Oh yes, I hate this country. You got me there. I mean, just because I’ve sworn and upheld an oath for pretty much my entire professional career to uphold the Constitution, my views that the 3/5th Compromise was a embarrassing tragedy in which all parties to it treated African Americans as pawns for their own political advantage is really the smoking gun evidence that you need to conclude that I’m an enemy of this country. Great sleuthing there, man, you really nailed me. I hope you apply this incredible detective work to other critical problems of our time, like finding out just how many Communists there are in the State Department.
What’s my answer? The only thing that fixes the problem is, sadly, amending the Constitution. The compact between a handful of states is, IMO, not legal because it would likely lack congressional authorization. The idea of increasing the size of the House is meritorious on its own rights, because it helps ameliorate the partisan advantage found through gerrymandering, but it really does little to address the electoral college issue. If the size of the House were doubled, Trump still would have won, 547 to 428.
The fact is that the Framers had a few really good ideas, a few really bad ones, and a few that were good for their time but have aged like milk. The Constitution is a political document, and inherently that means it contains some bad decisions that ought to be corrected… the trouble is, they made it equally as hard to eliminate the great parts (yay!) as to eliminate the horrible mistakes (boo!).
It may seem a far-fetched scenario, but the one I outline works if Tennessee’s popular vote is for the D’s. The GOP Governor doesn’t cast his evs for the R because R’s won Tennessee! He votes for the R because he’s following the Compact but believes (or pretends to believe) that the R’s won the nationwide popular vote.
Even setting aside that unlikely scenario — even if we stipulate that the chosen President will always be either the traditional EC winner or the popular winner — the NPVIC remains completely flawed. Let me explain why:
First note that the NPVIC has no utility whatsoever unless the traditional EC winner and the popular winner are different people. We may as well assume that those winners are split for discussion — otherwise the whole Compact is pointless.
Let’s also stipulate that one Party — call them the Mules — tends to follow rules and respect justice. Assume the other party — call them the Pachyderms — will do anything they can think of to cheat.
Given these assumptions, if the Mules win the traditional EC, but the Pachyderms win the popular vote, the Pachyderms win. If the Pachyderms win the traditional EC and the Mules win the popular vote, the Pachyderms will cheat their way to victory. If the Mules win both the traditional EC and the popular vote, will the Pachyderms have a successful way to cheat? Probably not, but I’ve already given a scenario where even that happens.
It’d be one thing for a governor to pull off something like that if the result was aligned with the wishes of the majority of his/her state, but a governor shamelessly going against the will of his/her own voters is just committing career suicide for the next election. While anything is possible (I think Gavin Newsom could conceivably convince the CA state legislature to pass a bill automatically giving all of the state’s EC votes to Trump regardless of the CA vote) , I don’t think that scenario is credible.
While the electoral college is complete trash, the power of the Senate is by far the worst electoral problem that needs fixing. Beyond giving outsided influence to empty farm land in electing the president, it also gives rural states vote power over all legislation and appointments. It would be possible for something like 25% of the population to stonewall all legislation, SCOTUS appointments, etc. Yeah yeah, it’s in the constitution, but pretty much all power that can be stripped from the Senate should be and transferred to the House.
That, giving DC and PR statehood, expanding the size of the House, having independent districting commissions (abolishing gerrymandering), implementing ranked choice voting, having set lengths of judicial appointments, automatic voter registration/national vote by mail, etc. There’s a lot to be fixed, but since doing so would require the GOP doing what is right, we’re fucked until demographics overwhelm the structural advantage the GOP has. Hopefully the SCOTUS/the rest of the country isn’t fucked beyond saving by that point.
I’ve said this much before in other threads, but I think there is certain value conceptually behind ensuring that any laws passed by the government also have concurrence from at least 26/50 of the states (kinda-sorta guaranteed by the Senate). It’d be difficult to really call ourselves the United States otherwise, if a minority of states could effectively shut out the majority from all decision-making ability.
I think people’s opinion of the EC (and the senate) is predicated on how they feel about the concept of federalism. Of states as as individual sovereign units capable of making their own decisions, and not just a collection of people that happen to reside in arbitrary borders. 50 equal stars on the flag, E pluribus unum, and all that jazz.
If personal “fairness” is really the ultimate goal here, federalism and the states are a clear obstruction to that. Borders need to be redrawn (to match population size) or eliminated altogether, most powers (beyond clearly local decision making) need to be transferred to the national government, and the Senate should be abolished.
States shouldn’t have any votes. People should have votes. “States rights” has never been about anything except the right to rape and torture. “States rights” is what got us slavery, segregation, Jim Crow, and nothing worthwhile.
Legal gambling, legal weed even legal abortion pre Roe v Wade. States rights allow a huge and diverse country to have diverse ways of governance. States rights allow more rural states to have laws that better reflect their reality. NYC gun control would be a totalitarian overreach in most of the country but the tyranny of majority rule, right?
The framers of the constitution did not anticipate parties. Nor that voters would choose the president. In fact, it was ancicipated that the electoral college would rarely have a majority and that it would be more like a nominating convention. The real election would take place in the house with each state having one vote. Rhode Island would have as much say as NY. What could be fairer than that?
In fact, the US constitution was so broken that no other country has emulated it. It was probably the first constitution of a federation in the world. The Swiss tell me that their 1815 constitution was modeled on that of the US. Maybe, but the results are entirely different. The executive consists of a council of 7, one of whom is designated for a year at a time as president, but that is purely a ceremonial title. He or she is still only one of the seven and the title rotates. It is also, I believe, relatively easy to amend. When they wanted to allow women to vote (which happened only in 1971–I was living there at the time) it still took only a vote of the whole country to ratify it.
The real problem with the constitution isn’t so much that it is a flaw document, but that the flews are nearly cast in stone.
My position is that condemning people of two centuries ago for not sharing your own worldview is not a productive - or even notably rational - approach.
The past is a different place - attitudes change with time.
Again: I’ve stipulated that scenario to be unlikely. The real problem with NPVIC is that the Rs win if they win EITHER the popular vote OR the traditional EC vote.
The founders were rich, racist, corrupt scumbags. Every head on Mt Rushmore is a rich & corrupt (except Lincoln) racist scumbag. The vast majority of US presidents have been rich, corrupt, racist scumbags. Some constitutional amendments tried to deal with the race/slavery issue but enforcement has been spotty because most enforcers have been (fairly) rich racist scumbags. The US has been a land of racist scumbags since the first colonial days, and has earned a global reputation for corruption since the beginning.
So yes, a total rewrite is necessary. Good luck with that.
This leads back to topic: How to level the presidential playing field? Answer: the hard way - when enough GOP pols croak and their gerrymanderings and suppressions are reversed, pass an amendment making presidential races exactly the same as EVERY other fucking American election (except certain state propositions): Whoever gets the most votes, wins. Delete Art.II Sec.1 Par.2: Each State shall appoint, in such Manner as the Legislature thereof may direct, a number of Electors… which lets states override voters.
But I doubt that will occur. US politics are too toxic. We are fucking doomed. :eek:
Adding more fuel to the fire, apportionment is based on residents and not citizens. Numberwise, illegal immigrants are about 3.35% of the population or about 14 to 15 Representatives. This means states with high numbers of illegal immigrants benefit with a significant number of electoral votes.