If George W. Bush hadn’t won the
presidency in 2000, and Donald Trump hadn’t won the presidency in 2016, would
anyone be talking about doing away with the electoral college?
I find myself pondering that question
as more Democrats come out in favor of abolishing our presidential election
system, and more states hitch their wagons to the National Popular Vote
Interstate Compact (NPVIC or NPV).
Since several legislatures have
actually passed bills to join the NPVIC, while no one is introducing a Constitutional
amendment to end the electoral college, the former effort seems more serious.
The NPVIC is designed to sidestep the electoral
college rather than overriding it. If enacted, all states who sign on would require
that their presidential electors vote for the winner of the popular vote
nationwide. The compact would come into effect once states totaling 270
electors join. Right now they’re 89 electors short, but there’s clearly
momentum.
We ought to think about what the NPVIC
would mean.
Setting aside the many legal and
political issues with this scheme, does it seem fair that if you and people
across your state vote differently from the majority of voters overall, your
state should be forced to go along with the majority?
The NPVIC also begs the question: If
the states are going to cede their power over something as important as the
presidency, why have states at all?
Now some supporters of the abolition of
the electoral college might like to just have a national government. They might
prefer that America resemble the European Union. How’s that working out across
the pond?
But joking aside, these folks clearly haven’t
thought through the consequences of further reducing the power of the states,
which best represent the people. And remember, the federal government didn’t
create the states. The states created the federal government through the
careful compromise of the Constitution, of which the electoral college was an
important part.
It would also seem to me that the way
in which certain states are going about this compact is too clever by half.
If you want to junk the electoral
college and replace it with a popular vote, the right way to do it is by amending
the Constitution. The NPVIC doesn’t touch the Constitution, which means it’s a
Constitutional end-around. Why won’t NPVIC proponents just make their case to
the public and push to change the Constitution? Well, they must know this is
not something the American people overwhelmingly want. History proves this out.
There have been more than 700 attempts to reform or get rid of the electoral
college in Congress. They’ve all failed, and with good reason.
The very purpose of the Constitution
was to make it so that fundamental change is very hard, and can only be
accomplished when the states are
truly united in agreement.
The NPVIC is not what the Founders had
in mind. Forgive me for thinking they had a little bit more wisdom than politicians
in this charged partisan era.
Remember why the Founders set up the electoral
college. In part, it was to ensure that people from big states and small states,
dense urban areas and sparsely populated rural ones, Wall Street and Main
Street were all fairly represented.
Those seeking the presidency would have
to appeal to everyone across this richly diverse nation. We don’t elect the
president of New York, Los Angeles and Chicago. We elect the president of the
United States.
And contrary to what many of our
leaders tell us, we are a republic, not a pure democracy – a simple popular
vote doesn’t cut it.
The Founders feared pure democracy because
it meant 50 percent plus one of the voters could oppress the other 49.99
percent. They called this “tyranny of the majority,” or mob rule.
The Founders wanted to make it tough to
radically alter the Constitution, just like they wanted to make it hard for any
group to impose its will on any another (including those on the coasts from
dominating “flyover country”).
This is why we have a Bill of Rights, checks
and balances, the separation of powers, federalism and yes, the electoral
college.
Pulling the electoral college pillar
out of our Constitution, or sidestepping it would destabilize and undermine the
entire structure of our government.
I can’t help but think that this anti-electoral
college wave is really about people who have lost trying to change the rules of
the game, rather than accepting defeat and figuring out what they can do to win
next time.
And I can’t help but think that they are ignoring the fact that we are a republican union of states, not a democratic union of states in name only.
