Electoral College Chaos

 
in California

By Hank Edson

Back in June, I posted an article entitled, “Campaign Issue: Targets in the Electoral College,” in which I wrote, “ As 2008 approaches, the Democratic nominee should make scrapping the electoral college a campaign issue.” I lamented that “[w]hat was once the key to building a democratic union has today become a means of isolating the weakest link by the anti-democratic ideologues that have taken over the Republican Party.” That’s the reason the Bush campaign was able to steal the presidency first in Florida in 2000 and again in Ohio in 2004.

While writing these thoughts I was anticipating that yet another battle ground state would become the shame of the nation in the next election. The Republican Party would rape Pennsylvania or Michigan of its political process integrity in 2008. Perhaps this prediction will come true. In the mean time, however, a new development has arisen, one that was all too predictable to a sophisticated political mind. I missed it, however.

Although targeting “weakest link” states is an excellent way to break the chain of our political process integrity, a determined political strategist will not be content to simply repeat the same old pattern. I can hear the GOP leadership discussing in private conference: “Well, we have one Electoral College strategy that works really well in taking over the presidency even when we don’t win the votes. What other ways can we think of to use the Electoral College against the American people?” In my mind’s eye, there is a particularly sinister man in the corner, bald with a twisted sneer, saying something like, “It’s our due, after all, the American people had 200 years to get rid of the Electoral College. They’re just asking us to use it against them!”

Alas, I did not think back in June that my own state of California would be targeted for victimization. Not that it matters which state is targeted: When the integrity of the political process for choosing our president is corrupted, we Americans are all victims. Still, there really is a shame involved with being a citizen of the state that allows its political process to be the scene of the theft of the presidency. Fortunately, because of the nature of the GOP’s new strategy, we have the chance to stop it. Hopefully, we will.

Instead of targeting a swing state with a moderate number of electoral votes sufficient to throw the election, the GOP’s new strategy focuses on changing the rules in the state with the most Electoral College votes, California. Specifically, the Republican Party hopes to persuade Californians into changing the way we award Electoral College votes. Currently, California uses the same rule followed by the great majority of states. According to this rule, the winner takes all of California’s 55 Electoral College votes. Because California votes Democratic these days by a margin of 3 to 2, it represents the anchor of the Democratic Party’s strategy for garnering the necessary 270 electoral college votes needed to win the Presidency.

The Republican Party wants to change the rule so that the winner of each congressional district gets one vote and the winner of the state gets an additional two votes (representing the state’s two seats in the Senate). If this new rule is adopted, it will gain the Republican Party approximately 20 to 25 Electoral College votes, as much votes as are in play in Ohio or Florida. There are a few points I want to make about this proposed change to help make clear where the interests of the American people really lie as we approach the 2008 election.

1. If It’s Not a National Campaign, It’s Not Based on Democratic Principle: Republicans who support this strategy argue that the ballot initiative that would change the California rule for awarding Electoral College votes actually makes the California political process more democratic because the Electoral College vote will roughly mirror the actual vote. These Republican will try to associate their strategy with progressives like myself who urge scrapping the Electoral College altogether in favor of a straight popular vote for the presidency. Thus, attorney Kevin Eckerly, a proponent of the GOP’s California strategy, told the San Francisco Chronicle, “The issue isn't Democratic or Republican, the issue is whether this initiative better reflects how people vote," he said. "Votes belong to the voters, not to the parties.”

The fallacy of Eckerly’s argument is that we are not talking about a California political process at all. We are talking about a national political process. Making this distinction is crucial. Howard Dean, head of the Democratic National Committee has described the GOP’s strategy as “just another Republican attempt to rig an election,” but he has not clearly explained why the attempt corrupts our democracy rather than improves it.

In order for the national political process to become more democratic, it must first be fair. A national political process is not fair if one set of rules applies where Republicans are weak and another set of rules apply where Republicans are strong. Eckerly’s rhetoric about votes belonging to the voters, not to the parties is absolute hypocrisy.

By trying to get California to adopt a rule contrary to the majority rule, Republicans are not waging a campaign based on democratic principles. Instead, they are waging a campaign based on obtaining an unfair, antidemocratic advantage, just as they did in Florida in 2000 and Ohio in 2004. It is shameful and blatantly anti-democratic for any national political party to endorse an Electoral College rule change in any single state without mounting a nationwide campaign that puts fairness above political advantage. Democrats should call upon the Republican Party to renounce this effort on the grounds that it is so clearly not based on a desire to improve the political process integrity of the national political process.

2. Each Voter Has an Interest in the Integrity of the Entire System: It is important to underscore that in a national political process every individual has an interest in the integrity of the political process across the entire nation. Democrats from San Francisco were injured by the 2000 election as badly as were Democrats from Miami. Indeed, Republicans from San Diego were also injured equally badly, although they may not appreciate at present how much greater the loss of their democracy in that election was than the loss of the presidency would have been.

There is another way to make this same point that is worth noting. According to the San Francisco Chronicle, it will cost over $1 million to hire the people needed to collect the 433,971 required signatures from registered voters just to put the measure on the ballot next June. At present, the Republican lawyer and the public interest front group he created to spearhead the drive don’t have this money on hand. Where do you think it will come from? Money to get the measure on the ballot and for the campaign ads that will follow will pour in from Republican coffers from around the nation. This isn’t a California initiative, it is a scheme to serve the interests of the Republican National Presidential Campaign.

It may seem to a voter in Connecticut that the corruption in California is far away and beyond his or her control, but the best way to discourage such brazen attempts to game our political process is for the people across the nation to assert their shared interest in what happens in California. There should be a national shaming of those who persist in advancing this unprincipled maneuver. One appropriate response to what happened in Florida in 2000 and in Ohio in 2004 is for the people to develop the sophistication to identify Republican strategies for targeting weak links in the Electoral College ahead of time. Once we have identified these strategies, we need as a nation to raise the alarm and bring on the protest long in advance of the election.

California has been targeted. Even if the effort is not likely to succeed, we, the people, should prosecute the instigators for attempted corruption of the political process. We can do so in the press, in the media, around the water cooler, and on the street. It’s not ok what they’re trying to do in California. It’s against our democratic principles. It’s immoral.

3. We Need Constitutional Action: Currently Maine and Nebraska are the only states that award Electoral Votes according to who wins each congressional district. They represent together just nine electoral votes. The voters of these states are indeed on to something in wanting a more accurate representation of their voters’ actual votes in the presidential election, but the way to make such changes is not on a state by state basis. That our founding fathers allowed each state to determine for itself how it would award electoral votes does not mean the decision was a wise one. In our founding father’s defense, political parties did not exist when they designed the system. Even so, it was error and a compromise of democratic principles to fail to account for the interest that the voters of each state possess in the integrity of the political process in all states. When it comes to electing individuals to national office, the rules of the election should be uniform across the nation. That is a basic design parameter to anyone thinking about political process integrity.

We have seen literally centuries of technological innovation and yet we remain stuck with the same archaic design parameters of our political process and it is no surprise that one can hear almost nothing else but how corrupt our system has become. We have seen Florida in 2000, Ohio in 2004, and have an open gambit to upset California in 2008. How long will it be before we, the people, take it clearly into our hearts and minds that it really is in our power and remains our right and indeed our duty to change our Constitution for the purpose of making our government more democratic?

As the Declaration of Independence says, “ whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of [the preservation of the people’s fundamental rights], it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.” After, California in 2008, how long a “train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object” will we endure before we come to the end of our “patient sufferance” and determine “to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for [our] future security”?

As I have said before, a real leader seeking the Democratic Party’s nomination for the Presidency of the United States would make political process integrity the centerpiece of his or her campaign. He or she would use the examples of Florida in 2000 and Ohio in 2004 to focus particular attention on the need to provide a more democratic method for choosing our president than the Electoral College. And he or she would demand that the more democratic process we create should apply fair and equal rules uniformly throughout the nation.

Copyright © Hank Edson 2007