Thread: Abolish the Senate and Electoral College? Why Not Tear Up the Constitution?

Abolish the Senate and Electoral College? Why Not Tear Up the Constitution?

Whatever Democrats might want, it's not the America you and I live in and love.

December 12, 2018
By T.R. Clancy

Former Congressman John Dingell, Jr., a partisan Democrat whose immediate family has controlled the same seat in the House of Representatives for 86 years, has some suggestions for fixing Congress. We should abolish the Senate and the Electoral College because they're undemocratic, "despite the constitutional hurdles of doing so." In 2015, Dingell retired from the U.S. House seat he's held since 1955, the seat he inherited from his father, John Dingell, Sr., who first won it in 1932. The seat has passed to John Jr.'s much-younger wife, Rep. Debbie Dingell, who was just re-elected in November. (Full disclosure: For 20 years, my wife and I have lived in Dearborn, Michigan, which is inside the Dingell fiefdom and looks as though it may be in perpetuity.)
Dingell is kvetching about "the complete collapse" of respect for government since he first held office and "an unprecedented cynicism about the nobility of public service itself." Things were much better in 1958, when "73 percent of Americans trusted the federal government 'to do the right thing almost always or most of the time.'" Now it's down to 18%, and Dingell blames this decline mostly on Republican wrongdoing like Watergate, the Iraq War, and "Ronald Reagan's folksy but popular message that government was not here to help." "[W]orst of all by far," he writes, is "the Trumpist mind-set" held by "jackasses who see 'deep state' conspiracies in every part of government[.]"
What really burns Dingell is how his party's numerical electoral advantage – widely expected to continue growing as caravans of illegal aliens flood into the country – isn't translating into an America run strictly according to Democrat ideas. Why not? Because "sparsely populated, usually conservative states can block legislation supported by a majority of the American people." Flyover Republicans, and the protections for political minorities built into the Constitution, are holding up progress! This is especially the case in the Senate, where California's 40 million people have only two senators, "while the 20 smallest states have a combined population totaling less than that ... have 40 senators." We have this "antiquated" and "downright dangerous" political imbalance only "because of an 18th-century political deal" – a deal, it should be noted, that someone thought should be preserved under glass at the National Archives.
Dingell never specifies how the current structure of the Senate is "downright dangerous," nor does he explain why the Great Compromise over Senate representation made sense in the 18th century, when a tiny Rhode Island could object to being bullied by Massachusetts, but it's now "plain crazy" for the 20 smallest states (and a lot of the bigger ones) to resist being bullied by California.
It's obvious that Dingell positively resents the minority, whom he variously describes as "usually conservative," a "vocal rump ... of obnoxious asses [who] can hold the entire country hostage to extremist views." He dismisses 63 million Trump-supporters as "jackasses ... a minority of a minority ... the weakest link in the chain of more than three centuries of our American republic." (That makes twice in one article he calls Americans who won't vote Democrat "asses." Did I mention I'm one of his family's constituents?)
The reality remains that while Hillary Clinton did win the popular vote with 48%, Trump still won 46%, which isn't the insignificant minority Dingell imagines. He shares the conceit of his party that Democrats' less than half of the electorate constitutes "a majority of the American people" and that the slightly smaller less than half of us is a negligible fraction of extremists.
Other proponents of erasing the Senate, like Parker Richards at The Atlantic, point to the confirmation of Justice Kavanaugh as evidence of Senate "disproportionality," because the majority "represented just 44 percent of the country's population." Jay Willis at GQ has the same complaint. "An undemocratic body yields undemocratic results. The 50 senators who voted to confirm the wildly-unpopular Brett Kavanaugh represent only 44 percent of the population." Yes, Kavanaugh's unpopularity was wild – wild, baseless, and irrational, stoked by false witnesses, a lying media, and a hyper-cynical Senate minority willing to destroy an innocent man to mollify their abortion-industry backers. The speed with which a credulous public was turned into a hysterical mob baying for Kavanaugh's blood on no evidence whatsoever reveals the genius of the Framers' interposing a safeguard between the often naked madness of an inflamed majority and what James Madison called "the propensity of all single and numerous assemblies to yield to the impulse of sudden and violent passions, and to be seduced by factious leaders into intemperate and pernicious resolutions."
To say the Kavanaugh confirmation is proof that the Senate is undemocratic is essentially to say that a truly democratic body – reacting to the shrieks of the #MeToo movement and a public opinion distorted by sound bites and Twitter – would have denied the nomination. That result might have been more democratic, but it would also, based on false witnesses and the slanders of the mob, be the kind of "pernicious" result Madison wanted to prevent.
Dingell says the "jackasses" who share Trump's mistrust of government are "the weakest link in the chain" of the republic, but he's wrong. People who mistrust government understand the republic better than he does, because it was people who mistrusted government who created it. "If men were angels," wrote Madison in Federalist 51, "no government would be necessary." As it is, while the people are "the primary control on the government," because people aren't angels "experience has taught mankind the necessity of auxiliary precautions." But if it's progressives trying to throw off those precautions, and not we, how are we the weakest link?
On the other hand, Democrats are growing increasingly exasperated with how the Constitution's auxiliary precautions keep putting the brakes on their agenda. In 2001, when Barack Obama was an Illinois senator and law professor, he complained about the Constitution as an impediment to the goal of radical income redistribution. While it dictates "what the Federal government can't do to you," he said, it fails to command "what the Federal government or State government must do on your behalf." This past year has seen the sudden rise of mainstream Democrats wanting to abolish ICE, which enforces constitutionally mandated naturalization and immigration laws. Large segments of the party are embracing democratic socialism, heedless that socialism requires the extinguishment of guaranteed individual liberties. Nearly 40% of Democrats support repealing the Second Amendment. Now John Dingell, the "Dean of the Congress," in addition to abolition of the Senate and Electoral College, is calling for the "elimination of money in campaigns" at the expense of the First Amendment.
Oddly, Dingell repeats Ben Franklin's warning about "constant vigilance" if we're to protect the "precious but fragile gift" the Founders gave us. But their gift was a Republic, "if you can keep it." Some of us are trying to keep it. Dingell and many of his fellow Democrats sound awfully anxious to throw it away.
T.R. Clancy looks at the world from Dearborn, Michigan. You can email him at trclancy@yahoo.com.

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https://www.americanthinker.com/arti...stitution.html

Oh no, we need to keep the Electoral College. But for the Electoral College, Hillary Clinton would be President, we'd still have NAFTA and all these other bad trade deals Trump is fixing, we'd still be losing thousands of manufacturers every year with no one news moving in, still have high income taxes, still have over-regulation, still have Paris Climate Accord, still have Iran Nuclear Deal, still have a nuclear armd North Korea with no relationship, still have same o same o NATO, still be importing oil to fuel our tanks, still be at 1.5% annual growth, still have ISIS in Syria and Iraq, still be at 18,000 or less stock market, still be broke and unemployed with no out whatsoever from this mess.

Donald Trump, Trump Supporters and the Electoral College saved our country. No doubt about it, and we have much more work to do to fix our country even more.

A lot of voter fraud. Hillary got MILLIONS of votes from illegals and lying, cheating, Democrats stuffing the ballot boxes with FAKE ballots.

All the states in blue have a smaller population than LA county in red. Remember this when somebody says we don’t need the Electoral college.

LOL!!! Seriously, and truth be told, she and the others like her are the reason it took so long for women to get the right to vote.

BREAKING: Democrats Introduce Bill To Eliminate Electoral College


Bill Clark/CQ Roll Call via Getty Images

By Ryan Saavedra @realsaavedra

January 3, 2019

Rep. Steve Cohen (D-TN) introduced two bills on Thursday, one to eliminate the electoral college and the other to prohibit presidents from pardoning themselves or their family members.
A press release from Cohen's office stated that the "senior member of the House Judiciary Committee, introduced two Constitutional Amendments today on the opening day of the new Congress. The first would eliminate the Electoral College and provide for the direct election of the President and Vice President of the United States. The second would limit the presidential pardon power by prohibiting presidents from pardoning themselves, members of their families, members of their administrations and their campaign staff."
"In two presidential elections since 2000, including the most recent one in which Hillary Clinton won 2.8 million more votes than her opponent, the winner of the popular vote did not win the election because of the distorting effect of the outdated Electoral College," Cohen said. "Americans expect and deserve the winner of the popular vote to win office. More than a century ago, we amended our Constitution to provide for the direct election of U.S. Senators. It is past time to directly elect our President and Vice President.”
"Presidents should not pardon themselves, their families, their administration or campaign staff," Cohen continued. "This constitutional amendment would expressly prohibit this and any future president, from abusing the pardon power."
Cohen wasn't the only Democrat that took action aimed at President Donald Trump on Thursday, as Rep. Brad Sherman (D-CA) introduced "articles of impeachment against President Donald Trump, filing them as his first order of business in the new, Democrat-controlled House of Representatives."
Democrats have long sought a way around the electoral college, which prevents the U.S. from being controlled by major population centers which are Democrat strongholds.
Legal scholar Tara Ross explained in a PragerU video what the Democrats are trying to do by eliminating the electoral college and implementing a national popular vote and the dangers that their efforts pose to the U.S.
WATCH:



Youtube Video https://youtu.be/LXnjGD7j2B0

Transcript provided via PragerU:

In every presidential election, only one question matters: which candidate will get the 270 votes needed to win the Electoral College?
Our Founders so deeply feared a tyranny of the majority that they rejected the idea of a direct vote for President. That's why they created the Electoral College. For more than two centuries it has encouraged coalition building, given a voice to both big and small states, and discouraged voter fraud.
Unfortunately, there is now a well-financed, below-the-radar effort to do away with the Electoral College. It is called National Popular Vote or NPV, and it wants to do exactly what the Founders rejected: award the job of President to the person who gets the most votes nationally.
Even if you agree with this goal, it's hard to agree with their method. Rather than amend the Constitution, which they have no chance of doing, NPV plans an end run around it.
Here's what NPV does: it asks states to sign a contract to give their presidential electors to the winner of the national popular vote instead of the winner of the state's popular vote.
What does that mean in practice? It means that if NPV had been in place in 2004, for example, when George W. Bush won the national vote, California's electoral votes would have gone to Bush, even though John Kerry won that state by 1.2 million votes!
Can you imagine strongly Democratic California calmly awarding its electors to a Republican?
Another problem with NPV's plan is that it robs states of their sovereignty. A key benefit of the Electoral College system is that it decentralizes control over the election. Currently, a presidential election is really 51 separate elections: one in each state and one in D.C.
These 51 separate processes exist, side-by-side, in harmony. They do not -- and cannot -- interfere with each other.
California's election code applies only to California and determines that state's electors. So a vote cast in Texas can never change the identity of a California elector.
NPV would disrupt this careful balance. It would force all voters into one national election pool. Thus, a vote cast in Texas will always affect the outcome in California. And the existence of a different election code in Texas always has the potential to unfairly affect a voter in California.
Why?
Because state election codes can differ drastically. States have different rules about early voting, registering to vote, and qualifying for the ballot. They have different policies regarding felon voting. They have different triggers for recounts.
Each and every one of these differences is an opportunity for someone, somewhere to file a lawsuit claiming unfair treatment.
Why should a voter in New York get more or less time to early vote than a voter in Florida? Why should a hanging chad count in Florida, but not in Ohio? The list of possible complaints is endless.
And think of the opportunities for voter fraud if NPV is passed! Currently, an attempt to steal a presidential election requires phony ballots to appear or real ballots to disappear in the right state or combination of states, something that is very hard to anticipate. But with NPV, voter fraud anywhere can change the election results -- no need to figure out which states you must swing; just add or subtract the votes you need -- or don't want -- wherever you can most easily get away with it.
And finally, if NPV is adopted, and winning is only about getting the most votes, a candidate might concentrate all of his efforts in the biggest cities, or the biggest states. We could see the end of presidential candidates who care about the needs and concerns of people in smaller states or outside of big cities.
Here's why all of this is of so much concern: NPV is more than halfway to its goal.
NPV's contract will go into effect when states with a combined 270 electoral votes have signed. To date, NPV already has the support of 10 states plus D.C. Together, that's 165 electoral votes, leaving only 105 votes to go.
It is time to stop this attempt to undo the way American presidents are elected, which will in turn undo America. The people behind NPV think they are wiser than every generation of Americans that preceded them.
They aren't.

https://www.dailywire.com/news/39931...ign=benshapiro