Submitted by Matsu on 29 January 2013 - 10:38am
Some Republicans are looking to change the way the President of the United States is elected. It is a simple plan reported by the Washington Post, Rachael Maddow, and other media, but I think the article in Center for American Action Funds lays it out well.
Simply put, in the present system, the US electoral college delegates are selected by a winner-take-all system based on the states. Some Republicans are calling for a revamp of the winner-take-all system and replace it with electors based on congressional districts. Had such a system been in place during the 2012 election, Mitt Romney, who did not have a majority of the popular vote, would have won the Presidency, and not Barack Obama.
However, I would posit, had the system been in place, Romney still would not have won, for Romney would not have been the nominee. Why do I suggest that?
What I suspect would happen is that the electors would become the de facto the congressional representatives. That is, if a district elects House member, and that district also has an electoral vote, it is logical that the elected House member would likely also become the elector. If that is the case, is there any need for a national convention? Is there a need for a primary? Just let the House of Representatives meet as the neo-electoral college and guess who wins? The Speaker of the House.
The United States moves to a parliamentary system. Perhaps someone will put into law that a Congressman can't be an elector. Maybe the courts will rule that it is reasonable, but somehow I think it won't stand up.
There is a perception, right or wrong, that the American People are electing a President chosen in a very closely watched contest. When the House of Representatives gets involved in electing a President, it just feels wrong. It's like the checks and balances are way outa whack.
For sure, the Speaker of the House is third in line for the Presidency.
Under the Republican plan, that'll move him two spots closer to the top and likely lead to the elimination of Presidential selection as we know it.
Comments
3 comments postedI think you need to do some research. I’m not a Republican or a Democrat but the experts at stuffing ballot boxes are Democrats. Mrs. Pelosi said it the best, “We need to win by any means necessary”. You have to have an ID to get a beer but in most democratically controlled states they refuse to make voters have IDs which state IDs are offered for free. Which is more important to you, a beer or a vote? I don’t like Mr. Romney or Mr. Obama because neither cares for our country. Mr. Obama said Mr. Bush was unpatriotic for $4 trillion dollars in 8 years yet Mr. Obama did the same in three years.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3CMy2M32g4k
I don’t really cared for Mr. Bush but if he was unpatriotic I guess that would make Mr. Obama UN-American.
I don’t like the Electoral College either because you can win 11 states to win the election which means the other 39 states are irrelevant. If you really wanted a good system lets do it the responsible way.
If your state isn’t fiscally responsible enough to be out of the red, they get no votes; if you are an able worker but on welfare because you choose not to work, you don’t get to vote; if you are here illegally (and yes they do) you don’t get to vote.
Let’s look at the other side of the coin. If you have a felony conviction, you cannot run for any elected position. If you are an elected official and haven’t paid your taxes, you can’t vote on any bills and the IRS needs to be as aggressive with you as they are with us the common people.
I can’t stand the Republicans but at lease they try to talk about the problems, they just don’t have any action to their words. I can’t stand the Democrats either because when they can’t talk about the issues; they just call you names or will flat out lie to try and win once again in Mrs. Pelosi words, “We need to win by any means necessary”.
If you want to follow the Constitution I would love that.
1. Article I, Section 7, “Every Bill which shall have passed the House of Representatives and the Senate, shall, before it become a Law”. How does the EPA and IRS make laws?
2. We have senators from both sides and even our President who refuse to follow this one. Article VI: “The Senators and Representatives before mentioned, and the Members of the several State Legislatures, and all executive and judicial Officers, both of the United States and of the several States, shall be bound by Oath or Affirmation, to support this Constitution; but no religious Test shall ever be required as a Qualification to any Office or public Trust under the United States.” To support the Constitution in the oath of office it says to enforce all laws made.
3. 2nd Amendment, “A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed. If the people at the theater in Aurora Colorado wouldn’t of had their 2nd Amendment rights violated,72 people wouldn’t have been shot but James Holmes would have. Did you know he passed up 6 other theaters to go to Aurora because it was the only one with a “No Guns Allowed” sign posted? His words not mine. Gun laws just restrict law abiding citizens, criminals ignore them anyway hence their name; CRIMINAL.
If you want the truth go to http://theamericapartyusa.blogspot.com/. We are not Democrat or Republican; we are Americans.
Hello American Patriot,
I sense your frustration loud and clear. Too many people in government are looking only to keep their jobs, their power, and their income streams. Parties in power want to make sure they stay in power. Parties out of power want to gain power. There is a lot of gaming of the system.
I have not been a great fan to the US Electoral College, the subject which was at the heart of my post. The system harks back to the days that the States were still asserting sovereignty and concerned other States would seize too much power. As you know, the founders created a system that by-passed electing the President by popular votes. It is my understanding the nation was too new to be electing the President directly.
So too it was with the Senate. As Dan Smoot pointed out many years ago, since the Senate represented the States, the senators were elected by the state legislatures. Popularly elected Senators were Constitutionally mandated under the 17th amendment around 1912.
The military academies such as West Point, and later Annapolis, and the Air Force Academy, up the present day, choose their recruits largely in proportion to the legislative makeup of the country, so that the officer corp would not be dominated by officers from a State. Of course, since then, the majority of the officer corp is not drawn from the Service Academies.
These are republican ideas, not democratic, and you will note I am using the lower case, meaning I am not talking about political parties.
The question I did not address was: is the Electoral College perfunctory? Is it even an anachronism that can and is being gamed because the founders did not provide for the direct election of the President by popular vote?
What concerns me is that a party, Republican or Democrat, you name it, can manipulate the popular vote in such a way as to elect a President who lost the popular vote, like Bush-II in 2000? Gore won the popular vote, yet Bush became the President.
It is now being proposed that the system be further gamed so the selection of electors is even more out of sync with the candidate who wins the popular vote.
My post reflected on a system that would mirror the composition of Congress.
If that is the case, and the President is not elected by the popular vote, but along the lines of Congressional Districts, what use are primaries or a national conventions? If the Congress selects the President, which I suggest is the logical extension of electing a President based on a parsed Electoral College, then we are moving to a Parliamentary system.
The election of the President will morph and it is likely that this will lead to an estrangement of the electorate, which could well rob the legitimacy of the President. Like the original Senate selection system where Senators were selected by legislators, the President would likewise be selected by Congressional legislators.
It could happen, but I suggest the fallout would forever change how we feel about our power to decide on who elects the President.
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