalition is silly, & unfairly favors silly thoughtless constituencies.
I started to say, “unfairly favors silly people,” which was clearer.
Shhh. You’re not allowed to suggest plausible and strategic methods by which a non-pubdem candidate or party could actually accomplish something. Because those mechanisms that exist? They’re unfair. Only through fairness will a single-seat candidate win 27% of the vote and be considered legitimate. When it happens now, it is TOTALLY UNFAIR.
What do you see as the advantage of the district system? It is still winner take all, just with more, and overlapping, districts. It solves none of the problems of the unit system and has the additional disadvantage of raising the stakes in the gerrymandering game. Given that so many of the House districts are already drawn to the benefit of one party or the other there are likely to be even fewer swing electoral votes than there are now. Or at least, that seems likely to me. I haven’t seen the actual numbers but the vast majority of House members don’t face serious opposition though some of that advantage comes from incumbancy.
Do you have any reason to believe they are/would be diluting their influence? Maine and Nebraska have never split their electoral votes since adopting the district system and Colorado, even with the uncertainty hanging over it, earned a visit by the president a couple days back which was more than it got in 2000 when it was safely Republican. Are the political trends in Colorado taking it away from red state status or is this just a fluke?
Isn’t this a non-sequitur? We will still have such a system if we moved to a proportional system or even direct election. States would still have their semi-sovereign status and representation in the Senate. And we aren’t discussing turning the election over to the federal government. True, a proportional system increases the likelyhood of contingent elections decided in the House but that can be avoided by negotiation with electors of minor candidates and the possibility of a tie among the electors can be eliminated by increasing or decreasing the size of the House by a single member. A direct election would put electoral power directly in the hands of the residents of the states. Why shouldn’t individuals decide for themselves what is best for themselves and their state instead of being carried along by the wishes of their neighbors?
Why? Are some people worth more?
Well, of course. Would you consider them a serious candidate if they didn’t follow the most effective ethical electoral strategy? I wouldn’t. Ralph Nader is with a minor party. He is the banner carrier ( though not a member so far as I know ) of the Reform Party which is why the courts here in Penna refused to allow him on the ballot as an Independent. That party’s nominee in 2000 was Pat Buchanan. Buchanan, like Perot before him, garnered the support of lots of people who don’t really consider nonwhites to be real Americans. ( That’s not to say all Reform Party supporters feel this way. ) In Buchanan’s case, these people could be said to be his base. Yet in 2000 he chose a black woman to be his running mate. So I don’t consider him a serious candidate. I’d say he was a sacrificial lamb whose job was to push the bigots back into the Republican Party.
I looked up that Latin term and supposedly it means “as a favor”. If so it still makes no sense to me in this context. What am I missing?
Nader will not get seven percent. He will get less than 2%. In all likelyhood, much less. Campaigning in just one state isn’t going to help him either because he has no chance of gaining a majority anywhere. But yes, under a nationwide proportional system he could get some electors and try to bargain with a major candidate to become Secretary of Transportation or something. I have no ethical problem with such bargaining so long as he was up front with the voters about his strategy ( something I don’t believe he has been now and in the past ). Hell, if Penna had a proportional system I would be out there supporting just such a strategy for my candidate, David Cobb.
My concern, to try to be more clear, is that breaking the tradition of continuity between voters and electors will lead to rogue electors. That is, party deals will lead to individuals doing so on their own. There have been attempts ( or at least plans to attempt ) to turn electors in the recent past. Bargaining between parties is one thing; individual electors cutting deals that aren’t approved by their candidates is quite another.
For those keeping score at home, a Denver Post poll released today has the amendment losing 55% to 31%.
Bricker, having acknowledged that federal law is supreme over the states in all respects, are you ready to address the contradiction I pointed out between unequal EC representation and equal protection under the law? It’s puzzling to see a proud conservative put the rights of the state above the rights of the individual. What am I missing here?
It isn’t perfect, but it’s better than what we’ve got and it’s achievable in the real world.
Simplicity is not synonymous with feasibility. How would you go about “convincing state governments” with small populations and overrepresentation in the EC to abandon their advantage?
And how do you think the Senate is elected, anyway?
Your first and third points are contradictory. Gerrymandered winner take all districts are still winner take all. They will sometimes confer representation on voters who will be in the minority in the state overall but only by denying it to the new minority it creates. Perhaps an example would be helpful. Here in Penna almost all of us live in districts carved to heavily favor one party or the other. Imposing a district plan on this state then would remove our ability to effect 21 hotly contested electoral votes reducing that prize to a mere 2 while nearly all of the other electors would be predetermined.
The line you quoted just under this question would do the trick. But really there is no need. Once enough states with large and medium sized populations agree to pledge their electors to the most popular candidate nationwide that person will win. The “small” states can give their electoral votes to Abe Vigoda if they wish.
But they’re still smaller than states, their majorities are more representative of their wholes, and the resulting state-level EC delegation is therefore more representative.
And that is still 2 more than you have now. I have freely stated that it isn’t perfect, just an improvement over the current system.
The topic was practical, real-world feasibility. You aren’t addressing it.
The point was that Senators from small states would have to vote, en masse, against their own states’ interest. Don’t count on it.
Not when they coincide, which is why the small-state ones would (at least mostly) vote No.
That’s an odd thing to say. It is a single-seat election. Even with a popular vote, a 50.0… will beat a 49.999… Unless you can divide the presidency itself, this point 3 will apply under all voting systems. Unless I am misunderstanding what you mean by “no representation”.