In 1823, Thomas Jefferson described it as “the most dangerous blot on our Constitution.” In the 1960s, Sen. Estes Kefauver of Tennessee called it “a loaded pistol pointed at our system of government,” whose “continued existence is a game of Russian roulette.” New York Rep. Emanuel Celler once called it “barbarous, unsporting, dangerous, and downright uncivilized.” In 2012, Donald Trump tweeted that the institution is “a disaster for a democracy.” Despite more than 700 legislative efforts to amend or abolish it, the Electoral College remains.
The case against the Electoral College is straightforward: Because states are allocated electors based on the size of their congressional delegations, those with smaller populations have an outsize influence on presidential elections. The result is that a small number of voters in certain battleground states become kingmakers. By one analysis of the 2012 presidential election, four out of five voters had virtually zero influence on the outcome.
“It’s really a relic from the past,” says Wilfred Codrington III, an assistant professor at Brooklyn Law School and a Brennan Center for Justice fellow. The Electoral College was established by the framers of the Constitution as a last-minute deal, a gift to Southern states trying to protect slaveholders’ power and leverage the three-fifths compromise. “It wasn’t a stroke of genius. It was really just the least objectionable at the time,” Codrington says.
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Food + Health / Global Warning - Why Project 2025 is an environmental catastrophe in the making
When President Joe Biden took office, Democrats held a slim majority in the House of Representatives and a single-vote edge in the Senate. Despite the monumental odds, he has presided over the most productive presidential term for climate action in American history. Under Biden’s direction, the federal government took up the arduous task of incorporating climate considerations into scores of administrative operations and procedures. The epa cracked down on superpollutants and issued stricter emissions regulations for passenger vehicles. The Inflation Reduction Act, the biggest climate spending bill Congress has ever passed, brings the nation closer to its goal of slashing carbon emissions in half by 2030.
Trumpnesia - To get a second chance, Trump needs voters to forget his disastrous presidency.
One of the most oft-quoted sentences ever penned by a philosopher is George Santayana’s observation that “those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” In 2024, this aphorism is practically a campaign slogan. Donald Trump, seeking to become the first former president since Grover Cleveland to return to the White House after being voted out of the job, has waged war on remembrance. In fact, he’s depending on tens of millions of voters forgetting the recent past. This election is an experiment in how powerful a memory hole can be.
WHEN IN DROUGHT
This obscure yet adaptable grain could be a healthy staple for a warming planet.
BAD HABITS
A spate of recent horror movies recycle tired tropes about nuns-and reveal society's ongoing discomfort with independent women.
Taking the Fifth For a glimpse of the Supreme Court after a second Trump term, look at the radical circuit court that's already driving America to the right.
Imagine obamacare is dead and millions of Americans have lost health coverage.
THE ARCHITECT
TRUMP WANTS TO BE KING. RUSS VOUGHT HAS A PLAN TO MAKE IT HAPPEN.
Losing Faith
As an evangelical leader, I enticed lawmakers and federal judges to adopt a conservative Christian agenda. Donald Trump’s rise proved how wrong I was.
GOD'S COUNTRY
These Christian nationalists have a plan to take over Americafrom small towns to the highest court in the land.
IN THE NAME OF THE MOTHER
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KILL THE MESSENGER
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