Wyoming Is More Important Than California?

 It’s an election year, and once more, the drive to eliminate the Electoral College is gaining steam.

Although let’s be honest, the drive to smash the antiquated and undemocratic facet of the Constitution hasn’t stopped since it allowed the election of Donald “Tiny Hands” Trump.

And, with the push to gut the worst thing still living in the foundation document of the USA, inevitably comes the screams from, let’s be REALLY honest with this one and piss some people off, white conservative right-wing evangelical about being dominated by the liberal coast. Especially those nasty communist states of New York and California.

To make it excruciatingly clear, what these Mighty Fine Americans are saying is that the fewest number of people should control who the President is? In other words, the largest number of Americans should have their votes nullified.

I want this on front street. I am well aware that Trump in 2016 and GWB in 2000 did not cheat. However, the argument can be made that if SCOTUS hadn’t stepped in in 2000, that election would’ve ended very differently. The Electoral College is enshrined as law in the United States constitution. In other words, it will take a constitutional amendment.

In other words, it’s the law.

Period.

Now, let’s set aside that the Electoral college was put in place to placate the slave states and to LIMIT the power and say of the individual voter. Instead, let’s look at representation in the United States and how it correlates to the blessed Electoral College.

 (Note: These state and local breakdowns are very general. I am aware that some places do things very differently. Hey, I’m all for it. At the local level, people should have an extremely high degree of latitude in how they run things.)

 At the small city/town/village/township levels, Americans have an equal vote of 1 = 1. This is as close to direct democracy that America has.

At the city level, council members are elected by city districts where they represent specific areas. In some of the bigger cities, these districts have a further breakdown of representation, making them small towns into and of themselves.

At the county level, commissioners and representatives are elected to represent portions of the population on a council or commission. These are more like administrative boards in many areas as opposed to a true government.

Each state has its own way of electing officials. Since this is really about Federal elections, I’ll skip this but suffice it to say they are similar to the Federal system. The majority of the states operate more or less like a scaled-down version of the Federal system.

Now Federal level elected positions are their own beast.

At the bottom of the Washington totem pole, we have the House of Representatives and its current roster of 435 members. Members of the house are elected based on the population of their individual districts. These districts are created by the state governments and are based on the last census numbers. Thus, they the ones that are tasked with representing their constituents first.

Now we can have a whole other discussion about gerrymandering of districts and how it’s worse than the Electoral College, and I’m always down for the debate, but it’s not germane to the current subject.

Next, we have the Senate.

The 100 United States Senators are arguably the real power brokers in America and the most important legislative body in the world. Every state, regardless of population, has 2 senators. This means those awful, horrible states of California and New York (who financially carry a hell of a lot of Red States but let’s just forget that pesky fact) have the same level of say (again, in the most critical law-making body in the world) as the State of Wyoming. Wyoming, a very red state with 600,000 people and a negative population growth of 1%. In fact, all of the Red states added together clearly have more control of the congress than the Blue States even though they have a much lower population.

So, who has a more say over who?

Really think about that.

Finally, there’s the President of the United States (POTUS). The President is supposed to represent each American equally. In fact, the President is the only part of the Federal Government that represents each and every citizen. The President makes treaties and enacts diplomacy with foreign nations. The President commands the Federal Agencies with authority over all states equally. And the President signs or vetoes bills passed by the congress. (such vetoes can be overridden which again, gives congress more power than the President).

So how exactly does the people of New York and Los Angeles having the same 1 to 1 vote for President a bad thing?

Wouldn’t that be the literal example of representative democracy?

Now, once more, I am well aware the Electoral College is codified as one of the highest laws in the nation. It’s part of the Constitution. But here’s the thing, the Constitution has been amended 27 times in the 243 years we’ve been a nation.

In my view, and the opinion of the majority of American’s, it’s time for the Electoral College to join the 3/5ths compromise, pre women’s suffrage, and so many other bits and bobs on the rubbish heap.

  - Josh Hilden (05/05/2020)