6 ms·

I could not be more opposed to the abolishment of the Electoral College. The founders had a very good rationale for putting it in. That said... I think there's

by akulbe 7y ago

I could not be more opposed to the abolishment of the Electoral College. The founders had a very good rationale for putting it in. That said... I think there's a solution for this. Hard term limits for everyone, in all the branches. It already exists for the Executive branch. I think it should be instituted for both Legislative and Judicial as well.

creaghpatr 7y ago
Definitely, for the Senate, I don't mind unlimited in the house since they are up for reelection every two years.
- AnimalMuppet 7y ago
  No, there are several members of the House that have passed their sell-by date.
dragonwriter 7y ago
> The founders had a very good rationale for putting it in. Well, it had a reason: like the per-state represt in the Senate which was locked in against amendment, like the 3/5 compromise, like the prohibition locked against amendment protecting the slave trade for a set time period, and probably like a handful of other things I'm probably not remembering off the top of my head, it was a mechanism of politically securing slavery and reassuring the slave states that the more populace free states, where ethical objections to slavery were already common, would not be able to band together and demand that all people be treated as people rather than some being treated as property. (Before anyone starts quoting the Federalist Papers, I'll point out that those weren't working documents that the Constitutional Convention made decisions based on, but campaign literature to sell ratification particularly in New York. So they weren't going to say “A lot of this document is about mollifying the slave states to get them to stay by giving them as much assurance as possible that it will never be structurally possible to abolish slavery.” But, not saying it when selling the document in New York doesn't stop it from being true.)
- javagram 7y ago
  The slave states wanted population based representation. For instance the 3/5 compromise was because the slave states wanted 5/5 and the free states wanted 0/5. Virginia had the most Representatives in the first US congress because they had the largest population. It was small states like New Hampshire and Rhode Island that benefited from the 2 senators per state rule.
  - dragonwriter 7y ago
    > The slave states wanted population based representation No states wanted population-based representation, or all did, depending on how you look at it: that is, no one wanted to count non-assimilated Native American population, all of them wanted to count the remaining free population, and there was a dispute about how to count the people that the slave states weren't going to treat as people and, particularly, certainly weren't going to let vote.
danaris 7y ago
The founders could not have foreseen shifts in population demographics the like of which have occurred in the last 200 years. The urbanization of our population has been staggering during that time, and the percent of people who own or work on farms has dropped to nearly a rounding error, compared to most of the people in the world. The idea that we must worship every aspect of the founders' thoughts on the makeup of a country, when the world has changed so drastically since their lifetimes, makes no rational sense. Sure, a lot of their ideas (checks and balances, good!) are still relevant. Others (slavery, no women's suffrage, bad), not so much.
car 7y ago
https://www.nationalpopularvote.com/section_9.1#myth_9.1.4 https://www.nationalpopularvote.com/section_9.1#myth_9.1.4
kevinh 7y ago
> The founders had a very good rationale for putting it in. Yeah, slavery. How would you have a popular vote if you're allowing slaves to count as 3/5ths of a person for vote share? They obviously wouldn't have allowed them to vote. Fortunately, we no longer have slavery as an official institution, so it may be time to revise why we're doing it.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- TenaciousValor 7y ago
  >> The founders had a very good rationale for putting it in. > Yeah, slavery. No, tyranny of the majority. See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tyranny_of_the_majority https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tyranny_of_the_majority Even women couldn't vote, so it's not fair to say that slavery was the rationale. No reasonable person today would say that the 3/5 Compromise or denying universal suffrage is desirable. Other commenters have also mentioned a necessity to ratify the Constitution. That also applies here as well.
mikeash 7y ago
The rationale for the EC and every other compromise in the Constitution was simple: it’s what was required to get the states to actually sign up. There was the very real possibility that the individual states would go their own way if they didn’t like the proposed Constitution. Larger states could have easily decided that they didn’t need to be part of a larger country. Smaller states could have easily decided that they would be ruled by the larger states and that they’d be better off independent. The electoral college was needed to convince everyone to stick together. Same with the different structures of the House and the Senate, the 3/5ths compromise, and more. Things are completely different now. There’s no realistic possibility that any state will exit the union. The major purpose of so many elements of our federal system is completely gone.
- mieseratte 7y ago
  The EC is a check on populism, and very clearly still needed.
  - mikeash 7y ago
    The EC never fulfilled that function. Faithless electors have never changed the outcome of an election. The notion that the EC exists to ensure that popular sentiment doesn’t elect someone deeply unfit for the office was definitely disproven in the last election.
    - AnimalMuppet 7y ago
      Swinging it to Hillary would also have elected someone deeply unfit for the office. I agree that last election was the perfect scenario for the EC to do its job. But who should it have elected instead? And, could it have actually done so without touching off a civil war? (Not a rhetorical one, not a metaphorical one - a real live shooting live rounds, dead bodies piling up, state against state and brother against brother civil war.)
- AnimalMuppet 7y ago
  That's fair. We have a set of rules, and the rationale for many of them is gone. Therefore... what? Throw them all out? If so, replace them with what? Worse: How do you get everyone to agree on what to replace them with? As it turns out, there's a mechanism for getting everyone to agree, and to prevent changes that everyone does not agree with (for certain values of "everyone"): Amend the Constitution.

by akulbe 7y ago

creaghpatr 7y ago

Definitely, for the Senate, I don't mind unlimited in the house since they are up for reelection every two years.

AnimalMuppet 7y ago
No, there are several members of the House that have passed their sell-by date.

dragonwriter 7y ago

> The founders had a very good rationale for putting it in. Well, it had a reason: like the per-state represt in the Senate which was locked in against amendment, like the 3/5 compromise, like the prohibition locked against amendment protecting the slave trade for a set time period, and probably like a handful of other things I'm probably not remembering off the top of my head, it was a mechanism of politically securing slavery and reassuring the slave states that the more populace free states, where ethical objections to slavery were already common, would not be able to band together and demand that all people be treated as people rather than some being treated as property. (Before anyone starts quoting the Federalist Papers, I'll point out that those weren't working documents that the Constitutional Convention made decisions based on, but campaign literature to sell ratification particularly in New York. So they weren't going to say “A lot of this document is about mollifying the slave states to get them to stay by giving them as much assurance as possible that it will never be structurally possible to abolish slavery.” But, not saying it when selling the document in New York doesn't stop it from being true.)

javagram 7y ago
The slave states wanted population based representation. For instance the 3/5 compromise was because the slave states wanted 5/5 and the free states wanted 0/5. Virginia had the most Representatives in the first US congress because they had the largest population. It was small states like New Hampshire and Rhode Island that benefited from the 2 senators per state rule.
- dragonwriter 7y ago
  > The slave states wanted population based representation No states wanted population-based representation, or all did, depending on how you look at it: that is, no one wanted to count non-assimilated Native American population, all of them wanted to count the remaining free population, and there was a dispute about how to count the people that the slave states weren't going to treat as people and, particularly, certainly weren't going to let vote.

danaris 7y ago

The founders could not have foreseen shifts in population demographics the like of which have occurred in the last 200 years. The urbanization of our population has been staggering during that time, and the percent of people who own or work on farms has dropped to nearly a rounding error, compared to most of the people in the world. The idea that we must worship every aspect of the founders' thoughts on the makeup of a country, when the world has changed so drastically since their lifetimes, makes no rational sense. Sure, a lot of their ideas (checks and balances, good!) are still relevant. Others (slavery, no women's suffrage, bad), not so much.

car 7y ago

https://www.nationalpopularvote.com/section_9.1#myth_9.1.4 https://www.nationalpopularvote.com/section_9.1#myth_9.1.4

kevinh 7y ago

> The founders had a very good rationale for putting it in. Yeah, slavery. How would you have a popular vote if you're allowing slaves to count as 3/5ths of a person for vote share? They obviously wouldn't have allowed them to vote. Fortunately, we no longer have slavery as an official institution, so it may be time to revise why we're doing it.

deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
TenaciousValor 7y ago
>> The founders had a very good rationale for putting it in. > Yeah, slavery. No, tyranny of the majority. See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tyranny_of_the_majority https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tyranny_of_the_majority Even women couldn't vote, so it's not fair to say that slavery was the rationale. No reasonable person today would say that the 3/5 Compromise or denying universal suffrage is desirable. Other commenters have also mentioned a necessity to ratify the Constitution. That also applies here as well.

mikeash 7y ago

The rationale for the EC and every other compromise in the Constitution was simple: it’s what was required to get the states to actually sign up. There was the very real possibility that the individual states would go their own way if they didn’t like the proposed Constitution. Larger states could have easily decided that they didn’t need to be part of a larger country. Smaller states could have easily decided that they would be ruled by the larger states and that they’d be better off independent. The electoral college was needed to convince everyone to stick together. Same with the different structures of the House and the Senate, the 3/5ths compromise, and more. Things are completely different now. There’s no realistic possibility that any state will exit the union. The major purpose of so many elements of our federal system is completely gone.

mieseratte 7y ago
The EC is a check on populism, and very clearly still needed.
- mikeash 7y ago
  The EC never fulfilled that function. Faithless electors have never changed the outcome of an election. The notion that the EC exists to ensure that popular sentiment doesn’t elect someone deeply unfit for the office was definitely disproven in the last election.
  - AnimalMuppet 7y ago
    Swinging it to Hillary would also have elected someone deeply unfit for the office. I agree that last election was the perfect scenario for the EC to do its job. But who should it have elected instead? And, could it have actually done so without touching off a civil war? (Not a rhetorical one, not a metaphorical one - a real live shooting live rounds, dead bodies piling up, state against state and brother against brother civil war.)
AnimalMuppet 7y ago
That's fair. We have a set of rules, and the rationale for many of them is gone. Therefore... what? Throw them all out? If so, replace them with what? Worse: How do you get everyone to agree on what to replace them with? As it turns out, there's a mechanism for getting everyone to agree, and to prevent changes that everyone does not agree with (for certain values of "everyone"): Amend the Constitution.