(H/T: Instapundit) The principle is fairly simple: Pileggi proposes that the state assign Pennsylvania’s electoral votes semi-proportionally: which is to say, two EVs would be given to the winner of the statewide popular vote and the remainder divided up proportionally. Outside the Beltway did the back of the envelope calculations and concluded that the end result would have been 11/9 Obama/Romney, which explains why a: it’s being done and b: why the Left is screaming about it (oddly, almost nobody on the Left complained when Nebraska gave Obama an EV in 2008).
One thing that especially infuriates the Left about this is that plans to try this sort of thing are being advanced in states like Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Ohio, Michigan – which is to say, states where the GOP has control over the legislature and the governorships, but not the EVs statewide – but not in states like Texas or Georgia. Because, after all, cheerfully naked partisanship is only acceptable when the Left does it. I assumed that James Joyner of OTB knew that, but then he wrote “…maybe there should be Democratic proposals along those lines in states with a similar history of both being relatively close and yet always winding up in the Republican column?” The answer to that is simple: there actually really aren’t any. The closest is West Virginia, which Mitt Romney won in 2012 with 62% of the vote. Obama didn’t win a single county in that state, let alone a CD: under Pileggi’s system he’d have gleaned one Electoral Vote out of WV.
So if that’s the price for opening up MI (6 EVs), OH (7 EVs), PA (9 EVs), & WI (3 EVs), all right: I’ll make that trade. Note that this is ‘only’ 24 net EVs for the GOP, after all; it wouldn’t have flipped the 2008 results. One wonders why the Left is so worried… OK, that’s a lie. I know why the Left is so worried; the Democrats count on using their urban dominance to bring in otherwise-swing states. Forcing them to actually compete for these EVs would push the Democratic party rightward faster than I can think of, offhand…
Moe Lane
RT @moelane: #rsrh PA State Senator Dominic Pileggi proposes Electoral College reform.: http://t.co/h5Yfs4uf
I was discussing this elsewhere a week or two ago, Moe, and .. we had an interesting question.
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What prevents the California GOP from demanding the same thing?
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I realize, no chance in hell of it passing, but .. still. Why not make some public noise about it? It’s got tremendous “taxation without representation” vibe that would reverberate nicely…
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We concluded they’re more interested in their half a crumb from Feinstein, Boxer, and Moonbeam than in actually growing a pair, eating a McRib, and trying some “hail mary” plays.
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Mew
Because, dear Cat, the CA GOP is brain-damaged beyond recovery (at least when I was living there)…
The Californians who were in the prior convo said the same…. And the term “Dem-lite” came up.
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I’ve concluded they’re like the Cook County GOP- just as corrupt as the Dems and satisfied to ‘rule in hell’.
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Mew
Hell with “proportional”, distribute based on Congressional district. Then the Philly vote fraud just won’t matter.
I think that’s what “proportional” means in this case. A state gets the number of Electoral College votes equal to it’s congressional delegation (senators plus representatives). So the two “statewide” EC votes would correspond to the senators and the others would go with the congessional districts. Works for me, as a second-best solution.
Of course, the best solution would be to return to the Constitutional methodology: the electors are selected by the state legislatures, so the presidential election is not a popularity contest. Since the president is merely the chief executive of the federal government, and the federal government is the creation of the states, it is the states themselves (not the populace) who should select the executive. (And the senators as well, but that requires repealing the 17th Amendment.)
The problem with that is the gerrymandering of CDs.
That’s why I like this alternate method; it’s straightforward and doesn’t worry about individual CDs.
Unless Pennsylvania gets off on being a battleground, I don’t see much fight to reverse this… Once it’s passed, that is.
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If PA moves on this soon, it’ll help MI with right-to-work by sucking oxygen and gold. (AuO2?).
Mew