I might as well chime in with another one of my “electoral reforms that BillyBoy thinks is a good idea but will never happen” posts.
If it were up to me, all states would enact the Maine-Nebraska system of distributing their electoral votes based on how their congressional districts vote, rather than the current system of “winner take all” used in 48 states. The Constitution is silent as to what method states use to distribute their electoral votes, so its perfectly constitutional AND a far better idea than the Orwellian “Popular Vote Compact” being pushed by Jim Edgar, Fred Thompson, and some other misguided Republicans (what’s the point of having your state in the Presidential election if just decided to cast your electoral votes for the NATIONAL winner even if 100% of your state’s citizens OPPOSED him?)
If electoral votes were distributed based on how the state’s congressional districts voted for President, there would be a hell of a LOT more competitive states than just the 12 or so that decide the election now. Democrats would be able to win electoral votes in states like Texas, Georgia, and Tennessee, Republicans would be able to win electoral votes in states like California, Illinois, and Maryland. The GOP still wouldn’t bother competing in my district and my vote for President STILL wouldn’t count (I’m in Bobby Rush’s district in Crook County, Illinois), but you’d see GOP candidates spend time and money campaigning in downstate Illinois and the collar counties trying to pick up electoral votes there. Even with the 20102 remap designed to reverse the 2010 gains and give the RATs total control of the states, Republican Bill Brady won 10 out 18 of Illinois’ “new” congressional districts, so there’s definitely room for Republican Presidential candidates to be competitive in Illinois when it’s not winner-take-all and Crook County deciding how the whole state will vote.
Someone did a study of how the raw numbers of the votes cast in the 2000 election would have changed if electoral votes were distributed by congressional district, and Bush would STILL beaten Gore because Bush won a lot more Democrat-leaning districts that year than Gore won GOP-leaning districts.
Interestingly enough, I think both Maine and Nebraska have had their system in effect for decades, but it never changed the results until 2008. That was the first and only election thus far where the number of electoral votes was different than it would have been if they had used a winner-take-all system. Obama won NE-1, based around the city of Omaha (yes, Omaha for Obama) so he got 1 electoral vote out of a usually safe GOP state. Had it been winner-take-all, he would have gotten 0. Oh well. Now only if the Republican state legislators in RAT majority states were smart enough to introduce this so they don’t have to sit on the sidelines every Presidential election. It’s really depressing thinking the people of 38 states or so have absolutely no effect on deciding the President, simply because of what state they live in.
I like your idea, I think it would help our side. And since it’s state by state I’d love to see PA and Michigan do it and Texas not do it. In fact thinking about it PA and Michigan Republicans are giant fools for not doing it immediately. I guess it’s one of those things that makes too much obvious sense for them to even think of it.