Dakota Beacon

Sounds great, doesn’t it?  Maybe it would be great if America were Ruritania.   But America is a federation of 50 states and a few dependent territories and our government was organized so as to accommodate the requirements of state sovereignty.  The resulting solution to the problem of populous, urban states vs. rural, sparsely-populated states was the Electoral College. It isn’t perfect. But then, nothing is.  It was close enough to perfect that it has helped to hold the Union together for a couple of centuries so far, despite the disparate populations, the wide variety of local interests and products and needs.  

I know, I have written all this before, I’ve pronounced it ad nauseum at rallies and on other occasions when anyone would listen, so forgive me this time.  If you already know why we need the Electoral College, just hand this off to your 20-something or college or high school kid and let him read it and save yourself rehashing it verbally.

The news today is that Nevada has voted to abolish the Electoral College.  Hooray!  We can all join in with the far left organizations who have promoted this idea.  Sounds so free! Sounds so fair! So fresh! So enlightened!!

Of course Common Cause applauds.  This does nothing less than destroy the Union which has weathered 250 years of incredible challenges to achieve amazing success.  I have heard a lot of shallow thinkers right here in North Dakota urging us forward on this big step. It gets a lot of play any time there is a contrast between popular and electoral votes.  Happens all the time. What no one says, though, is that these disparities are tiny. We won’t see a massive betrayal of a popular vote by an electoral vote that offsets it. It will always be very close when this happens and, arguably, if you held a careful recount it might actually not come out differently from the electoral vote - it is usually that close.

So why do we have this seemingly “outmoded” system in the first place?  Because, guys, if we throw out the Electoral College system there will no longer be any need to hold national level elections in North Dakota, South Dakota, Utah . . . or, say, Nevada.

There are 535 federal-level representatives in the two houses of Congress.  Why two houses?  In order to provide one house - the Senate - with an equal number (2) of representatives from each state and one house - the House of Representatives - with a proportionate number of representatives based on population.  This was to make it possible for the majority to have commensurate influence without running roughshod over states with fewer people and wide-open spaces. Like North Dakota. And Nevada. Some forget that we cannot survive with an urban population alone.  We need miners, we need farmers and ranchers, we need forests and we actually need wilderness areas. So we don’t want to abuse the people we need to be there for those things to flourish.

Abolishing the Electoral College might seem okay for the House and Senate to some people - those shallow thinkers who don’t ponder cause and effect or know anything about history - but the impact it would have on a presidential election would be devastating.  There would be no need, absent the Electoral College, for a candidate to ever set foot in North or South Dakota, Nevada, Maine, Montana, Utah, or any of the 41 less populous states. That’s right. As of 2010, according the the U.S. Census, more than half of the population lives in the top nine states.  If you were wondering, California is Number One.  New York has slipped to fourth place, behind Texas (some comfort there?) and Florida.  Now, if you were a serious candidate for president, which states would you invest your time, money and interest in?  If you went to any of the other 41 states you would be largely wasting your time and money. And interest. Don’t forget that.  No matter how squeaky the wheel gets in Montana or North Dakota or Wyoming, who would care in Washington?

It is difficult as it is to get attention on important issues in the “fly-over” states.  I suppose Nevada might have a little more purchase if you credit the worst rumors about our Washington swamp-dwellers.  They might find the particular hospitality accommodations in Nevada worthy of protection, who knows? But as far as any practical interest in the rest of the West, Midwest and South, forget it.  No presidential candidate would be able, even if he wanted to, to spend any time thinking about us.

When you begin with a populist idea like getting rid of the Electoral College and it gets traction, it is increasingly easy to move on to further dismantling of our Constitution.  Why do I and a few others out there obsess about the Constitution, you may ask. The answer is very, very simple. America is an astonishingly diverse country, in its people, its resources, its climate, its geography, its outlook.  We don’t have a common genetic ancestry - we are, or have been, a “melting pot” where people have come, united by an idea - the idea expressed in our Constitution. This IS our common heritage, whether our forebears came on the Mayflower, were here when its passengers were set ashore, or came last week from Asia, Europe or wherever.  

Our one common thread, which unites all this diversity and makes us a nation, is our Constitution.  Instead of attempting to overthrow it, or cheering on those who would, we should cherish it and follow it.  It was created by very wise and selfless men who had been through the searing experience of revolution. Most revolutions result in extremist, abusive governments, as did France’s and Russia’s.  We have these imperfect, flawed but remarkable men to thank that we suffered neither the bloodbath of the French Revolution or the slam of the steel cage of the Russian Revolution, but rather have enjoyed more than two centuries of prosperity, endurance, freedom and progress going forward,  and embraced immigrants from all over the world who want to share this treasure of freedom.

To form an opinion of the abolishment of the Electoral College, we need go no further than to examine those who are promoting that abolishment.  Common Cause, for those who haven’t had time to study it, was founded by Lyndon Johnson’s Secretary of Health, Education and Welfare, John Gardner, a Progressive.  It runs interference today for the Democrat Party.

If you want your vote to count, first go and cast it.  Then look further - consider participating in your local caucus or district convention, pay attention, ask questions of candidates seeking your nomination. Come prepared to challenge them.  Get answers. Help your candidate - canvass, plant yard signs, work at the polls as an election judge or clerk or poll watcher for your party. Listen to debates. Share important articles on your social media outlets.  Be an informed voter. All of this will be far more useful than turning over all options to the nine most populous states. If we do that, the rest won’t matter. As much as we all appreciate the concept of one man-one vote (and please don’t attack me on some trumped-up “gender-bias” detour here - I am just using the English language), there are other factors in a country as large and complex as the United States.  Those factors must be weighed as well. The Founding Fathers did a magnificent job in creating a system where all of us can be heard and fairly participate in our government.

Changing our Constitution in any significant way would be a grave mistake.  If we look at the examples of many South and Central American nations we see the folly of easy changing of a constitution.  Sure, they have constitutions. But they have treated them like confetti. A new administration or a new coup, a new constitution to go with it.  It really doesn’t stand for anything or matter to anyone - it is just a prop, window dressing. Is it not better to have a strong, inviolable, constitution, one which is carefully guarded and to which we hold our leaders, rather than the other way around?  It shouldn’t matter which party is in the White House - we should hold the occupant to our Constitution regardless. Nixon found that we meant it in 1973. We commit a serious error when we overlook violations of our Constitution and we should likewise be very, very careful in changes we make.  

Let’s not follow the idiotic example of Nevada’s voters.  Let’s think instead. We must exercise extreme caution when we seek to change our Constitution.  Even seemingly small, changes that seem like good ideas to populists, like the 17th Amendment, which changes the manner in which we elect U.S. Senators, has a massive impact on the structure.  It is like taking a little lynchpin out of a mechanism. Seems so small, doesn’t it? Why do we need that?  We usually find out the hard way.  It is to be hoped that other states will not follow, like lemmings, Nevada off the precipice.