Two Brief Essays About The Artifical Electoral Equality Between The Small States And The Big States in America

The first one is an LTE I sent about 4 weeks ago to the Daily Camera who published it a few days later.

Editor,

 

The attempt at killing Donald Trump brings up the claim that republicans in this country are oppressed. Some republicans even compare their situation with that of Jews during the Holocaust. This is total nonsense.

 

Members of the GOP are far from oppressed. Part of this is how the Senate works- the GOP have an undemocratic advantage in that institution. Every state, no matter it’s size, has two senators. This creates an unjustified equality between the large states and the small states when California SHOULD have 52 times the voting power in the Senate that Wyoming has. Democracy is one person one vote, not one state flag one vote. And there’s also the fact that state Senates are based on the former principle and do not involve every county in the state having the same number of State Senators.

 

The problem is, to one degree or another depending on how you define small and big, a majority of the small states at least lean towards red and a majority of the big states at least lean towards blue. Until that changes (and I doubt it will anytime soon) the way the Senate works makes it unjustifiably easy for the GOP to elect a majority of the upper house, even when the number of residents represented by the GOP in the Senate is smaller than the number of residents represented by the Dems in the Senate.

 

We need to either abolish the Senate or reform it so that every senator gets a number of votes equal to how many congressional districts there are in their state. Not only will this end the unfair advantage the GOP has, it will, independent of which party benefits, make the legislative PROCESS in this country more democratic.

 

Thanks,

 

Tom Shelley

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The second is another LTE about a related subject which was published by the Boulder Weekly today. This is what I submitted plus a few small changes made after I submitted it. The edited version is here. 

Editor,
 
The Electoral College is pretty unpopular- a recent Pew Research Center poll says that in 2023 2/3 of Americans wanted to get rid of the EC so that the winner of the popular vote becomes President. In 2000 and 2016 the GOP candidate who won in the EC lost the popular vote. We need to do SOMETHING about it (assuming that the moderately democratic nature of the US survives the next year). I believe that the key thing that needs to be done is to amend the constitution so that all states (and Washington DC) are stripped of the two extra votes they get because all states have two senators.
 
One fact that should be considered is that since the 2000 election some people did the math and found that, if it wasn’t for the two extra votes that every state and DC get, Gore could have totally lost Florida and yet would have won in the electoral college (I found a couple of good web-sites and did the math myself and it’s true). Gore would have won by either 12 or 13 electoral votes (one EC voter who was supposed to vote for Gore abstained). Although this isn’t a massive distortion of democracy like the related problem with votes in the Senate is, it IS undemocratic to create even a small yet false degree of equality between the big states and the small states (California SHOULD have 52 times (not 18 times) more voting power in the EC than Wyoming does). And depending on how you define small and big, to one degree or another a majority of the small states at least lean red and a majority of the big states at least lean blue. So, currently the set-up helps the GOP, but even if undoing that wasn’t part of this, addressing the problem with the EC WOULD move the US political system closer to the (small-d) democratic end of the spectrum.
 
Besides what I propose above, what other options do we have? I think that getting rid of the EC completely might be a bad idea. I’ve read that that might result in EVERY SINGLE STATE doing at least one recount. I at least kind of support the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact, which would require states who have signed up to it to (when the electoral votes of Compact states add up to a majority) have their EC voters vote for whoever won the popular vote. I think it’s flawed but a lot better than nothing. On the other hand it doesn’t seem like a very permanent solution and says nothing about the horrible idea, that comes up at least four times in our political system, that there should be some degree of equality (or total equality) electorally between the small states and the big states.
 
Because the US Constitution sometimes DOES say (erroneously) that democracy is one state flag, one vote instead of one person one vote, and that applies to amendments, the permanent solution I propose might be elusive. But I would like to see the EC reformed so that the votes are based solely on the number of congressional districts. And until we get there the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact is a good idea.
 
Tom Shelley
Gunbarrell

Donald Trump and the 1/6 Capitol Riot

Below is something I sent as a letter to the editor of two local papers. UPDATE 8/3/24 On 7/14/22 the Boulder Weekly published this.

 

Former president Donald Trump was acquitted by the Senate last month in relationship to his role in the 1/6 riot at the Capitol. Part of the argument in favor of convicting him was that he had used the word “fight” when encouraging his supporters to protest at the Capitol that day. His defenders have pointed out that people often use that word without referring to physical violence, and they’re right. But Trump still bears some responsibility for what happened. His use of the word “fight” needs to be considered in connection with two things. First, he painted a picture of America being in grave peril if the results of the election were not overturned. Second, he has a history of encouraging political violence. During the 2016 election campaign, there were at least a couple times when he encouraged his supporters to physically attack protesters at his rallies. There’s also his statement directed at the Proud Boys during the first Presidential Debate last year- “stand back and stand by.” The proud boys are all about political violence and they were at the Capitol that day. Trump had spent months lying about the election and we shouldn’t be surprised that his followers did what they did on 1/6 when he said “fight.”

Tom Shelley
Boulder
https://theblackandthegreen3.blogspot.com/

The Electoral College and the Election of the President

There’s a ballot initiative on the ballot in Colorado that takes aim at how the Electoral College works. It’s called Proposition 113 and it would do the following: it commits CO to an alliance of states that have taken a similar position and when that alliance represents so much electoral power that it’s Electoral College members could elect the President, CO’s electors will vote in the EC for whichever candidate won the popular vote even if that candidate didn’t win CO.

I don’t like how America places someone in the White House. In 2000 and 2016 that person did not win the popular vote, and look at how many people have been placed on the Supreme Court partly by the two Republicans I am talking about- George W. Bush and Donald Trump. If Trumps wins the EC, he’ll again do so without winning the Popular Vote (although that would be the least of our constitutional problems if he wins  the EC).

At one level, we should simply put in the White House whoever wins the popular vote. But A) there are other problems with the EC and B) I have heard one argument about what Prop. 113 would do that prompted me to vote against it.

First, that argument is that if the EC were abolished and the popular vote placed a candidate in the White House, there would be recounts (possibly recount after recount) in all 50 states after the election. It seems quite possible it might take weeks to stop the recounts after they’ve become excessive- it might be what happened in FL in 2000 but 51+ recounts instead of just one (I am not sure how many others there were, but I’m pretty sure that only one made it to the SCOTUS).

There are 1-2 reforms of the EC that would satisfy me and which would help us avoid that possible nightmare scenario and still have more respect for the intent of the voters.

The first one is not the one I feel strongly about. It’s doing half of what Maine and Nebraska do where there are two EC votes that reflect the majority of the state overall and one vote per Congressional District that goes the way each District goes. I like the second part, about the districts. It could be called proportional representation compared to what happens when ALL the Electoral Votes of a state (with more than one District) go to the same candidate.

The important part is that all the states need to shed the two extra EC votes they get because they have two senators. These two extra Senate-based votes create a small but false and undesirable degree of equality between the big states and the small states. California should have 53 times the power in the EC that Wyoming has (CA has 53 Districts, and WY has one). As it is right now, CA has a little more than 18 times more power in the EC, but it has 69 times the population.

I’ve read some good sources that say Gore actually WON Florida in 2000 when all the votes are counted. But let’s say he lost FL fair and square. Someone did the math and if it weren’t for these two additional votes that every state gets, if all they got were just based on Congressional Districts, he could have lost FL by a landslide and still won the EC. To one extent or another, depending on how you define a small state (I draw the line at them having more than 9 congressional districts) about half of the the small states are reliably conservative, and a minority are reliably liberal, and a few are battleground states, although those numbers could change.

Right now, if these Senate-based votes were eliminated 220 Electoral Votes would be needed to win the election. Although I’m open minded that they may be biased with polling information, I like following the polls and the averages of the polls on the web-site Real Clear Politics, a site that is generally leans to the right. If you strip away two from each of the numbers they use, the total EC votes that Biden would have locked down in the Solid Democrat, Likely Democrat, and Leans Democrat states would be 185. Right now, 10/13/20, Biden is doing very well in WI (8 Votes), MI (14), PA (18) and NV (4). Looking at just those four states, Biden has two instead of just one path to victory (WI could be replaced by NV and Biden could still win; the way things are actually set up, MI, PA and NV wouldn’t be enough).

In general, shedding those Senate-based votes makes it easier for the Dems for the foreseeable future. And even when that ceases to be the case with shifting political trends, it would just be more (small-d) democratic if the EC were without those Senate-based votes.

I don’t feel strongly about the first reform I described (that NE and ME do). And I don’t think that Prop. 113 is horrible. But I think that getting rid of those Senate-based votes is incredibly important. One reason I bring this up is that it also exposes how messed up the Senate is- as i’ve said elsewhere, the Senate needs to be reformed. I think that each senator should get a number of votes equal to the number of Districts in their state, and that number should be used for everything in the Senate, including committee votes.

Some Thoughts About the Republican Party, COVID-19 and Democracy

When it comes to a few voting reforms like vote-by-mail, they claim there is potential for the almost non-existent problem of voting fraud (that they believe is common) to get worse. Apparently there is a little more than almost zero potential for fraud with voting-by-mail, but in at least in some states it is so tiny. There is also a history of mail-in ballots being challenged more often than regular ballots.

READ THIS AS FAR AS WHY VOTE-BY-MAIL MIGHT BE A BAD IDEA.

But there is apparently even less possibility of fraud or challenges with early voting (perhaps no more than voting in person on election day) and the GOP hates that as well.

The thing that vote by mail and early voting do is reduce lines on election day outside polling places in precincts that don’t have enough stations (I just looked it up to be sure and a station is sometimes defined as "A place where one performs a task" and I wasn't sure if "machine" is the right word because I think that sometimes there is no machine involved). So many people in such precincts end up leaving the line because, (and this is more common with working-class people), they have to go to sleep so they can get up and go to work. And if they’re people of color they’re more likely to have a boss who will penalize them for being late for work than if they’re white. (UPDATE 11/5/20 There's also a class dimension as self-employed and professional people often have more control over their schedule than everyone else does and can make arrangements to sleep late the day after the election in case they're in line to vote late at night)

With COVID-19 early voting is also an important option, and one that can be set up pretty easily, easier than setting up vote-by-mail. If there’s early voting about 8 hours a day (everyday and on work days, 12-8 PM or something like that) for 1-2 months before the election, we’ll have plenty of time to vote, we can do it a small number at a time (depending on how big the room is, so we can be six feet apart). If you go there one day a month before election day and there’s a line stretching around the block because of social-distancing, just come back another day.

(For all I know it *MIGHT* be necessary for a county to have greater security (including cameras?) where the ballots are stored, but that would only be for 1-2 months’ and it wouldn’t be a lot of extra security. I haven’t heard of any problems with the accumulation of ballots due to vote-by-mail and/or early voting, although this would be different and MIGHT require new arrangements like extra security)

It’s not absolutely perfect, I was thinking as I typed the paragraph about security, but I think it might be best, especially with COVID-19, if we have both vote-by-mail as available as possible, and also have extensive early voting. We are rapidly approaching a point where it will be too late for Congress to effectively mandate vote-by-mail for everyone in every state (that has to be mandated soon, so states can have all the materials needed printed, which takes a long time) and last I heard, the GOP is totally against that. There might be a massive number of challenges in the event of universal vote-by-mail, which would seriously delay the results, maybe for months.

American Democracy

On 6/13/17 I made some significant changes to some of this.

First, let me address something. I know sometimes when people talk about making America more democratic, some people, either because they're anal, or because they oppose making America more democratic, respond by pointing out that America is a Republic, not a Democracy. Although I consider myself some kind of amateur political scientist (about 1/5-1/4 of my degree, Ethnic Studies, could be taught in a PSCI course and I took 4 PSCI courses outside ETHN) I struggle a little with this. When I looked at it recently and asked several very political people I know, I found different definitions for “republic” and different definitions for “democracy.” It was so mixed that I am not sure which definitions are right. I lean a bit towards defining a republic as a democratic or undemocratic state which, critically, has no monarch. Also, I’m tempted to tell the “we’re a republic not a democracy” people I’ll take them seriously about it when they convince more than 1% of America’s elected politicians to stop calling it a democracy. You can label my writing below a call for a more democratic republic, or a call to strengthen our democracy, or something like that. I think most people will see that the problems I’m briefly addressing in this post are in conflict with democratic and/or republican values. If I could remember what my PSCI professors had said 20 years ago about this, I might just go with that, but I can’t remember what they said, so I’m just going to go with what I have written above.

(I'm talking about POLITICAL democracy- don't get me started about America's democratic deficit economically (capitalism) or sociologically (i.e. white cops getting away with it when they murder unarmed Black men) which is much worse than the problems with our democracy in a political sense)

How do we make America more democratic? There are several ways. To varying degrees I’ll describe them below. And I'll be honest- although I'd support greater democracy anyway, there's reason to believe that what I'm proposing would benefit the liberal/progressive/left side of politics.


1. Proportional Representation. Although I prefer the form where there are many districts with something like 3-5 members elected from each, and I also prefer Single Transferable Vote (you rank the candidates based on your preference and your vote is transferred depending on how each candidate does at each stage of the counting), it'd be great to see some kind of PR for one part of the Congress.

2. Let felons vote. Although there's probably tons of people in correctional institutions who shouldn't be there, I'm willing to concede that some small majority of them probably should. But their punishment is that they lose their freedom, they don't lose their citizenship. Also, it's not insignificant that felons barred from voting are disproportionately people of color. At the same time, they're counted in census counts that shape congressional districts. Under slavery, slaves were counted as 3/5 of a person for this purpose. Now it's 100% and they still can't vote. Also, to some small degree, since a lot of these institutions are in rural areas, it may mean more mostly rural ( and probably conservative) districts.

3. Instant run-off voting for President. I wouldn't say this is the most important. I kind of feel that 3rd parties like the Greens should just ignore the Presidential race and focus on races they have some chance of winning (I might later on post my thoughts on progressive 3rd party electoral stuff), but the fact is they aren't going to ignore it and will continue to act as potential or actual spoilers. IRV will allow them to vote their conscience without throwing away their vote.

4. Statehood for DC. The residents of Washington DC, a mostly non-white city don't have a voting member of the House and have no one at all in the Senate. The population of DC is bigger than that of Wyoming. They should have a voting member of the House and two senators. It’s basically “taxation without representation.”


5. There's probably a bunch of things relevant to this that I'm going to skip (i.e. shortening the work week so people have more time for activism/civic involvement, taking money out of politics, etc.); The last item, and in fact the one that prompted me to write this in the first place, is about the Senate.

(UPDATE 6/10/09 The stuff about how the process of amending the constitution works, and the general population and racial demographic figures come from Wikipedia)

Our Senate is ridiculously undemocratic. Each state has the same representation regardless of how big or small they are (population-wise). To look at the extremes, Wyoming and California, if you take 2 and divide it by the number of either eligible voters or the number of citizens in each state, it means that the tiny fraction of a vote that you could say each Californian has in the Senate is MUCH tinier than the one that you could say people in Wyoming have. This is wrong. Also however you define "small" (as long as they have less than 10 congressional districts) the small states are mostly conservative. Even if that changes, it would still be undemocratic, and it's not likely to change.

The reform should be that each Senator gets a number of votes based on how many seats in the House their state is entitled to.

I have had some trouble coming up with a perfect way of convincing even the least willing to concede defeat when it comes to how undemocratic the current set up is. What I wrote above about CA and WY might work, and another possibility is to describe a hypothetical situation where the American President is directly elected by the people, but the people in Wyoming get something like 60 votes and the people in California get 1 vote. It's not a solid analogy, but the Senate is roughly as powerful as the President, which strengthens this argument. Lastly, it might make sense to say that if you take the population of Wyoming and divide by two you get a certain number and if you do the same thing with CA, you get a number about 55-60 times bigger- then ask what they would think if in one state, there was a congressional district for every X # of people and in another state, there was one for every 55X # of people (for some reason I can’t be sure, but I believe that could described as one state having more representation per capita). Also, it occurred to me that, not only are the people in the smaller states likely to be conservative, they're VERY likely to be white (depending on how you look at it it’s kind of close, but when considering this, if you give a lot of weight to CA with it's huge population, and also to the really small, really white states, this is a significant problem)..


On a related note, something should be done about the Electoral College. I'm not sure if we should get rid of it, but at the very least it should be reformed so that it eliminates the 2 votes each state gets from having two senators. UPDATE 10/13/20 I just did a post about the EC. It's here.

 

UPDATE 3/6/21 I am going to offer some ideas for how to accomplish this. Obviously getting Senators and representatives from small states to vote in favor of it will be difficult, and then the same sort of thing will happen getting 3/4 of the states to ratify it. I think you start by creating a coalition at the national level with state and local sub-groups. As you’re building the coalition, you start talking about the unfairness of the current set-up and then you start doing polls about the subject in CA, NY, TX and many of the other states that have at least 10 congressional districts. You release the results of these polls, you demonstrate support through marches and rallies, etc. At that point you have the appropriate documents for a constitutional amendment submitted in the House and the Senate. At some point you need to internationalize the campaign and explain to the world how unfair the current set up is. In order to get politicians from and in small states to vote in favor of this, you’ll have to get NGOs in other countries to pressure corporations based in those countries to threaten to boycott any state and/or congressional district whose politicians vote against the amendment. To a lesser degree you could probably put enough pressure on some AMERICAN companies to do the same thing. 

 

UPDATE 5/25/21 The person behind the site I link to below thinks that we should just abolish the Senate. Although I think we need to reform and keep it (the House can't take on the extra work of confirming presidential appointees (i.e. cabinet members, etc.) considering that there's a lot of them and they all want some time speaking for the cameras and it's part of the checks and balances) abolishing it is preferable to the status quo. 

UPDATE 6/1/21 I just thought of something that makes reforming the Senate a better idea than abolishing it. For the foreseeable future the odds are very high that a reformed senate will have a Dem majority (a majority of the votes will be controlled by Dems) and that can block legislation from the House when it's occassionally controlled by the GOP.

UPDATE 6/24/22 I just thought of another good point to make in favor of reforming or abolishing the Senate to address the undemocratic way it works. State Senates (that is the upper chamber of every American state legislature with the exception of Nebraska which is unicameral) don't use counties the way the US Senate uses the states- State Senate districts aren't two for each county, and they don't give each county the same number of seats in the State Senate. Why do that sort of thing at the national level when we don't do it at the state level? No one says that the less populous counties need protection from the more populous counties (some State Senate districts are made up of multiple counties and some counties have more than one State Senate district). Why is it seen as important for democracy to protect the less populous STATES from being out-voted by the more populous STATES?

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UPDATE 5/25/21 There's a large site with some good stuff about this issue- making America more democratic here. I don't agree with all of it completely.