Why We Must Defend the Electoral College by Trent England

Author:Trent England [England, Trent]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Legal History, Public Affairs & Administration, Political Parties, Political Science, Political Process, Law
ISBN: 9781641771498
Google: sEFozQEACAAJ
Goodreads: 53431154
Publisher: Encounter Books
Published: 2020-05-05T00:00:00+00:00

DESPERATELY SEEKING DEMOCRACY

Despite the benefits of the Electoral College, detractors maintain that it is unseemly for a candidate to win without receiving the most popular votes. Then-First Lady Hillary Clinton said in 2000 that “in a democracy, we should respect the will of the people and to me, that means it’s time to do away with the Electoral College.” Yet similar systems prevail around the world. In parliamentary systems – including in Canada, Israel, and the United Kingdom, to name a few – prime ministers are elected by the legislature. Germany and India do this but also have presidents who are elected by a combination of legislative bodies that form, dare I say it, an electoral college. In all these democratic systems, the national popular vote total is irrelevant.

And right here at home, what matters most about every legislative body, from the Oklahoma House of Representatives to the United States Senate, is which party is in control.

The founders had warned against political parties; then they became the first partisans.

That party elects leadership and sets the agenda. And in neither chamber of Congress nor in any of the ninety-nine state legislative chambers does the aggregate popular vote determine who is in charge. What matters is winning districts or states.

Nevertheless, there is a clamor of voices calling for an end to the Electoral College. Some is just sour grapes and posturing. Decrying this part of the Constitution has become an emblem of the “resistance,” and it fits neatly within the progressive idea that whatever might help them obtain power must be progress. Hillary Clinton said in 2019 that we have “evolved” beyond the Electoral College. Former Attorney General Eric Holder has declared it “a vestige of the past,” and Washington Governor Jay Inslee identified it as one of several “archaic relics of a bygone age.” Indeed, prominent Democrats from Beto O’Rourke to Elizabeth Warren have jumped at opportunities to call for abolishing the Electoral College.

In fact, what some of these Democrats or their advisors might realize is just how similar their party’s position is today to what it was in the late nineteenth century. California is becoming for them what the south was for their forerunners. The Golden State accounted for 10.4 percent of votes cast in 2016, while the southern states (from South Carolina to Florida and across to Texas) accounted for 10.6 percent of the votes cast in 1888. Cleveland won those southern states by nearly 39 percent, and Clinton won California by 30 percent. In other words, rather than building the broader coalition required to win the Electoral College, they would change the rules to increase the chances that their current, narrower coalition can win.

Whether for posturing or politics, calls to amend the Constitution are a dime a dozen. Even anti–Electoral College amendments with bipartisan support in the 1950s and 1970s failed to receive the required two-thirds supermajorities in order to be sent to the states for consideration. Partisan amendments will not make it through Congress, nor could they win ratification among the states.

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