Electoral College in Danger

There's a very informative piece by Pete du Pont in Opinion Journal that discusses the latest effort by the left to subvert our system of checks and balances in favor of mob rule. What he describes is yet another attempt to do away with the Electoral College. Unfortunately, this one is somewhat more cunning that past efforts: It could get around the need to amend the Constitution if successful.

[L]ast week the California Senate passed legislation to award the state's Electoral College votes to the candidate who has received the most popular votes nationally -- whether Californians chose him or not. A similar bill passed the Assembly on May 30, so it will soon be up to Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger to sign or veto the bill. Such a bill also passed the Colorado Senate in April, part of a national [effort] to change the way we choose our presidents. The mandate doesn't take effect until enough other states sign on to provide a majority of electoral votes. If it were in effect in 2004, George W. Bush would have taken California's 55 electoral votes, even though John Kerry carried the state by a margin of nearly 10%.

It is an odd idea, an "interstate compact" switching the Electoral College votes of member states from their state's vote winner to the national vote winner. And the direct election of presidents would be a political, electoral, and constitutional mistake that would radically change America's election system.

Du Pont then goes on to do a good job of explaining how this change would effectively make the presidential race into what I would call a "race for national mayor" -- by placing too much emphasis on urban constituencies. He ends on the following note.

One wonders if the direct election of presidents is really the beginning of an effort to bring national government under the control of large and liberal states. Common Cause, a Washington-based lobbying group that describes itself as "promoting open, honest and accountable government," argues "how neatly it fits with American tradition." But it doesn't. It contradicts our constitutional republic's state and federal government sharing of powers. Choosing presidents is one of our states' powers, and we should not remove it to begin a centralized national American government.

Du Pont is correct, but I would like to have seen him cite the work of Alan Natapoff, who actually proved (as outlined in "Math against Tyranny") that, despite our departure from the states choosing Electors who are not nominally committed to any candidate, the Electoral College still serves a useful function: It actually preserves the voting power of the individual.

Don't be fooled by the demagoguery of Common Cause. The Electoral College is not just some quaint anachronism of the early days of our Republic. It is a surprisingly important and effective part of the system of checks and balances that protects our freedom from pure democracy.

-- CAV

Updates

7-28-10: Updated a link.