Feinstein wants end to Electoral College Senator says she'll seek constitutional amendment

San Francisco Chronicle (Online) ^ | 12/23/2004 | Edward Epstein

[1066AD]

Feinstein wants end to Electoral College Senator says she'll seek constitutional amendment

- Edward Epstein, Chronicle Washington Bureau Thursday, December 23, 2004

Washington -- Sen. Dianne Feinstein said Wednesday that when Congress returns in January, she will propose a constitutional amendment to abolish the Electoral College and replace it with a one-person, one-vote system for electing the nation's president and vice president.

.....

"The Electoral College is an anachronism, and the time has come to bring our democracy into the 21st century," Feinstein said in a statement.

[onedoug]

Dock her salary for wasting time.

[Parmy]

If you wish to observe one person---one vote in action----take a hard look at what is happening here in Washington State governor's election. It sucks!!!

[Repealthe17thAmendment]

I'm with you there.

[cowboyway]

"The Electoral College is an anachronism, and the time has come to bring our democracy into the 21st century,"

And then maybe we should push for a constitutional amendment that would require officials elected US senate or house seats to actually know what kind of government they're working in.

It's not a democracy. It's a Federal Republic.

[The Wizard]

great use of her time....endlessly trying to do something she can't acheive should keep her out of the way of real work.

[HamiltonJay]

"A Republic, if you can keep it" -- Benjamin Franklin 9/17/1787

"I want a pure democracy" -- Feinstein circa 2004

Sorry there toots, I'll follow Franklin.

[joebuck]

Yeah, I bet this one gets a lot of traction. I think Di should devote ALL of her time and resources working on this isse.

[frog_jerk_2004]

The headline should read "Feinstein knows better than Madison, Jefferson, Hamilton, Paterson, Franklin, and other dead founding fathers"

[TomGuy]

Leahy from VT comes to mind immediately.

[ClearCase_guy]

"I dream of a day when 5 or 6 major cities will have total control over who becomes the US president. The voters in about 45 states will have no say in the matter! Those ignorant rubes don't deserve to vote at all! Now ... all I have to do is convince two-thirds of those god-forsaken states to vote for a Constitutional Amendment that will drastically reduce their own political relevance .... hmmmmmm ... how can I do that? Maybe Hillary has an idea ..."

[tom h]

She's proposing it because she knows if a California Constitutional amendment passes, dividing up the electoral votes between vote-getters, then California will become even more irrelevant in Presidential elections, and that Republican dominance of the White House will last for decades, until another sea change in American and California politics.

[JoeSixPack1]

Smells like old crusty is giving orders again. '08 starts now.

[Publius]

Popular election of the president is not a new idea. It was proposed in its simplest form by James Wilson, one of the lesser known delegates from Pennsylvania, at the Constitutional Convention of 1787. His argument was that, inasmuch as the presidency was a national office, it should be chosen by popular vote regardless of state. Neither the Nationalists nor the States' Men were receptive to the argument, and it went nowhere.

The recipe for electing the president was cobbled together in the final days of the Convention. Nobody was satisfied with it, but it was the best the combined minds of the Convention could come up with.

In December 1829, Andrew Jackson, in his annual message to Congress, argued in favor of a constitutional amendment to elect the president by popular vote. Jackson argued that we were no longer a republic, but a democracy, and the Constitution needed to be updated to reflect that fact. (He also proposed direct election of senators.) Jackson's idea was too far out in front of the public, and it went nowhere.

After the close call in 1968, several plans were brought forward. One was a revival of Jackson's 1829 suggestion. The other, proposed by Republican senators Everett Dirksen of Illinois and Karl Mundt of South Dakota, suggested granting each congressional district one electoral vote and each state two electoral votes.

Both ideas continued to gather adherents in the Seventies, but then the momentum went out of the movement.

Maine and Nebraska, however, decided to follow the Dirksen-Mundt idea on their own. Both states assign electoral votes by congressional district and assign two votes to the state in general.

[KJacob]

ping

[dead]

This ought to keep her busy for a while.

Is she actually clueless enough to believe that she could actually succeed in this dopey impossible quest, or is she just fundraising?

[processing please hold]

You might outta rethink that.

[Jagdgewehr]

Well, you know that only Californians and New Yorkers know best who should be president. We can't leave it up to those pickup driving animal-killers in the Midwest and the South.

< /sarcasm >

[whereasandsoforth]

This lady is sitting in congress and she doesn't even know what form of government we have! Democracy?? Not on your life, lady. She needs to resign immediately and go home. She's too ingnorant to serve the public. People elected her?

[expat_panama]

- You first...   ...if she represented Idaho?

She needs to set an example right there in California by having her own state apportion electoral delegates per popular vote-- like Maine does..   Of course that would just give the Republicans an even bigger advantage but she says that democracy is the goal above all else.

[CougarGA7]

You are highly mistaken sir. With no electoral college, campaigns will only focus on the 20 most populous cities. States with smaller populations will never even get the slightest look or the slightest consideration when a president that is thinking about reelection is making decisions.

Our founding fathers were against Democracy because they believed that what they called "mob rule" would be detrimental to the country. They are just as right today as they were back then.