The Democrat Party’s presidential election loss in 2016 and the failure to block two conservative judicial appointments to the Supreme Court has prompted their leadership’s call for the abolishment of two federalist articles of the U.S. Constitution — namely, the Electoral College and senate representation apportionment. Let’s review these two articles separately.
The Electoral College was established in Article II, Section 1 of the U.S. Constitution. It is the formal body which elects the President and Vice President of the United States. When voters go to the polls in a Presidential election, they actually are voting for the slate of electors vowing to cast their ballots for that ticket in the Electoral College. One of the main reasons the Electoral College was created was to empower states, especially smaller ones, as it incentivizes presidential candidates to appeal to people and places that may be far removed from large population centers. Farmers in Iowa may have very different concerns than bankers in New York. A federalist system of electing presidents takes that into account. Democrats want to abolish the Electoral College because Hillary Clinton won the popular vote but lost the Electoral College to Donald Trump. (It’s worth noting that neither Clinton nor Trump won a popular vote majority — more than 50% — because of the performance of third party candidates Gary Johnson and Jill Stein. Clinton got around 48% of the popular vote, and Trump around 46%.) Consequently, Dems don’t think the Electoral College is fair, but it’s held up well over the centuries. Only 5 out of 45 presidential elections have resulted in a candidate winning the Electoral College but losing the popular vote. Not exactly a common occurrence, but two of those five occasions have come within the most recent four elections — Bush v. Gore in 2000 and Trump v. Clinton in 2016 — with Democrats on the losing end both times. While it is understandable the Dems might be sore losers, everyone knew the rules going into the game. Hillary Clinton failed to campaign as aggressively as Donald Trump in key, less populous states like Wisconsin. Campaign arrogance, laziness and /or incompetence are not valid reasons for abolishing an article of the constitution that has served the American people well for 227 years. Dems didn’t lose the 2016 presidential election due to the Electoral College, they lost because of an inferior candidate and campaign.
Per Article I, Section 3, Clause 1 of the U.S. Constitution, the Senate of the United States shall be composed of two senators from each State (50 x 2 = 100 total). Democrats want to abolish this article because their senate minority has been unable to block President Trump’s installment of two conservative justices on the Supreme Court. When there’s a Republican president, they’re going to nominate conservative judges and when there’s a Republican majority in the senate, they’re going to confirm them. As Barrack Obama reminded Republicans many times when he was president — elections have consequences. Instead, the Dems want to blame their failure to keep conservative off the highest court on senate representation apportionment. As Walter Russell Mead noted in his 2001 book, Special Providence, the Senate’s votes are apportioned equally among the 50 states for reasons similar to why the Electoral College was created — to make certain the full regional diversity of the United States will be faithfully reflected in all of the Senate’s constitutionally mandated decisions. As Mead points out, the thickly populated, overwhelmingly industrial states of the Northeast and Middle Atlantic regions and the isolated, lightly populated states of the Rocky Mountains and southwestern deserts have different economic, cultural and geographic interests. What is good for Texas might not necessarily be good for Massachusetts. The Dems think the two senators per state apportionment is unfair because the densely populated coastal states they overwhelmingly represent have the same number of senators as the relatively sparsely populated inland states typically represented by Republicans. The 2018 top ten most populous states (CA, TX, FL, NY, PA, IL, OH, GA, NC, MI), representing 54% of the population, have a slight Democrat majority — 11 Democrat and 9 Republican senators. The other 40 states, representing 46% of the population, have a slight Republican majority — 42 Republican and 38 Democrat senators. The Dems argue that the more populous states they represent should have proportionally more (Democrat) senators, like the House of Representatives.
Here is an economic example demonstrating the disproportionality of the senate’s representation apportionment. In 2017 more than 50% of total American exports came from just seven states (TX, CA, WA, NY, IL, MI, LA) accounting for only 14 out of 100 seats in the Senate. Those 14 senate seats are represented by 10 Democrat and 4 Republican senators. But twenty-six states, commanding a majority in the Senate, were responsible for a combined total of less than 10% of American exports. Is it fair that a majority of senators enacting economic laws and ratifying trade agreements represent less than 10% of the country’s total exports? Our federalist system of two senators per state may seem disproportionate and unfair on the surface, but that’s the beauty of its guarantee of regional representation. One must consider other counterbalancing examples and arguments … Does anyone think the coal industry in less populated states like WV would have any clout in eliminating unreasonable environmental regulations to bring back lost jobs if CA and NY had population determined senate apportionment? Would the small number of inland states home to the country’s few remaining aluminum and steel mills have any clout in amending trade deals to bring back lost jobs if NJ and VA had population determined senate apportionment? Could low population states like AR, OK, LA, MS and SD have any clout in enacting pro-life bills if WA and MA were afforded population determined senate apportionment? Would sparsely populated MT and WY have any clout in protecting their residents’ right to bear arms if IL and MD were afforded population determined senate apportionment?
The Dems’ main beef with our Electoral College and federalist system of senate representation is that it’s prohibiting them from forcing their coastal elite agenda and judicial activism on the ‘intolerables’ in what they derisively refer to as ‘flyover’ country. But they are free to amend the constitution either by Congress with a two-thirds majority vote in both the House of Representatives and the Senate or by a constitutional convention called for by two-thirds of the State legislatures. If that doesn’t work, then the next best way to effect change is to do it the old fashioned way — win more elections … starting with those on November 6.