[lbo-talk] Prop. 62 Would Squelch Third Parties in California

Doug Henwood dhenwood at panix.com
Wed Oct 27 08:57:37 PDT 2004


Michael Pollak wrote:


>
>On Tue, 26 Oct 2004, Doug Henwood wrote:
>
>>>Why no mention of the Electoral College by your party of social betterment?
>>
>>It would be nearly impossible to abolish without scrapping the
>>whole damn constitution. Not that that's a bad thing, but that
>>would be a revolutionary change.
>
>That's a bit of an exaggeration. Passing a constitutional amendment
>is difficult, but it's not a revolution. No more than the amendment
>that established direct election of senators in 1913.

If you rank the states by the number of people per elector, the top 20 average 560,000, and the bottom 20, 305,136. (The extremes are extreme: Calif, Tex, and NY all have over 600,000 per elector; Wyoming, 165,000.) You'd have to get the small states to give up their 2-to-1 advantage. That, plus contravene the sacred wishes of the Founders. It's a real uphill battle. Not like abolishing the Senate, which would require uninamous consent, but it'd be huge.

Doug



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