Two lawmakers want to split state's electoral votes by House district

AP ^ | 12/1/4

[SmithL]

SACRAMENTO -- Two Republican lawmakers plan to introduce a bill Monday that would award California's most-in-the-nation electoral votes by congressional districts, a step they say would make it "the leading battleground state for all future elections."

Democrat John Kerry won California's 55 electoral votes on Nov. 2 by taking more than 54 percent of the popular vote.

But if the legislation by Assemblymen John Benoit, R-Palm Desert, and Tom Harman, R-Huntington Beach, had been in effect Kerry and President Bush would have split the state's electoral votes because of Bush's strong showing in the state's inland areas and a few coastal counties.

Under the Benoit-Harman bill, a presidential candidate would get one electoral vote for each of the state's 53 congressional districts in which he or she had the most votes.

Two electoral votes would be awarded to the candidate who got the most popular votes statewide.

Two other states, Maine and Nebraska, use the same type of system. But Colorado voters this year rejected a plan that would have divided that state's electoral votes based on each presidential candidate's share of the popular vote.

Harman and Benoit said their bill would make presidential elections more democratic, increase turnout and discourage candidates from ignoring California. This year there was little campaigning in the state by either Bush or Kerry because Kerry's big lead in the polls.

"It's a slap in the face of California voters that our 55 electoral votes, the largest block in the country, are given to one candidate without anything more than a token campaign being launched in our state," said Benoit. "This bill will bring California back onto the national playing field."

But their bill could face tough going. Both houses of the Legislature, which begins its 2005 session on Monday, are dominated by Democrats,

[MissouriConservative]

bump for later read

[Perdogg]

My bad.

[GVnana]

Hooray! I'm all for it. We don't have elections in this state. We don't even get campaigns. Make them account to us if they want our votes!

California originally had elections by Congressional district and we should go back to this close-to-the-concerns of the public approach.

[AuH2ORepublican]

"What about the Republicans that were against the Colorado Plan?"

---

The Colorado plan was even worse than the proposed California plan. The California plan would apportion the electoral votes by congressional district, while the Colorado plan would have split EVs based on proportional representation. For example, if Colorado adopted the plan proposed in California, Bush would have won 7 of the state's 9 EVs, but had Kerry managed to carry the state Kerry would have won 6 or 7 of the state's 9 EVs; under the plan proposed in Colorado, the candidate who carried the state would have won only 5 EVs (to 4 for the loser) unless he carried the state by over 10%, and would not get more than 6 EVs unless he held the loser below 33%. The California plan being adopted in Colorado would result in the state still being contested, while the adoption of the Colorado plan would mean that no presidential candidate would ever pay attention to Colorado.

[Carry_Okie]

Idiots.

If this happened nationwide it would be akin to election by popular vote. States, as we know them, would cease to have any importance to Presidential election. It is a repudiation of the principles of Federalism and Republican government.

[KC_for_Freedom]

Never the less, it would be very interesting to see all the large states (lots of EVs) adopt a plan whereby their power is reduced in favor of small states. I can see how small states would not like the plan, large states can adopt it as a pure suicide play. I believe this is just an example of republicans being sarcastic.

[frannie]

Am I thinking right?

If one counts the congressional districts that each candidate wins, couldn't one count each congressman or woman according to the party he represents and add two to each state that each candidate won? In other words take the number of Republican congress persons and add two for each state the presidential candidate won.

Wouldn't that give us the number of electoral votes for each candidate?

I hope this makes sense. I can't explain very well what I'm trying to say.

Frannie

[Robert_Paulson2]

this is not a founders issue. it is not a constitutional issue.
the USC does not determine the way the several states may apportion their electors. that is left up to the states. just as we have one state that has a unicameral house of state representatives only... we can have states that apportion in any way they choose, the electors they are entitled to via the census.

they could do it by lottery drawing if they so chose.
the winner take all method is neither constitutional or anti constitutional... it is only constitutional in the sense that the states who participate in that fashion do so by their own choice.

it has always been the state's option as to whether they would be 'winner take all' or 'apportioned by district'

fwiw.

personally I would rather see california divided into north and south starting north of ventura county.

they really are two different countries.

[HostileTerritory]

It's reasonably close. There are still plenty of Democrats representing districts that Bush won and some Republicans representing districts Kerry won, but not nearly as there would have been in 2000 before the redistricting. Districts that go strongly for one Presidential candidate or the other simply aren't going to support a Congressional candidate of the opposing party, with only a handful of exceptions, like Scott Matheson of Utah.

[HostileTerritory]

Thanks for the numbers.

Bush carried NC-13? I'd assumed otherwise but hadn't looked it up.

[deport]

Here are the 2000 numbers......

In 2000 Bush won 239 of 435 congressional districts, to the Democrats' 196. Yet, in the 107th Congress elected in 2000, the Republicans had a 222-213 majority. That meant that a sizable number of Bush districts elected a Democratic congressman, but it also demonstrated that most Al Gore districts elected a Democrat and most Bush districts elected a Republican.

[eddie willers]

The older I get and the more I see, the more respect I have for the folks who put together the Constitution of the United Stated and our form of government.

Agreed!

[KoRn]

Why don't we just do that across the nation lol. The media would be nuts during the campaign, and zogby will be doing sauced up polls for a swing district in MI that could be pivotal to the election. Would be very entertaining.

[Sthitch]

Our founding Father's were mute on how the electors should be chosen, they left that completely to the states. Two states currently split their votes, Maine and Nebraska ((the only unicameral legislature in the country). During the election of 1876, Florida also split their electors based on congressional district, this is what handed the election to Hayes over Tilden.

[klamath]

Works great in Wyoming! :-)!

[McClintock]

What an asinine idea.

[longtermmemmory]

Interesting. California must have been flyover country this last election.

Short of splitting the state this is an interesting solution.

[tom h]

Excellent analysis. But my conclusion from your number-crunching is that such a change, instituted nationwide, would have a minimal effect on Presidential election results. Therefore, leave the current system alone . Tinkering would only result in new, politically-motivated rules that would make us all shudder.

[tom h]

Another thought -- the 1960 change is huge and I wonder if you have not given the Kennedy ticket credit for the Democratic votes in the South that are nominally placed in his column for the national vote. I don't recall a lot about these votes but they were not directly for Kennedy or any other candidate, but the media have always placed them in the Kennedy national vote total so as to give Kennedy more votes nationally than Nixon.