How a Strategy of Targeting State Legislative Races in 2010 Led to a Republican U.S. House Majority

On November 6, 2012, Barack Obama was reelected President of the United States by nearly a three-point margin, winning 332 electoral votes to Mitt Romney’s 206 while garnering nearly 3.5 million more votes. Democrats also celebrated victories in 69 percent of U.S. Senate elections, winning 23 of 33 contests. Farther down-ballot, aggregated numbers show voters pulled the lever for Republicans only 49 percent of the time in congressional races, suggesting that 2012 could have been a repeat of 2008, when voters gave control of the White House and both chambers of Congress to Democrats.

But, as we see today, that was not the case. Instead, Republicans enjoy a 33-seat margin in the U.S. House seated yesterday in the 113th Congress, having endured Democratic successes atop the ticket and over one million more votes cast for Democratic House candidates than Republicans. The only analogous election in recent political history in which this aberration has taken place was immediately after reapportionment in 1972, when Democrats held a 50 seat majority in the U.S. House of Representatives while losing the presidency and the popular congressional vote by 2.6 million votes.

To be sure, the National Republican Congressional Committee (NRCC) built on its strong recruitment and successful strategy that gave them a Republican majority in 2010 by going on offense over Democratic cuts to Medicare and by linking their Democratic opponents to President Obama’s most unpopular policy proposals.

Here is what led to a Republican House majority in 2010:
The Tea Party, in all of its iterations and colors, gave the Republicans a majority in 2010.
Some of us realized the House can't reverse the tide all by itself...so we're a bit more forgiving when the "GOP-E" or whatever it is called now, cannot single handedly reverse the course of Obama.
But the Republican leadership had damn well better realize that for all of their posturing, the grassroots is where the fight will be won or lost.

2012 is over...we have to endure until the communist and his cabal are gone...so let's play hard ball. Don't bend over---keep the Keynesian Kenyan at bay, and don't allow him to continue to ruin America.

The next step has to be changing Electoral College voting to be proportional by Congressional district in every state where that makes sense.

With all due respect GodAndCountryFirst, please consider the following. I think that the only reason that patriots like you are concerned about the Electoral College is perhaps you are not aware of the very limited powers which the states have delegated to Congress via the Constitution, most of these powers listed in the Constitution's Section 8 of Article I.

In other words, many patriots do not seem to understand that most of the government powers that Congress and the Oval Office have been exercising for the last 60+ years are actually based on 10th Amendment protected state powers which corrupt Congress and Constitution-ignoring presidents have wrongly usurped from the states.

In fact, military issues aside, consider that the main power to regulate the internal affairs of the states that Congress has is the power to regulate the postal service as evidenced by Clause 7 of Section 8. So the only reason that I can see that patriots like you are concerned about changing the Electoral College is because you are not up to speed on Congress's constitutionally limited powers.

Freedom Foundation has been working to educate people who love the Constitution on what “Federalism” is. Their initiative is called “Save Our States.” Phyllis Schlafly has said she wants to save the Electoral College.

This is from one of their ads which a friend emailed me. I am not here advocating for people to support them financially, but I felt that what they have to say about the Electoral College has bearing on the discussion of this thread:

“The Constitution gave a brand new meaning to the word “federalism.” This is what James Madison says in his “Notes on Nullification” essay. The Federalist Papers explains that the new structure was to provide “a double security ... to the rights of the people.”

Federalism was originally enshrined in three constitutional provisions: limited federal powers, the Senate, and the Electoral College. Two of these three pillars of federalism were knocked down 99 years ago.

The 16th Amendment (the power to tax incomes) and the Federal Reserve (the power to print money) set the federal government on a path to supremacy. As Chief Justice Marshall observed, the power to tax is the power to destroy.” Taxing power (borrowing or devaluing currency are forms of taxation) is not merely the ability to raise revenue, but to impose policy choices by how taxes are levied and how the money is then spent.

The 17th Amendment changed how U.S. Senators are selected so that they no longer represent state governments. Originally, Senators were chosen by state legislatures. While there were legitimate complaints about this process, it at least ensured that state interests were represented in Congress.

Today, the final pillar of federalism is under assault. The Electoral College ensures a certain basic geographic balance in presidential elections, protects states’ power over election processes, and uses states to contain election fraud. A group called National Popular Vote (NPV), led by a California computer scientist who was an Al Gore Elector in 2000, is lobbying state legislators to side-step the constitutional presidential election process.

The Freedom Foundation’s Save Our States campaign is leading the state-by-state defense of the Electoral College. In doing so, we are reminding state legislators across the country of their constitutional role as the people’s “double security” and of the importance of constitutional federalism.

I have visited states from Alaska to Delaware and California to Maine making the case for constitutional federalism. In state after state, our educational efforts have changed legislators minds-co-sponsors of NPV have taken their names off the bill and voted against it. This year, NPV has stalled out completely, failing to win a single state.

And our work is being noticed. I was privileged in October to speak on two panels and moderate a third at MIT’s Conference on Presidential Elections. In November, talking with Eagle Forum Founder and President Phyllis Schlafly, she told me: “I’m counting on you to save the Electoral College.”

We are winning, but expect a major fight early next year in at least half a dozen state legislatures, including Connecticut, Rhode Island, Delaware, and New York. NPV’s three biggest donors several years ago pledged over $40 million to their effort. They are spending some of it right now on expensive lobbyists who buy drinks and host dinners for legislators in key states.

That’s their prerogative. (And being wrong is expensive....) Save Our States has beat back NPV for “pennies on the dollar,” and we’ll continue to do so next year. If you’d like to help, your special contribution to Save Our States goes directly to educating state lawmakers about constitutional federalism.

Thanks, and merry Christmas!

Very cordially yours,

Trent England
Director of Save Our States and
Vice President of Policy”

As Chief Justice Marshall observed, the power to tax is the power to destroy.”

Great post TEXOKIE!

And consider that Justice Marshall had also clarified something about Congress's power to lay taxes that arguably makes the misguided 16th Amendment irrelevant imo. You may have already seen the following.

Justice Marshall had taken the Founders' division of federal and state government powers a major step forward by officially clarifying that Congress is prohibited from laying taxes in the name of state power issues, essentially anything that Congress cannot justify under the Constitution's Section 8 of Article I.

"Congress is not empowered to tax for those purposes which are within the exclusive province of the States." --Justice John Marshall, Gibbons v. Ogden, 1824.

So constitutionally justifiable federal expenses concerning maintaning an army, regulating interstate and foreign commerse, along with negotiating treaties aside, just about the only intrastate activity that Congress has the power to lay taxes for is postal services (Article I, Section 8, Clause 7). In fact, anything else that Congress lays taxes for are illegal under the Constitution accorting to Marshall's clarification of Congress limited power to lay taxes.

The problem is that when the Progressive Movement successfully spooked Constitution-ignorant voters to pressure their state lawmakers to ratify the ill-conceived 17th Amendment, when the House of Representatives subsequently initiated revenue raising bills that it couldn't justify under Section 8, the crooks that voters unthinkingly elected to the Senate started passing such bills instead of killing them, helping Congress to steal what are arguably state revenues.

The bottom line is that the crooks figured out long ago that it is easier to get themselves elected to Congress and steal people's money by making constitutionally indefensible revenue-raising laws as opposed to robbing banks for a living. After all, Constitution-ignorant voters weren't going to stop them.

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