791–800 of 932 posts
Earlier quoted context omitted.
It would be California and New York deciding the fate of all other states. You would definitely see a mass succession.
Low-population states seceding from the union would fuck themselves over hard, since they are overwhelmingly the beneficiaries of federal aid. In fact, I suspect many of them would cease to be viable entities altogether.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
>'A suburb of Austin' may not be rural by many definitions. Its another city? Look at a map. See all those spaces between a city and its suburbs, and the next city and its suburbs? That's where 'rural' is. Except no one who talks about "city dwellers" is talking about people living in small towns or suburbs. And if I am living in a city, it doesn't conform to any of the political or cultural assumptions that the urba…
Right! We're agreeing. Rural dwellers are outliers; their concerns are not addressed by rules made up in the Capitol City.
They are, depending on the concern. Rural voters have representatives and lobbyists in Washington and there are plenty of laws intended to favor rural interests. Part of the argument in this thread is that the Electoral College itself gives rural states out-sized influence in determining the Presidency. It isn't true that Washington is ignoring rural populations entirely, or that they have no political power.
Most of the issues you listed upthread as examples of how urban and rural lives differ are examples of issues which should be (and usually are) handled locally, not nationally. Gun control might be an exception (although personally I believe it should be entirely a state issue) but I think it would be absurd to claim that rural populations don't have a powerful influence on that through the NRA already, given that most of the country supports stricter gun control laws than would ever be politically feasible in the US.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
They'll spend more time campaigning in the areas with the most people who can be convinced to change their votes. This isn't necessarily going to be the highest population areas, as those areas tend to be solidly liberal. I don't know why the electoral college would be better at identifying high need areas than willingness to change your vote. Shouldn't people who need help be more likely to change their vote than to…
This isn't necessarily true. If a 10m pop area has a 70-30 split, it's still better to campaign there than a 5m pop area with a 50-50 split. In absolute numbers it's still 3 million supporters versus 2.5 million supporters.
Under your model where the goal of the campaign is to visit your supporters, you'll favor smaller cities that strongly support you over larger cities that support your opponent. A place with 5 million population that's 70-30 in your favor has 3.5 million supporters.
2. George Mason vs. Elisabeth Warren. James Madison vs. Jay Inslee. These match-ups aren't even close.
3. I don't think the results will match the intentions.
For point 1 this seems like parts of Obamacare. Whether you support it or not, enforcing/creating parts of it via executive order means it can be unenforced/dismantled via executive order. This isn't a direct comparison, my point, if you base something on legally weak and questionable methods you will end up with weak and questionable outcomes.
Another way I look at point 2, can Justin Beiber rewrite Mozart and improve upon it? There are very few political intellectuals I would put on par with the founding fathers, and sadly most of those are not politicians. The founders' system has worked very well for centuries, the USofA has faults sure, but from ragtag rebel colonies to world super-power, this part is working fine. We have many problems, isolate the variables, I don't think the EC is the cause.
Point 3, this is mostly a party issue, Democrats support it, Republicans do not. Of the 16 states to pass it through legislature 15 had Democrat governors, the single Republican governor vetoed. I think it is safe to say the elections of Bush and Trump, without winning the popular vote, are the big driving factors for the NPV. I don't think NPV will have the intended effect. I think people are wrongly taking new rules and applying old stats but if you change the rules of the game you can't expect players (candidates and voters) to play with old strategies. A lot more Republicans will show up to vote in solidly blue states where currently voting for an R is a waste of time.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Wyoming is a state and this country is a union of states, not acres, or arbitrary units of population. We've failed to communicate the actual point of all this, which is to make sure each state--and not population districts--get representation at the federal level. If you have a problem with all this you should be asking: why do we need states?
I don't see this point often enough. People just want to do whatever tweak to the system will get them their short term boost and damn the consequences and long-term thinking.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
It seems like failing a constitutional challenge is the best case. Electors don’t actually have to vote the way state law tells them to—that would require a constitutional amendment that restructures the whole process. When they vote counter to state law, they are called “faithless electors”. A state system which ignores the will of its constituents is going to be much more susceptible to faithless electors, who may…
Please stop spouting nonsense, none of this is true. Faithless electors are electors who vote contrary to the opinion of their state. In some states this is legal, in other states it isn't, the constitution has nothing to do with it. The states are free to outlaw faithless electors and many of them already do.
Some states have laws about how faithless electors "must" vote. The only related case to reach SCOTUS was regarding "pledge" laws, which require electors to pledge they will be faithful. The court has not ruled on laws requiring a certain vote or punishments for violating such laws. There is a case winding its way through the courts on the issue, and different courts have come to different conclusions (the latest of which is to rule them unconstitutional).
I have often thought that part of the rationale for the electoral college was that in the 18th century they did not have the internet, TV, Radio, even newspapers were pretty scarce. So it just wasn't all that practical for a candidate to ride a horse around all 13 colonies to meet each voter. The logical solution would have been to have a parliamentary system whereby the congress would select the president for you. T…
On the other hand, the electoral college, like congress, gives actual weight to the idea that a state is more than just the sum of its population, by automatically getting two votes for being a state. Whether or not that is necessary is a different conversation from the information dissemination purpose of the EC.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I wish someone with $$ would start plastering this message everywhere the absurd "get rid of the elctoral college" debate comes up. We are not a democracy, seriously no one wants a democracy of 300 million plus. We are a federation of states that is supposed to have most of the control in their region and sacrifice a little bit of control to the federal government for purposes of defense and commerce. Your "democracy…
Your argument seems confused to me, but maybe I don’t quite understand, can you elaborate? We do have state level democracy. The electoral college’s purpose is solely for presidential elections, not for local elections. Why shouldn’t we have a democracy for presidential elections? Your reasons given (local control) don’t apply to federal elections. Even with the electoral college, we’re pretty close to democratic rep…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
The structure of the Federal government is fundamentally geared towards mediating the relationships between the various states, as that was its original purpose. Actual governance of the populace was the purview of state government. Over time, however, decisions about domestic law have increasingly been made at the Federal level. At this point, the interstate commerce clause in the Constitution is used to justify alm…
This exactly. If the issue is people feeling/being disenfranchised, changing how we elect the President isn't going to help. It just reinforces the idea that we're a monarchy and the job of the rest of the government is to do the will of the President. We can do better than this! The Presidential horse race every 4 years is mostly for television. Federalism works because you want the decisions that affect your life t…
The Electoral College is fundamentally undemocratic and the lack of democracy de-legitimizes the office.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
You should be careful about the word "small" here. What you mean is least populous, but geographically, they are large. Thus, the question is: Do you want the majority of the USA geography being controlled by the will of people least knowledgeable about it? If you eliminate the electoral college you give political control of resources to those who have absolutely NO physical control of those resources and yet still s…
To be fair, the primary cause of the decimation of Louisiana is it’s state government. I would also add that the resources of the country belong to all of us, not just those who live in close proximity (aka the same state).