February 11, 2009, 9:36 PM Hillary Calls For End To Electoral College
Senator-elect Hillary Rodham Clinton began a victory tour of upstate New York Friday by calling for elimination of the Electoral College.
At an airport news conference, the first lady said she would support legislation seeking a constitutional amendment providing for the direct election of the president.
At the moment, Americans are waiting to see who wins Florida's 25 electoral votes and thus becomes the next president. Vice President Al Gore leads Republican George W. Bush in the popular vote nationwide.
"We are a very different country than we were 200 years ago," Clinton said. "I believe strongly that in a democracy, we should respect the will of the people and to me, that means it's time to do away with the Electoral College and move to the popular election of our president."
The first lady also said that because of the closeness of this year's presidential election, "I hope no one is ever in doubt again about whether their vote counts."
Clinton was accompanied by Green Island Democrat Rep. Michael R. McNulty, who has co-sponsored electoral college legislation introduced by Illinois Republican Rep. Ray LaHood. LaHood has introduced his bill in each of the last two congressional sessions, but aside from a 1997 hearing granted as a favor by House Judiciary Chairman Henry Hyde, R-Ill., it has not advanced.
McNulty thinks the measure will gain momentum if Gore wins the popular vote but loses the electoral tally.
As she started her tour across upstate New York, Clinton said she had talked with Republican Gov. George E. Pataki on Thursday about how they could work together to help the state. She called it "a very cordial conversation" and said she and Pataki hope to get together soon.
Pataki was a major supporter of U.S. Rep. Rick Lazio, the Republican congressman from Long Island who Clinton easily beat on Tuesday to win the New York Senate seat.
"I'm back here first and foremost to say thank you," Clinton told a crowd of about 100 people at the Albany International Airport, the first of her six stops across upstate New York. She planned airport appearances in Syracuse, Watertown, Rochester, Buffalo and Ithaca.
Clinton ran unusually well in traditionally more conservative upstate New York, where she captured 47 percent of the vote to Lazio's 50 percent.
She was greeted by about 150 enthusiastic supporters at Syracuse Airport. Asked whether she saw herself more in the mold of Sen. Charles Schumer, former Sen. Alfonse D'Amato or outgoing Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan, Clinton said: "I hope to be myself.
She added it was important for a senator to be involved in a "grass roots, kitchen-table way." But also wants to be involved in the major issues of the day such as preservation of social security and Medicare.
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To eliminate the Electoral College would need a constitutional amendment, and could be stopped by states with as little as 3% of the U.S. population.
ReplyDeleteThe National Popular Vote bill would guarantee the Presidency to the candidate who receives the most popular votes in all 50 states (and DC), without needing a constitutional amendment.
Every vote, everywhere, would be politically relevant and equal in presidential elections. No more distorting and divisive red and blue state maps. There would no longer be a handful of 'battleground' states where voters and policies are more important than those of the voters in 80% of the states that now are just 'spectators' and ignored after the conventions.
When the bill is enacted by states with a majority of the electoral votes– enough electoral votes to elect a President (270 of 538), all the electoral votes from the enacting states would be awarded to the presidential candidate who receives the most popular votes in all 50 states and DC.
The presidential election system that we have today was not designed, anticipated, or favored by the Founding Fathers but, instead, is the product of decades of evolutionary change precipitated by the emergence of political parties and enactment by 48 states of winner-take-all laws, not mentioned, much less endorsed, in the Constitution.
The bill uses the power given to each state by the Founding Fathers in the Constitution to change how they award their electoral votes for President. Historically, virtually all of the major changes in the method of electing the President, including ending the requirement that only men who owned substantial property could vote and 48 current state-by-state winner-take-all laws, have come about by state legislative action.
In Gallup polls since 1944, only about 20% of the public has supported the current system of awarding all of a state's electoral votes to the presidential candidate who receives the most votes in each separate state (with about 70% opposed and about 10% undecided). Support for a national popular vote is strong among Republicans, Democrats, and Independent voters, as well as every demographic group in virtually every state surveyed in recent polls in recent closely divided Battleground states: CO – 68%, FL – 78%, IA 75%, MI – 73%, MO – 70%, NH – 69%, NV – 72%, NM– 76%, NC – 74%, OH – 70%, PA – 78%, VA – 74%, and WI – 71%; in Small states (3 to 5 electoral votes): AK – 70%, DC – 76%, DE – 75%, ID – 77%, ME – 77%, MT – 72%, NE 74%, NH – 69%, NV – 72%, NM – 76%, OK – 81%, RI – 74%, SD – 71%, UT – 70%, VT – 75%, WV – 81%, and WY – 69%; in Southern and Border states: AR – 80%, KY- 80%, MS – 77%, MO – 70%, NC – 74%, OK – 81%, SC – 71%, TN – 83%, VA – 74%, and WV – 81%; and in other states polled: AZ – 67%, CA – 70%, CT – 74%, MA – 73%, MN – 75%, NY – 79%, OR – 76%, and WA – 77%. Americans believe that the candidate who receives the most votes should win.
The bill has passed 31 state legislative chambers in 21 states with 243 electoral votes. The bill has been enacted by 9 jurisdictions with 132 electoral votes - 49% of the 270 necessary to go into effect.
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