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September 23, 2007
Rigging Election for Fun and Profit
This is surprising. Does Reihan really not believe the effort to change California's apportionment of electoral votes in order to advantage the GOP is "devious?" There are a lot of arguments one can make as to how to reform the electoral system, but single-state ballot initiatives funded by wealthy partisans that will clearly throw the election to one or another party is fairly clearly not it. I can respect that some folks will say that cutting taxes on the rich is such an inviolable principle that it easily trumps some electoral chicanery, but please, let's not pretend a naked power grab is anything but a naked power grab.
September 23, 2007 | Permalink
Comments
This is surprising.
Why in gawd's name is it surprising? I'm sure Salaam is a a super-nice guy--he seems it on his blog--but he's been a pretty consistent Republican apologist for as long as I've been aware of him. He might have a worldview that is sufficiently different from yours that his honest reports will not be coherent with your own. He might have the same worldview as you and simply be unscrupulously ambitious. Does it matter?
Posted by: SomeCallMeTim | Sep 23, 2007 6:58:06 PM
Are there any honest conservatives left?
Rhetorical question, really.
Posted by: craigie | Sep 23, 2007 7:07:22 PM
Funny I was just saying the same thing myself...
Posted by: weboy | Sep 23, 2007 7:08:56 PM
Yep, the electoral college system is F.U'd. But arranging to have EC votes by congressional district is probably even worse even if the split is nationwide: it creates an even bigger incentive to gerrymander the congressional district seats within a state to concentrate the minority (whichever minority you choose, which could be by party, race, wealth, gender, religion, etc.) in a few districts. The redistricting process is also FU'd, so let's not make it even worse.
A cure for the electoral college system is the raw national popular votes in total, not some patch(es) that increase the probability for mischief. That makes candidates campaign everywhere, and no other approach achieves that goal.
Even the proposal to have a nationwide division of electoral votes by states, with each party getting its percentage of electoral college votes in proportion to the statewide popular votes is FU'd. That creates the incentive to concentrate on closely divided states and spend money or rig votes to get majorities. A few states could be swayed and therefore sway the election overall. The only difference is that it wouldn't (like today) be winner take all, but the incentives are still there to win marginal victories in a few places.
Posted by: JimPortlandOR | Sep 23, 2007 8:26:10 PM
I've been trying to tell people this for a long time-- before going off about what a bad idea this is, will you please talk to some people in California?
We'd like to count. Yes, we are a heavily Democratic state, but we'd like to count. We are sick of not counting in the primary, and not counting in the general. We are sick of people coming here to raise money but never caring about what we think. We are sick of people taking us for granted.
We are the most populous state in the nation. Any system that renders us an irrelevancy is not a stable equalibrium. Stop being partisans long enough to do something about that.
Posted by: Dilan Esper | Sep 23, 2007 8:58:07 PM
This is the biggest power grab since . . . Colorado Democrats tried to do exactly the same thing in 2004.
Posted by: Alejandro Gonzalez | Sep 23, 2007 9:18:17 PM
Alejandro--true, and I didn't like that either, but this will have 5X the impact, so it's much bigger.
Dilan, how narcissistic. By the same logic, 35-40 states probably "don't count". I guess it's only a problem for the populous ones. Granting the lunatic party 20 EVs and quite possibly throwing the election to them just so people will pay attention to me is about as screwy of a priority. If you're a Republican or you're just curious to see how fucked up four years of Gulliani or Romney can will be, that's one thing, but if you're actually a sane person and you're willing to risk madness for the satisfaction of seeing more campaign ads or attending a speech, I can't begin to describe how bizarre your priorities are.
Posted by: djw | Sep 23, 2007 11:00:21 PM
Dilan,
I live in Kansas. I'd like to count too, but not so much that I'd be willing to support something as stupid as apportioning EC's by congressional district. Democrats in Texas, Republicans in New York, every interested person not living in Iowa or New Hampshire - we'd all like to "count."
The only sane, fair way to change it is to do away with the entire Electoral College and let the national popular vote determine the President. Having one state over here and one over there change the way the EC's are tallied doesn't do squat. And even if this initiative passes, if you live in a GOP-dominated area you still aren't going to count. The Republicans will know that they'll get your district's votes and the Democrats won't want to waste their money.
Posted by: Stephen | Sep 24, 2007 12:52:26 AM
I've wondered for some time now why the Democrats don't make non-gerrymandered congressional districts a campaign priority. I know that in some cases, it'd hurt us, but down the line, it at least give us a fair starting point consistently, and that's worth something. Besides that, it's the right thing to do, and it could be packaged together as part of larger reforms.
Posted by: Brian | Sep 24, 2007 9:44:21 AM
djw and Stephen:
I am a Democrat. I don't want to see the Republicans elected.
I am simply pointing out that a lot of Democrats are not understanding the problem. California is not Kansas. It is the most populous state in the country, and we are ignored, because we are not a swing state (general) and because Iowa and New Hampshire control the process (primary).
If you don't want us to pass this bill, fine, do something about this problem. Last time I checked the Democratic hierarchy supports the continued hegemony of Iowa and New Hampshire and is also doing nothing to further the interstate compact that would award electoral votes to the popular vote winner. Indeed, they would just assume California continue not to count because we are supposedly too liberal for the rest of the country.
If you don't do something about this situation, the most populous state in the country can make the Democrats pay for it. You may not like it, and neither may I, but that's the way it is.
Posted by: Dilan Esper | Sep 24, 2007 3:14:24 PM
By the way Stephen, California as a state would still count a lot more than it does now, because even if only 8 districts were competitive, that would be 8 electoral votes that candidates would have to campaign for rather than zero.
Posted by: Dilan Esper | Sep 24, 2007 3:15:55 PM
