Numerous bills have been filed in the U.S. Congress to abolish or reduce the power of the Electoral College.
Video Electoral College abolition amendment
Proposed amendments
Bayh-Celler amendment
The closest the United States has come to abolishing the Electoral College occurred during the 91st Congress (1969-1971). The presidential election of 1968 resulted in Richard Nixon receiving 301 electoral votes (56% of electors), Hubert Humphrey 191 (35.5%), and George Wallace 46 (8.5%) with 13.5% of the popular vote. However, Nixon had received only 511,944 more popular votes than Humphrey, 43.5% to 42.9%, less than 1% of the national total.
Representative Emanuel Celler (D-New York), chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, responded to public concerns over the disparity between the popular vote and electoral vote by introducing House Joint Resolution 681, a proposed Constitutional amendment that would have replaced the Electoral College with a simpler plurality system based on the national popular vote. With this system, the pair of candidates who had received the highest number of votes would win the presidency and vice presidency provided they won at least 40% of the national popular vote. If no pair received 40% of the popular vote, a runoff election would be held in which the choice of president and vice president would be made from the two pairs of persons who had received the highest number of votes in the first election. The word "pair" was defined as "two persons who shall have consented to the joining of their names as candidates for the offices of President and Vice President."
On April 29, 1969, the House Judiciary Committee voted 28 to 6 to approve the proposal. Debate on the proposal before the full House of Representatives ended on September 11, 1969 and was eventually passed with bipartisan support on September 18, 1969, by a vote of 339 to 70.
On September 30, 1969, President Richard Nixon gave his endorsement for adoption of the proposal, encouraging the Senate to pass its version of the proposal, which had been sponsored as Senate Joint Resolution 1 by Senator Birch Bayh (D-Indiana).
On October 8, 1969, the New York Times reported that 30 state legislatures were "either certain or likely to approve a constitutional amendment embodying the direct election plan if it passes its final Congressional test in the Senate." Ratification of 38 state legislatures would have been needed for adoption. The paper also reported that six other states had yet to state a preference, six were leaning toward opposition and eight were solidly opposed.
On August 14, 1970, the Senate Judiciary Committee sent its report advocating passage of the proposal to the full Senate. The Judiciary Committee had approved the proposal by a vote of 11 to 6. The six members who opposed the plan, Democratic Senators James Eastland of Mississippi, John Little McClellan of Arkansas, and Sam Ervin of North Carolina, along with Republican Senators Roman Hruska of Nebraska, Hiram Fong of Hawaii, and Strom Thurmond of South Carolina, all argued that although the present system had potential loopholes, it had worked well throughout the years. Senator Bayh indicated that supporters of the measure were about a dozen votes shy from the 67 needed for the proposal to pass the full Senate. He called upon President Nixon to attempt to persuade undecided Republican senators to support the proposal. However, Nixon, while not reneging on his previous endorsement, chose not to make any further personal appeals to back the proposal.
On September 8, 1970, the Senate commenced openly debating the proposal and the proposal was quickly filibustered. The lead objectors to the proposal were mostly Southern senators and conservatives from small states, both Democrats and Republicans, who argued abolishing the Electoral College would reduce their states' political influence. On September 17, 1970, a motion for cloture, which would have ended the filibuster, received 54 votes to 36 for cloture, failing to receive the then required a two-thirds majority of senators voting. A second motion for cloture on September 29, 1970, also failed, by 53 to 34. Thereafter, the Senate majority leader, Mike Mansfield of Montana, moved to lay the proposal aside so the Senate could attend to other business. However, the proposal was never considered again and died when the 91st Congress ended on January 3, 1971.
Carter proposal
On March 22, 1977, President Jimmy Carter wrote a letter of reform to Congress that also included his expression of essentially abolishing the Electoral College. The letter read in part:
My fourth recommendation is that the Congress adopt a Constitutional amendment to provide for direct popular election of the President. Such an amendment, which would abolish the Electoral College, will ensure that the candidate chosen by the voters actually becomes President. Under the Electoral College, it is always possible that the winner of the popular vote will not be elected. This has already happened in three elections, 1824, 1876, and 1888. In the last election, the result could have been changed by a small shift of votes in Ohio and Hawaii, despite a popular vote difference of 1.7 million. I do not recommend a Constitutional amendment lightly. I think the amendment process must be reserved for an issue of overriding governmental significance. But the method by which we elect our President is such an issue. I will not be proposing a specific direct election amendment. I prefer to allow the Congress to proceed with its work without the interruption of a new proposal.
President Carter's proposed program for the reform of the Electoral College was very liberal for a modern president during this time, and in some aspects of the package, it went beyond original expectations. Newspapers like The New York Times saw President Carter's proposal at that time as "a modest surprise" because of the indication of Carter that he would be interested in only eliminating the electors but retaining the electoral vote system in a modified form.
Newspaper reaction to Carter's proposal ranged from some editorials praising the proposal to other editorials, like that in the Chicago Tribune, criticizing the president for proposing the end of the Electoral College.
In a letter to The New York Times, Representative Jonathan B. Bingham (D-New York) highlighted the danger of the "flawed, outdated mechanism of the Electoral College" by underscoring how a shift of fewer than 10,000 votes in two key states would have led to President Gerald Ford being reelected despite Jimmy Carter's nationwide 1.7 million-vote margin.
Cohen proposal
On January 5, 2017, Representative Steve Cohen (D-Tennessee) introduced a joint resolution proposing a constitutional amendment that would replace the Electoral College with the popular election of the President and Vice President. Unlike the Bayh-Celler amendment 40% threshold for election, Cohen's proposal only requires a candidate to have the "greatest number of votes" to be elected.
Maps Electoral College abolition amendment
Every Vote Counts Amendment
The Every Vote Counts Amendment is a joint resolution to amend the United States Constitution, providing for the popular election of the president and vice president under a new electoral system. This proposed amendment would abolish the Electoral College in United States presidential elections and have every presidential election determined by a plurality of the national vote. It was introduced by Representative Gene Green (D) Texas on January 4, 2005. Representative Green then again introduced the legislation on January 7, 2009 as H.J.Res. 9..
As of April 2009 two other joint resolutions have been proposed in the 111th Congress to amend the Constitution to establish a national popular vote for the president and vice-president. Sponsored by Representative Jesse Jackson, Jr. (D) Illinois, H.J.Res. 36 would require a majority vote for president. Sponsored by Senator Bill Nelson (D) Florida, S.J.Res. 4 would leave the method of election to an Act of Congress.
Text of legislation
Article
- Section 1. The President and Vice President shall be elected by the people of the several States and the district constituting the seat of government of the United States.
- Section 2. The electors in each State shall have the qualifications requisite for electors of Senators and Representatives in Congress from that State, except that the legislature of any State may prescribe less restrictive qualifications with respect to residence and Congress may establish uniform residence and age qualifications.
- Section 3. The persons having the greatest number of votes for President and Vice President shall be elected.
- Section 4. Each elector shall cast a single vote jointly applicable to President and Vice President. Names of candidates may not be joined unless they shall have consented thereto and no candidate may consent to the candidate's name being joined with that of more than one other person.
- Section 5. The Congress may by law provide for the case of the death of any candidate for President or Vice President before the day on which the President-elect or Vice President-elect has been chosen, and for the case of a tie in any election.
- Section 6. This article shall apply with respect to any election for President and Vice President held after the expiration of the 1-year period which begins on the date of the ratification of this article.
Background Information:Sections
Section 1, 3, and 4 relate to the process of the election. Section 1 states that the President and Vice President will be elected by the residents of states. Section 3 states that the election is won by the candidate supported by a plurality of votes cast. There is no provision for a run-off in the event that no candidate wins by an overall majority. Section 4 pushes the joint candidacy requirement enacted by all states. So, that candidates can not be joined by more than one other person on the ballot. To prevent misinterpretation for voters by having too many choices. Section 2 relates to the voter qualifications in three implementations. The first implementation is re-using requirements for qualification to vote that were established and used for the electoral system. The qualifications stated in Article 1 section 2, also the 17th Amendment pushed by the 14th, 15th, 19th, 24th and 26th Amendments. The second implementation would effect the resident periods in states, allowing states to make little to no waiting periods to vote if one changed residence of state. The last implementation would allow Congress to input age requirements for elections and establish uniform residence. Pushing past the 26th Amendment and making the age requirement higher or lower. Section 5 would give power to Congress. If the Amendment was put into place, and a candidate died or there was a tie between two candidates it would allow Congress to make decisions depending on the event if it was to take place. Such as, postponing an election. Section 5 gives more power to Congress over the election process and system. Section 6 relates to if the Amendment was to be put into place. As long as the Amendment is put into place one year before the next election the Amendment would be used on the next Presidential election.
After introduction of Amendment
The Every Vote Counts Amendment was shutdown. Although the Ideas of Every Vote Counts Amendment led to H.J Res.36, another electoral college reform proposal that included a direct popular election. H.J. Res.36 was introduced in the 111th Congress of Representatives on March 3, 2009 by Rep Jesse L. Jackson.
Boxer amendment
On November 15, 2016, Senator Barbara Boxer of California introduced a proposal to abolish the electoral college and to provide for the direct popular election of the President and Vice President of the United States by the voters in the various states and the District of Columbia.
See also
- National Popular Vote Interstate Compact
Notes
1.^Miller, RT 2011, The Electoral College. An Analysis, n.p.: Hauppauge, NY : Nova Science Publishers, ©2011
References
External links
- GovTrack.us
- Library of Congress
Source of the article : Wikipedia
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