The Old (Electoral) College Try

Tom Rosshirt
Thu, 31 Jan 2013 21:00:00 -0800
Opinion

Ever since their disappointing results in the November elections, Republicans have been doing what any competitor does after a loss: figuring out how to win the next one.

Many of the Republican Party's voices have been calling for a new party that can appeal more widely to women, gays, Hispanics, African-Americans and young people — demographics that now favor Democrats. A less strident tone on gay rights, a higher tax rate on the richest, a comprehensive immigration proposal backed by Republicans — all these are signs of efforts that may broaden the political appeal of the Republican Party.

Yet as the new Republican Party appeared eager to regain power by appealing to the majority, the old Republican Party continued its efforts to wield power with a minority.
Updated: Mon Jan 26, 2015

Ever since their disappointing results in the November elections, Republicans have been doing what any competitor does after a loss: figuring out how to win the next one.

Many of the Republican Party's voices have been calling for a new party that can appeal more widely to women, gays, Hispanics, African-Americans and young people — demographics that now favor Democrats. A less strident tone on gay rights, a higher tax rate on the richest, a comprehensive immigration proposal backed by Republicans — all these are signs of efforts that may broaden the political appeal of the Republican Party.

Yet as the new Republican Party appeared eager to regain power by appealing to the majority, the old Republican Party continued its efforts to wield power with a minority.

The theme is well-established. In 2010, the Supreme Court, in its Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission decision, overturned precedent to allow direct funding of political campaigns by corporations, which benefited the few over the many. In 2012, many states pushed voter ID laws that would make it harder for minorities and young people to vote, to benefit the few over the many. Last week, the Republicans in the Senate retained their right to block action with only 41 votes, which benefits the few over the many. At the same time, an appeals court found President Barack Obama's recess appointments to the National Labor Relations Board unconstitutional.

In combination, the previous two developments ensure that even though the voters put a Democrat in the White House and a Democratic majority in the Senate, the Democratic president can't get the Senate to vote on his nominees if 41 out of 100 say no. These rules, according to The Washington Post, "give the minority more rights than any other legislative body in the world."

The power of the minority was a deep worry of James Madison's. During the Constitutional Convention, Madison, who is known as the "Father of the Constitution," was adamantly opposed to the idea that each state should have the same number of senators, simply because it meant that the few could impose their will on the many. At one point in the convention, he looked ahead to the admission of new states and warned that if new and sparsely populated states were to "have an equal vote ... a more objectionable minority than ever might give law to the whole."

Madison lost that debate, so today Wyoming and Idaho have as much power in the Senate as California and New York. Concessions to the minority were a price of forming a country. But how much is too much?

In five states that Obama won in November — Pennsylvania, Ohio, Michigan, Virginia and Wisconsin — Republicans are proposing a change in the way they apportion electoral votes. Currently, with exceptions in Maine and Nebraska, the presidential candidate who wins the most votes in a state wins all that state's electoral votes. But Republicans in these states are proposing changes that would give more power to fewer people. The Michigan proposal, if it had been in place in November, would have awarded Mitt Romney nine electoral votes and Obama seven, even though Obama won the state. The Virginia plan, if it had been in place in November, would have given Romney nine votes and Obama four, even though Obama won the state.

Republican National Chairman Reince Priebus supports the move, citing "local control."

This is not about local control. It is about minority control. This is about making the person with fewer votes president.

It was traumatic enough last time. If it were to happen again, it would create triple the ill will — because it would be happening again and because it would be happening not because of an archaic quirk in the Constitution but because of an explicit partisan ploy to manipulate the system so the minority could rule.

It could well provoke a constitutional crisis — a new president not seen as legitimate, members of Congress more bitterly divided, animosity between parties far worse. The hostility in Washington would make the debt ceiling debate look like an ad for summer camp.

Last week, the Republican governor of Louisiana, Bobby Jindal, said, "It's time for a new Republican Party that talks like adults." The adults of Jindal's Republican Party should talk right now to the kids at the party and say, "Think it through."

Then Jindal and his fellow adults should start working faster to build a Republican Party that can compete and win without tricks, because either the Republican Party will change its policies to win over a majority or it will rig the system to rule with a minority. If Republicans don't do a good job with the first approach, they're going to intensify their efforts on the second.