There He Goes Again – Dan Walters Invents a Rationale to Defend All G.O.P. Dirty Tricks

Cavala is dead on with this analysis. The Republican problem is to provide tax cuts fro the upper 1% and still govern (see Jonathon Chait and The Big Con). One way to do this is to have the Supreme Court decide the winner of a Presidential election (Florida, 2000). Another way is to disenfranchise voters (purges, voter id laws which are, in essense, a poll tax, federal prosecutions of registration drives, etc) so as to allow only the "correct" voters to vote.

Walters shows his true colors (white, as in reaction) when he talks about "reform" which would disenfranchise California voters in the Presidential election. Just like redistricting "reform", if it takes place only in California, it is not "reform" but rather the transfer of power from the majority of Californians to the minority. Of course, the most anti-democratic structural impediment in California is the 2/3rds vote in the legislature for budget and reveneu measures, which Walters did not see fit to mention in his column. But of course, that means one person can block the desires of two, so the majority of Californians have only a 1/2 the vote of the minority. At least slaves were 3/5ths of a person in the Constitution, so in this sense, the average Californian is accorded less political representation than a slave.

Bill's unsupported attack on the idea of proportional representation would be more persuasive if it were not based on Scalia-like Founder worship (the last time I looked their Constitution was doing a pretty good job of blocking the majority will in Washington) and if he had his facts right--England is one of the places in Europe without proportional representation.

Paul is onto something here. Geographic-based politcial systems tended to come into being when transportation and communication was bad, whereas propotional representation systems were the usual choice in the 19th century on. A proportional representation system with mandatory voting would be in many ways preferrable to the current system. The problem is, Americans like strong leaders, and governments headed by the head of the legislature tend not to be that strong.

I did not think that an 'attack' on proportional representation required support. Isn't the burden on those that would tinker?

And is it fair to criticize our institutions from the perspective of P.R. and it's modified English form without (1) making it clear that's what you are doing; and, (2) spinning out the likely effects?

Madison and Jefferson did not "know better" because proportional representation had not yet been invented when they wrote the Constitution. Proportional representation had not been invented because the political party had not yet evolved into a machine for electing people. This happened at the beginning of the Twentieth Century, and for the last 100 yeasrs or so, it has been almost impossible to get elected without the support of a political party organization.

Emerging democracies in Europe at the time realized that political parties and party leaders now held all the power, and they needed a way to hold these parties accountable. Proportional systems allow you to vote for a party, not just your local rep.

The U.S. would be better off with PR in the electoral college, but only if every state were required to divvy up their electors on the same basis, of course.

Bill, where did the "voters reject it 25 to 48" come
from, i.e., somebody's survey or from where?
And, is splitting the electoral vote between parties a step toward election of president by national popular vote?
Some of the rest of your article was rambling.

Larry Gallup

i often ramble.

the electoral vote grab is NOT a "first step" toward direct election. The latter would require an amendment to the Federal Constitution, the former only a majority of the 22-5% of the registered voters likely to show up in June.

the 25=48 figure is from a statewide survey conducted by Moore Methods on Sept 15 and 16 with a 600 sample accurate to within + or - 4.5%

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