Posted on 08/26/2007 3:06:50 PM PDT by melt
U.S. Senator Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) today announced that she will introduce a resolution to abolish the Electoral College and provide for the direct popular vote of the President. Senator Feinstein's announcement comes against the backdrop of a bid in California to qualify a ballot initiative that would skew the outcome of Presidential elections.
"This proposed California initiative is very dangerous – it is an attempt to tinker with state law in order to influence the outcome of national Presidential elections," Senator Feinstein said.
"There is no question that our system of electing a President is outmoded, but this initiative is not the way to do it. I believe that the Electoral College must be abolished, and that the President be elected through direct popular election."
"Under the current system, it is possible for a Presidential candidate to lose the popular vote, but to be elected by the Electoral College. This has happened four times in the nation's history, most recently in 2000."
"And the current system enables a handful of states to become battleground states, and disenfranchises tens of millions of American voters in the most important election in the nation. By amending the Constitution to abolish the Electoral College, and replacing it with a system in which the winner is the candidate with the most votes nationwide, we will ensure that the method of electing the President and Vice President is fair and uniform."
Currently, California gives all of its 55 electoral votes to the candidate winning the popular vote statewide. This method is used by almost all the states. Under the initiative drive being circulated in California, the state would give Presidential candidates one electoral vote for every Congressional district that they win, plus two electoral votes for whichever candidate gets the most votes in the state.
(Excerpt) Read more at yubanet.com ...
Why not just change the California law to provide for a prorata allocation of the electors?
Or, let the cities get the Mexican-trucked food from Central America until it sickens them all.
-PJ
Democrats for the most part are too ignorant to understand the Electoral College concept so they choose to dislike it.
Not to worry, ignorance is the reason this idea will go nowhere!
The Constitution utterly terrifies liberals.
In related news, the Electoral College has called for the abolishment of Dianne Feinstein.
” Do we need to say more about what awaits us in 2008 if they win?”
Civil war.
And they’re not up in arms over this??!!
she needs to leave office and how.
That's the idea behind an initiative that's gotten going out here. If the iniatiative passes, it will be one elector per congressional district with the two 'extras' based on the statewide winner.
Why not just do away with states altogether? Let's have all laws made at the national level. Abolish city and county governments as well. We could replace them with administrative units (let's call them "Soviets" for the lack of a better word) appointed by, and with powers delegated by, the congress (which we could rename "The Politburo" since it would change function).
/sarcasm
Article II
Section 1. The executive Power shall be vested in a President of the United States of America. He shall hold his Office during the Term of four Years, and, together with the Vice President, chosen for the same Term, be elected, as follows
Each State shall appoint, in such Manner as the Legislature thereof may direct, a Number of Electors, equal to the whole Number of Senators and Representatives to which the State may be entitled in the Congress: but no Senator or Representative, or Person holding an Office of Trust or Profit under the United States, shall be appointed an Elector.
- And in California, an effort has begun to place the issue before the voters in either June or November.
WTF?????
I'm being nitpicky, I know, but a truer way to say this is "... important places like San Francisco and L.A.," NOT "California." For one thing, California is its own micro-flyover country because its farmland feeds and clothes a whole hell of a lot of America; California is mostly agricultural. For another, a by-county breakdown of California reveals it to be a MOSTLY RED state.
A complete Communist takeover of the U.S. is impossible as long as that pesky electoral college is in place. I don’t blame her. She’s just doing what she has to do for her comrades the world over.
An electoral college at least attempts to provide balance to the representation of the plurality of views and ideas, that exists across this great nation of ours.
Her hypocrisy, while breathtaking, is not surprising at all. Yes, let's not tinker with CA state election law, but let's flush long-standing Federal laws because they're inconvenient and unfair!
As a member of the Senate (with disproportional representation, sort of a metaphor for the EC) she knows better.
I was just thinking, “this will move us closer to Civil War II.”
Abolish the Electoral College and go straight Popular Vote and small states lose their voice in National Eelctions.
I don’t know about the rest, but I sure don’t want california, New York and the other heaviest populates states making my decisions for me.
California has 55 votes, Texas has 34, New York has 31, Florida has 27 Pennsylvania and Illinois have 21, Ohio has 20, and the rest are less than 20 each.
California's Electoral College votes are in a league of their own. Perhaps the answer is not to apportion California's Electoral Votes, but instead to divide California into two states?
California is too big to be left in the hands of Feinstein and Barbara Boxer.
-PJ
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