CycloWizard
Lifer
No, but the smaller states shouldn't be left out in the cold, either.
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Abolish the Electoral College
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This is a basis of our country. I think people forget our country is not a democracy and never has been.
You destroy the electoral college and you might as well throw out other forms of representative democracy like the senate and house. Because every bill passed is not directly being voted on and it should be in a democracy.
I shutter at the thought of such an institution.
You destroy the electoral college and you might as well throw out other forms of representative democracy like the senate and house. Because every bill passed is not directly being voted on and it should be in a democracy.
I shutter at the thought of such an institution.
Good idea. It's the logical next step.
I like the idea of a bicameral legislature, but the US was founded with a much simpler legal system than it has today, so we need a different division of powers between the two chambers. Let's leave the House the way it is and replace the Senate with a proportionally elected body that has the power and responsibility to repeal laws.
In Roman times, a leader would come along to simplify and regularize the legal code once the legal system became too tangled, but the US President has no such power and its legislature gets itself elected by creating new legislation, so it'll never clean things up. Unfortunately, the US legal system is too complex for even legal experts to agree on in many cases (there's an amusing but scary discussion in one of Lawrence Lessig's books about how a mailing list of copyright lawyers couldn't agree on the legality of any method to legally place the list's archives in the public domain), much less the common people, so there is a deep need for reform.
CycloWizard
Lifer
I definitely agree that there needs to be some body with the power to repeal laws and/or clean up the old junk that clutters the rulebooks. Maybe they could have some power over the judicial system as well, acting as a watchdog group?
Ideally that's what the different levels of courts do, but you're right that it doesn't always work and we need to do something about it. The most egregious example of the courts making law for my money is the idea that corporations are persons and thus have all the same rights under the Bill of Rights. If you had told any of the authors of the Bill of Right s or people who voted on it that the 1st Amendment means that corporations can fund political campaigns, you'd have been called insane, as surely no one would interpret freedom of speech to mean that, especially as they lived in a time when there were laws against just that. Nonetheless, our legal system has said so for the last century.
BeauJangles
Lifer
It's creation had much less to do with communication than with compromise. The framers of the Constitution inherently didn't trust us, the American people. They placed safeguards in our government to prevent against tryanny of the majority. One of them, arising, like most things in our constitution, out of compromise is the electoral college.
This is how they thought it would work. With such a high number of electoral votes necessary to win the presidency, most framers thought the decision would be passed to Congress, per the constitution. Thus allowing the common people their "say" in who should be elected, but leaving the real power to the Congress. That's the only reason it exists.
CycloWizard
Lifer
Mr. T for president!
kylebisme
Diamond Member
But how would a popular vote leave the small states out in the cold any more than the electoral collage leaves densely populated areas out in the cold? Besides, as long as we have the legislative branch, no states will be left out in the cold; what is so wrong with electing a president by the will of the people?
Grrr... it boggles me that people don't know what kind of government the U.S. has. Specifically, the U.S. is a Federal Republic. Federal refers to the fact that powers are divided between states and central government, and Republic refers to the fact that the U.S. government is a representative one.
Hey, panderen, look up at this quote...
A democracy is a form of government where the population runs the government, either by direct vote or through elected officials.
A republic is a form of government where the government is run by elected officials.
The two can coexist.
Scenario 1: A republic in which everyone votes to elect the officials is ALSO a democracy. (the US)
Scenario 2: A democracy in which people vote directly for legislation is NOT a republic.
Scenario 3: A republic where a subset of the population votes to elect representatives is NOT a democracy. (Imagine only people who made $100 M +/year were allowed to vote).
Democracies and republics are defined by different criteria. A government can be both, one, or none.
Some people seem to think the electoral college was designed to give more of a voice to smaller states, like the Senate. It wasn't. It was designed to be a safety valve where the "wise men" could not follow the popular vote of their states if they didn't want to. These are many of the same people that decided blacks were equal to a fraction fo a white guy and so forth. The electoral college is an antiquated vestige that needs to go. The Senate plays its role to protect small states ( a role that is also antiquated). The electoral college is simply undemocratic. And get over the republic/democracy distinction. As cquark pointed out they're not mutually exlcusive. Even in a republic, there should be a direct vote for the reprentatives.
CycloWizard
Lifer
The EC doesn't leave densely populated areas out in the cold. States with large populations get large representation in the EC accordingly. The EC just gives states with smaller representation slightly more say than a strictly popular vote (by two electoral votes each) to make sure they can still play a part.
But most states require their EC representatives to vote with the state, so that argument doesn't hold water.
I still think the best alternative idea that I've heard is the modified EC where the electoral votes for a state are split in a percentage with the popular vote, with the two extra votes for each state going to whoever wins the state. I'd pick that over the existing format.
imported_tss4
Golden Member
How are people able to want a flat tax because it is "fair" but then want an unfair EC where each person't vote doesn't carry the same weight?
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But most states require their EC representatives to vote with the state, so that argument doesn't hold water.
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My post was about the origins of the electoral college. At the beginning, the college representatives could do what they wanted. My point was that people seem to think it's part of the plan that smaller states would be benefitted by the EC. It wasn't. THe EC was designed to be an anti-democratic safety valve. I think if more people realized the origins of the EC they would be opposed to it.
But most states require their EC representatives to vote with the state, so that argument doesn't hold water.
[/quote]
My post was about the origins of the electoral college. At the beginning, the college representatives could do what they wanted. My point was that people seem to think it's part of the plan that smaller states would be benefitted by the EC. It wasn't. THe EC was designed to be an anti-democratic safety valve. I think if more people realized the origins of the EC they would be opposed to it.
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