The Delaware legislature adjourned at 5 a.m. on the morning of July 1. HB 198, the National Popular Vote Plan bill, did not get brought up in the Senate (it had passed the House on June 24). However, the bill could pass the Senate next year, because Delaware has two-year legislative sessions.
Inherent in your argument is that the United States is a democracy. It is not. It is a republic. The difference is crucial. It is the very foundation of our political framework. In a democracy, the majority rules, often at the expense of minority rights. In a republic, power is vested in individuals and is exercised through their elected representatives.
If the United States was a pure democracy, then the will of the states such as New York, California, New Jersey and Massachusetts would be thrust upon states like Colorado, Kansas, Utah, Tennessee, Rhode Island and Kentucky. Our Founding Fathers knew that states had different interests and did not want to see the desires of more populated states forced upon smaller ones. Thus, they created the Electoral College. The Electoral College forces candidates to campaign in a wide variety of areas, rather than concentrating on urban centers with large populations. That’s why national popular vote doesn’t matter. Electoral votes matter
In the 2000 presidential election, the Electoral College did exactly what the Founding Fathers designed it to do. It didn’t matter that Al Gore had a popular vote plurality of less than one-half of one percent. It didn’t matter that Gore won the popular vote in both California and New York by huge percentages. To be president, he had to win a majority of the electoral votes, which means he had to win the popular vote in a wide variety of states. If Gore had been able to win even a single southern or border state–such as his “home†state of Tennessee, Clinton’s home state of Arkansas), he would have been President. George W. Bush won the popular vote in 30 states, therefore giving him the necessary number of electoral votes to win the presidency. America was able to avoid the tyranny of the East and West Coasts.
Besides, Gore did not win a majority of the popular vote (over 50 percent). He had a mere plurality, meaning that over half the American people voted against him. Only in 1876 (whose results were confused by extensive fraud on both sides) did a candidate with a majority of the popular vote lose in the electoral college. The Electoral College has occasionally resulted in the defeat of a candidate who earned less than half of the popular – in effect punishing a candidate who got most of his votes came from an extremely geographically concentrated area of the country
The Electoral College stands as another example of the political brilliance of our Founding Fathers. It demonstrates their commitment to the protection of minority rights, and the diverse interests of the entire nation–not just the biggest cities or states.
So why hasn’t the Electoral College been changed in over 200 years? The answer is simple: because the system works. Just because some politicians still are bitter about the outcome of the 2000 elections doesn’t mean that the system should be changed, not in Colorado, nor California, nor New York, nor Florida. Without the Electoral College, all a candidate has to do is win a plurality of the popular vote, even if that plurality comes mainly from a handful of mega-cities on the coasts.
National Popular Vote is dangerous. If NPV passes, small states can only watch as larger states annoint the next president.
The only difference between a republic and a constitutional democracy is that a republic, by definition, has no monarch. A constitutional democracy may or may not have a monarch. Thus “republic” is a subset of “democracy”.
The definition of “democracy” does not necessarily mean that there are no constitutional limits on what the majority can do. The U.S. is a constitutional democracy.
This whole confusion over the traditional, centuries-old meaning of “republic” started in the late 1950’s when the John Birch Society started putting up billboards saying, “This is a republic, not a democracy”. In truth, the U.S. is both.
Rome was a Republic, until it got itself a monarch (an emperor). In the Middle Ages, virtually every nation in Europe had a monarch (either a king, queen, prince, duke, or count). One of the few that didn’t was Venice, which was a republic. Going way back to B.C. times, virtually every nation was a monarchy, but the Greek city-states were conspicuous exceptions and were republics. So these definitions go back 3,000 years.
Savannah (#1) says:
“Our Founding Fathers knew that states had different interests and did not want to see the desires of more populated states forced upon smaller ones. Thus, they created the Electoral College.”
It’s a tempting inference, but one not supported by the facts. Read, for example, what Alexander Hamilton, a delegate to the Constitutional Convention, says in The Federalist Paper #68:
http://avalon.law.yale.edu/18th_century/fed68.asp
Among other things, Hamilton (a/k/a “Publius”) says:
“It was equally desirable, that the immediate election should be made by men most capable of analyzing the qualities adapted to the station, and acting under circumstances favorable to deliberation, and to a judicious combination of all the reasons and inducements which were proper to govern their choice. A small number of persons, selected by their fellow-citizens from the general mass, will be most likely to possess the information and discernment requisite to such complicated investigations…”
“…And as the electors, chosen in each State, are to assemble and vote in the State in which they are chosen, this detached and divided situation will expose them much less to heats and ferments, which might be communicated from them to the people, than if they were all to be convened at one time, in one place…”
“…Nothing was more to be desired than that every practicable obstacle should be opposed to cabal, intrigue, and corruption.”
Read Madison’s notes to the Convention. Delegate after delegate expressed the fear Hamilton expresses in that last statement. They feared secret alliances, power grabs…”cabal.” The Electoral College was not created as another expression of the “Connecticut Compromise,” which defined the allocation of Senators and Congressman to balance the powers of small and large states. No. It was not. In fact it was an alternative to appointment of the President by the Congress itself, the method which which was initially favored by an overwhelming majority of the delegates to the Constitutional Convention. But this method had one serious flaw, among many. It would create an Executive beholden directly to the Congress, and that would have jeopardized the separation of powers which delegates did in fact desire. As you can see from Hamilton’s own words, the matter of how to elect the Executive did not hinge on balancing the powers of states, protecting “states’ rights,” or protecting rural America from urban America. The real issue was protecting the government against corruption, and THAT is what gave birth to the EC.
Thankfully, as the nation matured, one state legislature after another ceded to the people the authority given them by the Constitution. So now our President is elected by the votes of registered voters in all 50 states, rather than by legislators, as the EC was originally contemplated by the FF’s.
You know, if we now strictly followed the Founding Fathers’ wishes on the matter of electing the Executive, most of us would not presently have a vote at all, regardless of whether we lived in a small or large state…unless of course we happened to be state legislators.
Whether one views our form of government as a “republican” democracy or not, I doubt anyone would seriously suggest we return to that method of selecting the Executive.
#3
“I venture somewhat further, and hesitate not to affirm, that if the manner of it be not perfect, it is at least excellent.”
It is clear that Hamilton, at least, expected the electors to be chosen by the People. And as you may know, that in the 3 States most associated with Founding Fathers, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, and Virginia, the voters did choose the electors in 1789 (in Massachusetts they nominated two persons from each district that the legislature then chose between).
If you look at the election results for the House of Representatives in 1789 and the election results for the presidential electors, it is clear that the franchise for voting in legislative elections for the lower House (and thereby for the federal House) and those for the presidential electors, that the franchise was the same, and presumably the same as for election of delegates to the conventions that ratified the Constitution.
“It was equally desirable, that the immediate election should be made by men most capable of analyzing the qualities adapted to the station, and acting under circumstances favorable to deliberation, and to a judicious combination of all the reasons and inducements which were proper to govern their choice. A small number of persons, selected by their fellow-citizens from the general mass, will be most likely to possess the information and discernment requisite to such complicated investigations.”
“All these advantages will happily combine in the plan devised by the convention; which is, that the people of each State shall choose a number of persons as electors, …, who shall assemble within the State, and vote for some fit person as President.”
“The choice of several, to form an intermediate body of electors, will be much less apt to convulse the community with any extraordinary or violent movements, than the choice of one who was himself to be the final object of the public wishes.“
#2 In my view, a “republic” has a clearer connotation that the People are sovereign, rather than that they merely get to vote for the government, as might happen in a democracy.
This may color our views as to what constitutes a political party. I believe a political party is made up the voters themselves who choose the nominees, while you appear to favor a view oriented to the formal corporate entities which might permit voters to sometimes be involved in the nomination process.
#4 – Yes? And? Nothing you’ve quoted substantiates Savannah’s (#1) claim that the Electoral College was created by the Founding Fathers to prevent the “desires” of large states from being forced upon small states. In fact, the passages suggest that Hamilton might have been supportive of a direct election by the people. But in fact the 68th Federalist Paper was published in defense of the EC, and in that defense Hamilton says nothing of protecting “small” states from “big” states. So again, while that inference may be a convenient one for those who wish to defend the current incarnation of the EC, there is little evidence that the EC was formed for that sole purpose, or even for that primary purpose.
What we are left with are the FF’s ACTUAL WORDS in the Constitution. Those words give the state legislatures the authority to allocate their EC votes in whatever manner they choose. That is what the NPV compact would do. States would be exercising the specific “right” given them by the Constitution in a manner of their own choosing.
3 forms of government (excluding the delusional utopian types) —
Democracy – Majority Rule
Oligarchy – Minority Rule by 2 or more
Monarchy – Minority Rule by 1.
Direct or indirect for each type.
Constitution limits for each type IF there is a constitution.
The U.S.A. regime is an EVIL VICIOUS indirect minority rule regime — a blatant oligarchy of the EVIL gerrymander MONSTERS in the gerrymander Congress and in the gerrymander Electoral College.
Each State legislature regime is also an EVIL minority rule gerrymander regime.
RESULT – the circa $$$ 13 plus TRILLION debts in all governments, undeclared wars, genocide of the old American Indian tribes to about 1890, slavery until 1865, inflations, depressions, etc. etc. etc. — standard stuff that ALL EVIL ROTTED minority rule regimes produce.
REAL Democracy NOW — regardless of ALL EVIL MORONS who love the minority rule stuff from the EVIL past to continue.
P.R. – legislative bodies
A.V. – executive and judicial offices
It’s all semantics, you could call the United States a republic or a democracy.
Everyone knows, however, that every issue is not voted on in a referendum by every citizen. Of course we aren’t a DIRECT democracy. Pointing that fact out makes you Captain Obvious, not clever.
#6 I was not writing in defense of Savannah’s claim, but in rebuttal of this fiction of yours:
“Thankfully, as the nation matured, one state legislature after another ceded to the people the authority given them by the Constitution. So now our President is elected by the votes of registered voters in all 50 states, rather than by legislators, as the EC was originally contemplated by the FF’s.
You know, if we now strictly followed the Founding Fathers’ wishes on the matter of electing the Executive, most of us would not presently have a vote at all, regardless of whether we lived in a small or large state…unless of course we happened to be state legislators.”
You quote from the Federalist, and yet fail to note who it was addressed to, and why it was addressed to them. And then you ignore the specific words of Hamilton where he suggests that the electors would be chosen by the people. And then you ignore the reality of the first election in 1789, when the voters of Virginia, the voters of Pennsylvania, and the voters of Massachusetts all participated in the election of the electors from their respective States.
9
First…this started with Savannah making the common claim but erroneous claim that the EC was created by the FF’s to reinforce the “rights” of small states versus large states. Uh…no. That is not correct. It is a comfortable inference for some to make, as I have stated, but it is not a fact. As George Will once said, you’re entitled to your own opinions, but not your own set of facts.
So then…how better to test the facts supporting or refuting that particular claim than to go to a source? The source I quoted was a delegate to the Con Con who wrote FP #68 to defend the Electoral College. Hamilton stated why he was writing the paper, and I gave a link to the full source. His purpose for writing the paper was therefore self-evident. Perhaps you, like Savannah, would like to ruminate on your own as to why he wrote it. I prefer to rely on his own words. And I did provide a link to the full source, so I hid nothing of what Hamilton wrote. For instance, does it really matter that the paper was addressed to the “People of the State of New York?” I think not. If I’m not mistaken all of Hamilton’s FP’s were addressed thusly, but they were widely printed and distributed throughout the states. The salutation is therefore irrelevant to the matter at hand (unless, of course, you again want to speculate).
There is not a word in that paper that suggests the EC was created to protect “states rights,” or to protect small states from large, or urban centers from rural voters. That was Savannah’s contention. It is not Hamilton’s however. None of your additional quotes (thank you again) indicate Hamilton – a Founding Father from New York – had any concern whatsoever about those matters.
Would you like other quotes from other FF’s who participated in the Con Con? Here (taken from James Madison’s notes to the convention):
“Mr. SHERMAN was for the appointment by the Legislature, and for making him absolutely dependent on that body, as it was the will of that which was to be executed. An independence of the Executive on the supreme Legislature, was in his opinion the very essence of tyranny if there was any such thing.”
“Mr. WILSON renewed his declarations in favor of an appointment by the people. He wished to derive not only both branches of the Legislature from the people, without the intervention of the State Legislatures but the Executive also; in order to make them as independent as possible of each other, as well as of the States”
“Col. MASON favors the idea, but thinks it impracticable. He wishes however that Mr. Wilson might have time to digest it into his own form.-the clause “to be chosen by the National Legislature”-was accordingly postponed.”
“Mr. RUTLIDGE suggests an election of the Executive by the second branch only of the national Legislature.”
Mr. GERRY, opposed the election by the national legislature. There would be a constant intrigue kept up for the appointment. The Legislature & the candidates wd. bargain & play into one another’s hands, votes would be given by the former under promises or expectations from the latter, of recompensing them by services to members of the Legislature or to their friends.”
These quotes are taken from early in the Con Con, and support my contention that there was in fact no unanimity of opinion about how the Executive should be chosen. However the delegates were as a body generally content early on with the idea that the Congress should appoint the Executive. This is hardly a surprise – most of them were or had been members of their own state legislatures and/or the Continental Congress.
Thus far I’ve seen no one else in this space go to the trouble of QUOTING Founding Fathers. They just make their own inferences and conscript the FFs as their unwitting allies, as Savannah does above. So here…I’ll do some of your work for you. Here is a quote that supports her premise:
“Mr. RANDOLPH, urged strongly the inexpediency of Mr. Gerry’s mode of appointing the Natl. Executive. The confidence of the people would not be secured by it to the Natl. magistrate. The small States would lose all chance of an appointmt. from within themselves. Bad appointments would be made; the Executives of the States being little conversant with characters not within their own small spheres.”
Even here however, note that Randolph (who, I take pains to note, introduced the Virginia Plan which if adopted would have given large states greater power in Congress than they ended up getting) is arguing against a proposal by Gerry of Massachusetts that the GOVERNORS of the 13 states appoint the Executive. So there was yet another scheme that was discussed.
It is the greatest of fictions that the FFs agreed the Connecticut Compromise and then promptly turned to the matter of electing the Executive and said “Oh yes…OF COURSE…we’ll also set up the EC to elect the Executive to protect the interests of small states!”
Again…go to a source. Read Madison’s notes. The EC was settled upon very late in the Convention and some time after the form of the Congress was resolved. In fact, the general body of the Con Con was surprised and somewhat disturbed by the proposal which came out of committee. Or read “Miracle At Philadelphia: The Story of the Constitutional Convention” by Catherine Drinker or “A Brilliant Solution: Inventing the American Constitution” by Carol Berkin. These historians emphasize that what the FFs feared most was an unfettered Executive, particularly one beholden to a small cadre of powerful people. The main issue which concerned the delegates as to the appointment or election of the Executive was…corruption. It was fear of corruption which gave rise to the EC. Preserving a balance of power among the states was simply not the sole or even primary reason the EC was created.
Finally, as to your point that three state legislatures conveyed their power to the voting public as early as 1789 (women, nonproperty owners, slaves and Indians excluded, I suspect)…would you agree that they had a right to do so? A constitutional right? A right to “appoint, in such Manner as the Legislature thereof may direct, a Number of Electors, equal to the whole Number of Senators and Representatives to which the State may be entitled in the Congress…â€
Careful, now!
Cheers…
#10 The reason that Hamilton addressed it to the people of New York, was because it was the people of New York through convention that would ratify the Constitution, not the State legislature.
You wrote:
“Thankfully, as the nation matured, one state legislature after another ceded to the people the authority given them by the Constitution. So now our President is elected by the votes of registered voters in all 50 states, rather than by legislators, as the EC was originally contemplated by the FF’s.”
“You know, if we now strictly followed the Founding Fathers’ wishes on the matter of electing the Executive, most of us would not presently have a vote at all, regardless of whether we lived in a small or large state…unless of course we happened to be state legislators.”
But we have the words of Alexander Hamilton where he was explaining the process that the Constitution Convention had finally agreed upon. There is no evidence whatsoever that he contemplated appointment of the electors by the legislature.
And we have the actions of the founding fathers from Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, and Virginia that also had popular election of presidential electors. If we are naming founding fathers, don’t we thing of John Adams, Sam Adams, Elbridge Gerry, John Hancock, Ben Franklin, James Wilson, Robert Morris, George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, James Monroe, James Mason, Richard Henry Lee, and Patrick Henry? And of course electors were also popularly elected in New Hampshire, Delaware, and Maryland.
When we think of States like Connecticut and New Jersey where the legislature picked the electors, who can we come up with? Betsy Ross and Benedict Arnold?
It is simply irrelevant to go back to the discussions early in the process of the Constitutional Convention. I have never claimed that the electoral college was not a brilliant invention devised late in the process. Maybe Hamilton would have preferred something else. But he recognized it as at least excellent. I think you need to read #68 from the top and presume that Hamilton placed all the important items at the front and not buried down in the lower paragraphs that you chose to quote.
Under the Constitution, the House of Representatives is “composed of members chosen … by the People of the several States”. Now while you may choose to whine that the electors did not include women, nonproperty owners, slaves, and Indians; it was the electorate that chose the delegates to the ratification conventions, it is the electorate that chose the first Congress in 1788 and 1789 (the one that proposed the so-called Bill of Rights), and the electorate that chose most of the presidential electors that in turn chose George Washington and John Adams.
I have never claimed that the State legislatures did not have the authority to approve participation in your nefarious NPV scheme; just that it would be ill-advised for them to do so.
If the EC is to help small states, it fails. People don’t vote based on how big their state is, they vote on ideology. There are small states and large states that are very liberal and small states and large states that are very conservative. The idea that small states need to be protected is outdated.
If the EC is an elitist institution, it also fails. It’s effects don’t uniformly favor any one group, rather, they are almost completely arbitrary. Was Al Gore some populist demagogue? Of course not. Well some of the readers of this site probably think he was but the point still stands, if the EC was created to deny “dangerous” men like him the presidency, why didn’t it stop then even more left-wing Obama?
Furthermore, we could get rid of the EC and still be far far from a direct democracy, still be very much a republic.
#10 –
To review – I responded to Savannah’s Shanghaiing the FF’s to support his/her conclusion that the EC was invented to protect small states against large.
That was the issue.
In response I provided ample evidence that many of the Founding Father’s had other reasons for inventing the EC.
Hamilton did indeed argue that the EC was “excellent.” And he does presume that the people would elect NY’s electors, not the state legislatures. In his state. But if he assumed that that would be the case in all thirteen states, then he would have been wrong, wouldn’t he?
Well…wouldn’t he? Did all thirteen states give their authority to appoint their electors to the people?
In 1789?
No.
Even if all of the original 13 states had immediately ceded their authority to the people, 37 subsequent additions to the Union were also under no Constitutional obligation to do so.
Is that untrue?
No.
And in any event did Hamilton make the case that the EC would be excellent because it would protect small states from large, farmers from city elitists, etc.?
Nope.
Finally, as to my statement that if we followed the “FF’s wishes” regarding the EC we might still be watching state legislators voting for president, I again invite you to go back to the source – the Constitutional Convention. Alexander Hamilton was only one of many delegates, and his position with respect to popular election of the “Executive” was decidedly in the minority at the Con Con (as he was, by the way, in his position that the Executive should be appointed for life). As I have previously stated, for most of the Convention most of the delegates were supportive of the idea of the Congress appointing the Executive.
That is FACT.
The words they left in the Constitution granted to state legislatures that authority, and the reasons they ultimately shifted from a scheme that would have given the Congress that authority was fear of corruption.
That, too, is FACT. Don’t believe me? Then believe James Madison:
http://avalon.law.yale.edu/subject_menus/debcont.asp
Or read any respected historian on the subject of the Con Con, two of whom I alluded to above.
We would not be discussing that FACT if opponents of the NPV did not persist in raising the utter FICTION (Savannah’s words) that:
“Our Founding Fathers knew that states had different interests and did not want to see the desires of more populated states forced upon smaller ones. Thus, they created the Electoral College.”
That is pure fiction. Not supported by facts. Self-serving fantasy.
I’m willing to debate opposition to the NPV, which I wholeheartedly support. On any grounds. I do expect, though, that when anyone comes to the party claiming that their arguments have the support of the Founding Fathers, that they also come with some actual facts to back up the claim.
Neither you nor Savannah have done so.
Next topic.
#13 You may have simply forgotten why you were responding to Savannah by the time you concluded with:
“Whether one views our form of government as a ‘republican’ democracy or not, I doubt anyone would seriously suggest we return to that method of selecting the Executive.”, where that method refers to the election of presidential electors by legislators.
It was a reasonable presumption for Hamilton to make, that the people would choose the electors. The people chose the delegates to the ratifying convention. Why wouldn’t they also choose the presidential electors? As it turned out, New York did not appoint any electors in 1789, so his presumption with respect to New York was wrong. But he was correct with respect to other States, including the key States of Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, and Virginia, along with New Hampshire, Delaware, and Maryland. So only 4 small States were holdouts, Connecticut, New Jersey, South Carolina, and Georgia.
Given what actually happened in 1789 it is simply erroneous to suggest that the Founding Fathers “contemplated” something else, or that Founding Fathers had “wishes” that were not now strictly followed.
You are absolutely correct that the State legislature are under no obligation whatsoever to continue to use the current system of choosing electors, or any scheme they might adopt in the future. Massachusetts used a different scheme in every presidential election from 1789 to 1820. They could adopt the NPV scheme one election, and skip out the next. A State could unilaterally adopt the “national popular vote” for appointment of its electors or use a lottery.
Perhaps a poll could be taken, “What manner should the legislature of [state name] direct be used for the appointment of presidential electors in 2012?”
The only way to effectively ensure that the president and vice president are chosen by the people directly is to adopt a Constitutional Amendment that would provide:
(1) Uniform suffrage;
(2) Uniform electoral procedures;
(3) Majority election;
(4) Common set of candidates;
(5) Direct popular nomination of candidates;
(6) Integrated recount procedures;
(7) Separate election of president and vice president;
(8) Participation by all US citizens;
(9) Provide a recall procedure;
You simply can’t do with this with the clever hack that the NPV scheme is. Can you?
ps Why did the Constitutional Convention provide that a States electors could not vote for two persons from their State. Surely this was intended to keep a large State like Virginia from dominating the execute. It hardly had an impact on Delaware.
#13 You may have simply forgotten why you were responding to Savannah by the time you concluded with:
“Whether one views our form of government as a ‘republican’ democracy or not, I doubt anyone would seriously suggest we return to that method of selecting the Executive.”, where that method refers to the election of presidential electors by legislators.
It was a reasonable presumption for Hamilton to make, that the people would choose the electors. The people chose the delegates to the ratifying convention. Why wouldn’t they also choose the presidential electors? As it turned out, New York did not appoint any electors in 1789, so his presumption with respect to New York was wrong. But he was correct with respect to other States, including the key States of Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, and Virginia, along with New Hampshire, Delaware, and Maryland. So only 4 small States were holdouts, Connecticut, New Jersey, South Carolina, and Georgia.
Given what actually happened in 1789 it is simply erroneous to suggest that the Founding Fathers “contemplated” something else, or that Founding Fathers had “wishes” that were not now strictly followed.
You are absolutely correct that the State legislature are under no obligation whatsoever to continue to use the current system of choosing electors, or any scheme they might adopt in the future. Massachusetts used a different scheme in every presidential election from 1789 to 1820. They could adopt the NPV scheme one election, and skip out the next. A State could unilaterally adopt the “national popular vote” for appointment of its electors or use a lottery.
Perhaps a poll could be taken, “What manner should the legislature of [state name] direct be used for the appointment of presidential electors in 2012?”
The only way to effectively ensure that the president and vice president are chosen by the people directly is to adopt a Constitutional Amendment that would provide:
(1) Uniform suffrage;
(2) Uniform electoral procedures;
(3) Majority election;
(4) Common set of candidates;
(5) Direct popular nomination of candidates;
(6) Integrated recount procedures;
(7) Separate election of president and vice president;
(8) Participation by all US citizens;
(9) Provide a recall procedure;
You simply can’t do with this with the clever hack that your NPV scheme is. Can you?
ps Why did the Constitutional Convention provide that a States electors could not vote for two persons from their State. Surely this was intended to keep a large State like Virginia from dominating the execute. It hardly had an impact on Delaware.