The Congenial Iconoclast!

A “policy analyst” named John W. York posted an article at the Heritage Foundation website in August 2019 titled “Fixing Our Democracy Would Only Make Matters Worse.” That is a novel thing to argue, just on the face of it. To “fix” something should never make it worse. The very word “fix” means to make it better.

The Congenial Iconoclast disagrees with York. Can he persuade you to his side of this matter using only cheerful but well-reasoned argument?

Let’s see!

York writes, “Ending the Electoral College and moving to a national popular vote for presidential elections gained momentum on the left immediately after President Donald Trump’s victory.”

 Before we get into the issue, let’s recognize what York is doing. He’s belittling something by ascribing a poor motive to the people who support it. He’s implying that people would abolish the Electoral College to boost their own partisan interests, so their motives are selfish, and therefore wrong. He wants you to jump to the conclusion that if a person supports something they would benefit from, they can’t be right.

It is correct that “immediately after President Trump’s victory” there was a flurry of interest in electoral reform on the left. But that’s to be expected. Many people are drawn to their own interests. Their interest in local public safety peaks when their house is on fire. Their interest in skin cancer peaks when they notice a strange new rash.

The left-side proponents of eliminating the electoral college are late to the discussion, but that doesn’t make them wrong. Proposals to end the Electoral College – bipartisan ones like the Lodge-Gossett Amendment in 1950 — go back years and years. It’s true that supporters of the party that lost the last election are more likely to support it at the moment. But plenty of thoughtful people support it all the time. And anyway, the rightness or wrongness of an idea is independent of who supports it. The Earth orbited the Sun even before Copernicus said it did. So there’s no weight to York’s argument that this issue is too new or situational to consider seriously. It is, in fact, a longstanding issue.

York says, “If we did away with the Electoral College, the trail to the White House would run through New York City, Los Angeles, and Chicago, and that’s about it.”

He’s saying that without the electoral college, politicians (presidential candidates particularly) would campaign in the three largest cities and would neglect the rest of the country. But the combined populations of New York, Los Angeles and Chicago is about 15-million. In a country of 320-million, that’s less than five percent. It’s about one out of every 21 people. A presidential candidate who won those three cities and nowhere else would lose badly.

York says, “With a national popular vote, big coastal population centers would dominate electoral politics election after election and “flyover country” would be continually bypassed.”

Here, York is describing something that already happens, and warning that if we aren’t careful, it might happen. Presidential candidates already spend most of their time in big population centers. They spend a crazy amount of time in Iowa, but only because Iowa is the first state to hold a primary. But they stay in Iowa about as long as it takes to eat a corn dog.

Indiana is one of those flyover states, and Indiana typically gets ignored by presidential campaigners now, under the current system. That is not because Indiana is a flyover state or a small state.It is because Indiana can be counted on to throw its 11 electoral votes to the Republican candidate. The Republican candidate doesn’t need to spend a lot of time in Indiana, because the state is already in his column. The Democratic candidate doesn’t bother with Indiana because the state is a long shot. But this standard campaign wisdom can be subverted. Barack Obama spent time in fly-over Indiana in 2008. Obama won Indiana and he won the presidency.

York doesn’t even acknowledge the worst part of the Electoral College system – which is the winner-take-all policy that all but Maine and Nebraska employ. The reason candidates focus on some states and not on others has a lot to do with this bad rule. And it certainly adds to the perverse nature of national campaigns. Trump got all of Florida’s 29 electoral votes despite winning less than half the votes cast. Clinton got all of California’s 55 electoral votes, despite the fact that nearly five million Californians voted against her.

 A national popular vote would (probably) revive interest throughout the nation. Voters would know their vote was going to count. And candidates would have to look for votes everywhere. In 2016, Clinton knew California would give her 55 electoral votes representing 20% of the 270 electoral votes needed to win. With fair voting, California gave her 62% of the popular vote in that state, so she should have gotten 34 electoral votes . . . or just 62% of the popular vote.

 Readers who feel there must be some essential value to the Electoral College because the founders created it should read my comment on Federalist #68. I explain there that the founders had a great idea, but that the process we use today, and which we still call the “electoral college,” is nothing like what they envisioned. To trust in the founders’ wisdom is to deplore the modern process.

York says, “[I]t just makes sense to camp out where the biggest concentrations of voters live.” This is wrong, because the biggest concentrations don’t amount to a majority. Hillary Clinton in 2016 camped out where the biggest concentrations of voters lived. Her campaign strategy concentrated on, I think, 12 states. She lost. The only campaign strategy that makes sense is one that appeals broadly.

I agree with York on statehood for the District of Columbia.

 I usually avoid putting my own ideas here, since my message is that widespread  public deliberation is needed. But in this case, I’ll add my puny little squeek to the clamor. The federal district required by the Constitution should be preserved, but it should be scaled back to the non-residential areas where government offices are concentrated. Everything north of G Street should revert to Maryland so that those people have the congressional representation that every American is entitled to. The population of the District of Columbia should be the occupants of the White House. Foreign embassies are more widely scattered, and that’s OK. The US doesn’t owe foreign governments any particular degree of access. Our members of Congress are situated closer to the Saudi Arabian embassy and the Venezuelan embassy and the Finnish embassy and the Turkmenistan embassy than they are to their own constituents. I’m not sure that’s wise. Diplomats are entitled to courtesy, but I don’t feel there is an urgent need to ensure they have digs on or near Capitol Hill.