Generic platitudes. We're not talking about generalities of federalism. We are talking about the motivations behind what specifically gave us the Electoral College. State supremacy was not one of them.
another reason electoral college is bad
- Thread starter kurt cloverdales
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It would help if the words "state supremecy" were used.
It seems the "states rights" folks have become so infatuated with their own particular version of federalism, that they assume it permeates everything the founders ever said, when in truth, it was only one of many concerns, and was balanced against other concerns, and in some areas - such as the formation of the EC - it wasn't much of a relevant issue at all.
As I said, federalism (state supremacy) is baked in the constitutional cake. The is the final product. To put this in legal terms, prior negotiations and parol evidence don’t mean anything.
Do you think it needs to be in order to make that point? The states can convene a convention and change the whole shebang.
And as I said, you are refusing to discuss the actual topic at hand in favor of broad generalities. Your one attempt to make a specific argument re: the EC - by referencing Federalist 68 without any explication as to how exactly you interpret it - doesn't even make sense. It seems you are in the camp I described to Marvin: states' rights fetishists who wrongly assume that singular issue permeates everything the founders said.
So Federalist 68 - which is about Article II - says what it doesn't actually say because of Article V?
Your arguments in this thread are hard to understand, at the least. They seem to be bordering on nonsensical.
No, I think I have it correct. Without the EC, no Presidential candidate is going to bother wasting his campaign dollars trying to get the votes of people in the smaller states. They'll spend all their time in the big states and cities talking about their issues. They won't care about the issues in the smaller states. The people in the smaller states won't have much incentive to vote at all.
LMAO,
what "smaller states", other than swing states, do you think will get campaign dollars and candidate's time in 2020?
as others here and Mr Obvious already know, the swing states will get the overwhelming amount of attention and money. (and money isn't going to be a big factor in the 2020 prez race).
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There are two ways to change the Constitution. Your way proving state supremacy has never been done. Every change that has occurred has been done through Congress. This supremacy seems more theoretical. The state's have theoretical power. That and $5 will get you a cup of coffee.
I agree. I wrote my senior thesis paper in favor of the EC as a senior in HS in "Expository Theme & Research Paper" class. I was fascinated by it then. I still think it's genius. But it needs some tweaking. I'm hesitant to see us abolish the EC and just go to a popular vote - even through that would probably favor the candidate I prefer more often than not these days. I think the Framers were genius in trying to devise a way to prevent a tyrannical, populist candidate (sound familiar?) from bulldozing their way into office by dominating the national conversation. They were trying to come up with a way of having a chief executive that didn't have too much popular power. They didn't want a king, they wanted a head of state. It was a compromise, and it's generally worked pretty well, though it's not perfect. The Framers would never have claimed that it was.Without the EC you'd have no reason to vote in November if you live in a lesser populated state. Without the EC Presidential candidates (and the Presidents) wouldn't even bother paying lip service to, much less care about, the issues of states other than the 10 or so largest ones and large cities. They wouldn't need to care about small states and they'd be looking for votes only in heavily populated states and cities. The EC is genius. I've thought so since I first learned about it as a kid and have never seen a good reason to change my mind. Long live the EC.
Rather than discarding it, I would like to see us as a nation discuss how this principle could be tweaked to make it more representative of the reality of our population today, without throwing out the baby with the bathwater.
I think you make two big mistakes here.
First, you assert that without the EC, candidates would ignore small states. This mistake is rooted in two problems: One, they already ignore small states. The EC doesn't favor small states at all. It favors swing states. Two, without the EC, there would be no reason to ignore small states, because state lines would no longer be relevant at all. A vote in Wyoming would be just as valuable as a vote in Illinois.
Second, you assert that if candidates don't address local issues, voters will have no incentive to vote. That also doesn't make any sense. Do people still vote in Alaska? Hawaii? Montana? When's the last time any candidate spent significant time addressing issues in those states?
Any disincentive to vote is rooted entirely in the fear that one's vote will be meaningless. Republicans voting in California, Democrats in Wyoming, etc. These folks might very well feel it's a waste of time casting a ballot for President, since they already know how their state - and therefore the EC votes tied to their own personal votes - will be awarded. And this disincentive therefore only exists because of the EC, not in spite of it.
If we switched to a national popular vote, then every Republican in California and Democrat in Wyoming could vote for President knowing that their vote actually would have an effect on the outcome.
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I agree with all of this. On top of that, a state like Texas would probably get more Republican turnout than they do today if each vote mattered rather than just the state outcome.
We could do away with winner-take-all and award electors proportionally. For example, in Indiana in 2016, the general election results were:
Trump 56.47%
Clinton 37.46%
Johnson 4.86%
Assigned proportionally, Trump would have won 6 electors, Clinton 4, and Johnson 1, unless the rules were set up to conclude Johnson didn't reach some required minimum, in which case Trump would have won 7.
or states could all agree to give all their EC votes to the popular vote winner.
winner take all isn't in the Constitution and this can be fixed without a Constitutional amendment, and desperately needs to be for all the reasons given above.
enabling minority rule is the only reason not to.
I would prefer to have a national popular vote, but I was responding to C&C who was looking for a tweak to the EC system that would make it more representative, but still fall short of simply awarding the Oval to the winner of the national vote.
I would posit that they wanted a head of government, not a head of state. They wanted a competent, apolitical executive of stature, one that was known as such by the electors from the various states. Those electors were supposed to be the knowledgeable statesmen of their states, who would act in the bests interests of their states of course, but also in the best interests of the nation.
This fantasy construct worked well for two terms, with Washington. After that, it became the factional facade that remains to this day.
Maybe. Not sure I agree with the semantic difference you posit between head of state and head of government though. The Federal system did require a head of state and commander in chief which was the primary purpose of the Federal Executive. That was probably more important then than someone to run the government, which the States viewed as their respective roles.
what they wanted was a sexist racist plutocracy, where only the well to do white male landowners ruled, if you want to get technical.
the EC was extorted into the Constitution by small state rich white males with very disproportionate power to their numbers at the time, that along with 2 senators per state regardless of population, wanted to perpetuate and maximize that disproportionate power as much as possible.
let's not overthink or sugar coat this.
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Yes, or could there be some algorithm assigned to weight (Edit: allocation) of electors by population density? I would have to put more thought into what that would look like, But some weighting factor to take away a little of the disproportionate weight sparsely populated states currently enjoy and recognize the importance of the dense population centers, without taking away the small state's say altogether. Just something to tweak the weighting...
The simplest and easiest weighting tweak would be to take away the two extra votes each state gets and make the number the same as their number of seats in the House.
Im in favor of doing away with state winner take all. I think the Nebraska system works well if we can solve the political gerrymandering problem. Each congressional district having a direct vote will expand and distribute voter and candidate interest. No matter how you slice it or dice it, a NPV will give outsized influence to urban voter influences.
absolutely factually incorrect.
it would give urban voters the exact same influence, which they absolutely should have, not more.
nice try though.
That's a very big if. I think the current state of Gerrymandering is of the devil and one of the biggest threats to our government. It needs to be solved.
Disagree. The notion of an American "state" -- i.e. nation -- was not in vogue. They wanted "a more perfect union" -- a better setup than what they had under the Articles, but it was still called the "the united States", not The United States. For example, the chief executive was empowered to negotiate treaties on behalf of the union of states, but that was done by underlings and required Congress to ratify. No Head of State was involved or necessary other than to instruct the ministers plenipotentiary, and to bring the negotiated results to Congress. In other words, there was no embodiment of The United States in the person of the President, i.e. no Head of State.
That wouldn't actually be easy, at all, since it would require a Constitutional amendment. Changing how each state awards its Electors, however, could be done at the state level.
Like the founders, I see value in distribution of political influence. I know the law is one man one vote within each state. However, states taken together, regional voices are recognized and valued.
Another factor that hasn't been mentioned, is that the NPV will tend to give POTUS outsized influence, at least on an emotional level in the minds of the votes and the office holder. We already have issues with an imperial presidency in my view. The NPV would aggravate the matter, concentrate power, concentrate money, and forever change how people see the federal government.
"Easiest" was a poor choice of words. How about "least complicated"?
I actually agree with you almost entirely on this point. Not sure if that's ever quite happened. I think that's at least in large part what the Founders were trying to avoid. Edit: and it's also the primary advantage of the EC that we should try to salvage, if we indeed look to make changes...
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i'll assume doing away with the plus 2 would require a Constitutional amendment, so logistically not a good solution.
Rube Goldberg has taken over the thread, when the simplest solution, all EC votes to the popular vote winner, making every vote count, and count the same, gets us to the same destination.
and again, let's not overthink why the small states did what they did and leveraged their disproportionate power at the time, or make it out as something far more grand than it was.
the EC was extorted into the Constitution by small state rich white males with very disproportionate power to their numbers at the time, that along with 2 senators per state regardless of population, wanted to perpetuate and maximize that disproportionate power as much as possible.
again, let's not overthink or sugar coat this.
Not under the Constitution as written. George could have exerted more power than he did, and yes he probably could have gotten away with it. That doesn't mean those who convened in 1787 thought they were providing for a "kingly" executive. The wanted an executive of stature, competence, and honor. We've actually been lucky enough to have a number of those.
Trump visited 45 states and Clinton 37 in 2016. Trump visited 12 different states in the final days. Not sure how many will be visited in 2020, but I am sure it will be less with the virus.
They actually spent less time worrying about the actual power of the President than people often assume, simply because they all assumed Washington would become the first President, and they were content to define the office in the broadest strokes possible, and leave it to him to define the details.
Debates on the executive were less about power, and more about corruption. They wanted to design the office to minimize the odds that someone would be placed there beholden to foreign or corrupt domestic influences.
Except that federal supremacy was baked into Article VI, Clause 2 first:
This Constitution, and the Laws of the United States which shall be made in Pursuance thereof; and all Treaties made, or which shall be made, under the Authority of the United States, shall be the supreme Law of the Land; and the Judges in every State shall be bound thereby, any Thing in the Constitution or Laws of any State to the Contrary notwithstanding.
I think my point there was that, at the time the Constitution was conceived, there was sentiment in some circles to have a figurehead, whatever we want to call it whether it be head of state, head of government, etc., that was very powerful, more akin to a King that what we've imagined in modern times. And more powerful than a lot of the Framers were comfortable with. This was a very complicated negotiation that happened. It factored in those concerns, along with the Southern slave state's concerns, and was just a big messy soup of competing interests. The grand compromise they came up with was the EC. And you're right - the assumption was that with this balance of power put in place, candidates would arise for the EC to choose from that had the requisite stature, competence and honor, to fulfill the role. That is all now out the window.
Indeed. So far SCOTUS has avoided considering the issue head on. Racial gerrymandering has been voided for clearly constitutional considerations. Political gerrymandering is a different animal because it will require consideration of whether being a Republican or Democrat is to be constitutionally protected. I don't think the court can get there.
I tried to engage the board on this issue a couple of times. Of course all that happened was the usual bullshit from the usual posters.
Madison famously argued that the Constitution was neither federal nor national, but a combination of both (Federalist 39). It's important to remember that in the context of the Articles of Confederation, this was a decided shift toward national consolidation, the weaknesses of the Confederation having already become apparent.
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