Jack Rakove: Challenges NYT editorial in favor of electoral college reform
To the Editor:
Re "Drop Out of the College" (editorial, March 14):
Having written in favor of Electoral College reform since 2000, I, too, would prefer the popular election of the president. But the gimmick you endorse, of having individual states bind their electors to vote for the national popular-vote winner, seems problematic for one basic reason.
What is to stop state legislatures with strong partisan loyalties of their own from abandoning such an agreement when urgent calculations of party advantage come to the fore?
What one legislature can do, another can undo. In the end, difficult as it might be, presidential-election reform depends on taking the amendment process seriously. And that's what the examples your editorial cites in conclusion demonstrate.
Although individual states did set legislative precedents for granting the suffrage to African-Americans and to women, and also for the popular election of senators, in the end these rights were entrenched through constitutional amendments, not left to unstable legislative gimmickry.
Jack Rakove
Stanford, Calif., March 14, 2006
The writer is a professor of history, American studies and political science at Stanford University.
Read entire article at Letter to the Editor of the NYT
Re "Drop Out of the College" (editorial, March 14):
Having written in favor of Electoral College reform since 2000, I, too, would prefer the popular election of the president. But the gimmick you endorse, of having individual states bind their electors to vote for the national popular-vote winner, seems problematic for one basic reason.
What is to stop state legislatures with strong partisan loyalties of their own from abandoning such an agreement when urgent calculations of party advantage come to the fore?
What one legislature can do, another can undo. In the end, difficult as it might be, presidential-election reform depends on taking the amendment process seriously. And that's what the examples your editorial cites in conclusion demonstrate.
Although individual states did set legislative precedents for granting the suffrage to African-Americans and to women, and also for the popular election of senators, in the end these rights were entrenched through constitutional amendments, not left to unstable legislative gimmickry.
Jack Rakove
Stanford, Calif., March 14, 2006
The writer is a professor of history, American studies and political science at Stanford University.