Originalists don't like amendments.

Invictus, i don't see why the president couldn't be directly elected while the states appoint a part of the legislative arm of government?

What is tue contradiction?

I think the Senate fixes one of the biggest problem democracy has. It helps give smaller states a voice that they don't have in the House. It attempts to take the minority into account so as to avoid a tyranny of the majority or a tyranny of the larger states.

The electoral college similarly addresses the tyranny of the majority. Larger states are bigger prizes (only takes 12 to win these days), but smaller states are weighted more per population/representation in congress.

Read what I wrote before, orathiac. And learn a little bit about American government. Senators have been directly elected for a hundred years.

It's time to scrap our constitution and write a new one - it clearly isn't working.

Do you actually want to give our current, ineffective government the opportunity to write a new Constitution? I don't care if the one we have now works. I believe it does for the most part, but I don't care. At least it prevents us from the kind of nutty crap they want. Are you insane?

It clearly isn't working how you want it to/think it should. Examples?

Everything everyone hates about our current political system would be made worse and permanent if we tried to write a new constitution. Our current political class are no Jeffersons and Madisons. The convention would be stuffed with lobbyists and rabid ideologues pushing for their own self-interested goodies to be in the new document.

You want to keep a right to bear arms? Only if you support my constitutional right to health care proposal. You want such a right? Only if you support my strict balanced budget requirement. You want a required balanced budget? Only if you support my nationalization of banking. You want nationalized banks? Only if we lower the burden of proof for certain crimes. You want a lower burden? Only if you remove presidential term limits. Want no terms limits? Only if I get my Super Duper Commerce Clause that effectively destroys federalism. And on and on.

Either nothing will get done or something horrible will get done. I'd rather not roll the dice. What has our current political class done to show us we can trust them with creating a new constitution?

^ Hear, hear

'Read what I wrote before, orathiac. And learn a little bit about American government. Senators have been directly elected for a hundred years. '

I did read it, i guess i'm missing something... Senators are elected directly, the president has not.

If Senators are supposed to represent their State, and each state in the Union have equal power (within the senate) then that is a fine balance to have. I don't see what i'm missing. Was there a time what state governors appointed senators to represent the state rather than having them elected directly? We're talking about removing the electoral colleges, not changing how the senate is elected... i'm clearly confused.

Read it again. My point is that Senate reform becomes irresistible based off of the underlying logic of abolishing the Electoral College, and since Senate reform will not happen direct election of the president will not happen. It's there. As clear as any silly forum post can be. Look again.

And orathaic, the US Senators were chosen by the state congress.

'becomes irresistible' - that's the bit i'm missing.

How does changing the way the executive is chosen affect the reasons for how one of the legislative branches is chosen?

Like i could argue that the President of the US should be chosen by aliens playing spin the bottle; but the senate should still be a house which represents the states interests...

orathaic,

It becomes irresistible because the only argument FOR the change is that we need to have a national, democratic election so that we have a genuinely national, democratic government. The Senate is not a national, democratic body (in the sense that its constitution does not correspond to population), ergo, if treating the states as the constituent agencies in the electoral college is bad and undemocratic, it must be so too in the Senate.

Invictus may be giving legislators too much credit for foresight and analysis, but his argument is not unsound.

Such a democratic system would invigorate a tyranny of the majority. Hence I will argue against it and in favor of the current system of the Senate.

Jeff,

"Originalists don't like amendments."

On the contrary. Most originalists think amendments are the appropriate way to change things, rather than through the courts. (There's a reason there hasn't been a serious push to amend the Constitution in the past 35 years: it's easier now just to get the Court to write it in.) That doesn't, of course, mean that originalists will support or oppose any *particular* amendment.

@smeck: Thanks for spelling it out. But no, i entirely disagree.

For a simpler comparison, lets look at the Senate vs Congress.

You could easily argue that Congress should be selected on a national level with party lists or various other voting systems. By the people and proportional. While still claiming that the Senate should represent the states and their state governments should appoint senators.

Look at the EU, a parliment elected by regions, a commission appointed by who knows, and a council which is actual ministers from various national governments. Somebody thought that it was a good idea to have different groups represented differently - now they may be wrong, but it is clearly a position which was popular enough - thus with that kind of popularity i can't see how any counter argument would become irresistable.

Regardless of what foresight or analysis legislators did. I suspect they don't care about the senate and saw a way to do something which is popular with voters (ie make a law which does nothing, thus costing them nothing, but which sounds good to people who have been indoctrinated into the cult of democracy)

@orthaic:
There is nothing preventing any of the United States from deciding to use a proportional representation with party list system to determine how to choose their delegation to the House of Representatives. None have done it yet, but that is mainly because voters aren't familiar with it and the Democrats and Republicans won't loosen their hold on power to third parties.

I agree with Invictus that we won't abolish the electoral college or change seat apportionment in the senate any time soon. It would require taking a hard look at the system and most people aren't interested in that.

If people want to agitate for national change, then they should start working over the state houses hard. It's working for the Koch Bros.

Two states actually have electoral votes that are able to split. Maine and Nebraska put two electoral votes (for the senators) towards the overall state winner, and one electoral vote for each congressional district.

Also, it is possible for Electors to "disagree" with their constituents vote, and vote for someone else.

You're missing the point. And factually wrong on some things.

First off, international comparisons cut no ice in the United States. Right or wrong, our legal and political system cares not at all how things are done in other countries. How the EU runs its elections would have zero influence in the debate here. As many forum discussions here have shown, many Americans aren't even aware voting systems besides FPTP exist.

The Electoral College and the Senate *both* exist to give the states representation independent of the one-man-one-vote principle. When we vote for president, we really hold 51 elections, and each of those elections gives the winner of each a certain amount of votes in the Electoral College. How many electors each state gets is only indirectly tied to its population.

If we abolish the college, we take states out of their central role in the process and, implicitly, make them less than the legitimate, popular polities they are now. We would be making this radical change due to a desire for a more openly democratic method of election and representation. So how can we continue to justify a chamber of Congress where the half million people in Wyoming get two senators and the forty million people of California also only get two?

We can't. If the Electoral College is an intolerably undemocratic institution then the Senate is grossly more so. This obvious problem would make Senate reform irresistible. And since Senate reform is very hard to do and many vested interests would be upset, the Electoral College will not be abolished because those vested interests will head the problems off at the pass.


As for you being factually wrong, the EU parliament is not elected by regions everywhere. Member states decide how the MEPs are elected. Most just use a national proportional system. The Commission is appointed by the European Council, made up of member states' heads of government, not just any old ministers. Unless you're referring to the Council of the European Union, a separate body which is comprised of member state governments and has a role in lawmaking.

At any rate, any EU comparison is inept because the United States is not a supranational entity.

Maybe we just need our constituents to understand our constitution, like in the case of young Botox up there who thinks that a new constitution would be written by the "government"

And Jefferson and Madison are not Jefferson and Madison the way they are portrayed by invictus types. They were human and created an imperfect document, so imperfect in fact it only lasted ~75 years before its imperfections led to 620000 dead.

But perfect enough that it's still in effect today.
And by most reckoning it's the longest running constitution in the world.

Its still in effect today because sherman burned the south down until they said uncle

I mean I won't even bring up the fact that Jefferson was actually in France

I'm not saying the Constitution is perfect. Nowhere have I said that. I just say our current political class would write a worse one. Is that so outlandish?

At least all the major belligerents of World War 2 still have their constitutions intact...right?

Why is it so wrong that the Senate be undemocratic?