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RNC Chairman Reince Priebus
The Republican National Committee is restricted by a 30-year consent decree from targeting racial and ethnic minorities in its efforts to end fraudulent voting. Calling the anti-intimidation decree "antiquated," RNC lawyers asked the Supreme Court to lift the order, but yesterday, the justices turned down the appeal without comment.
The RNC, however, is not without other offensive ideas.
The head of the Republican National Committee believes Wisconsin and other battleground states should change the way they allocate their Electoral College votes, but he said he is not inserting himself into how states decide to proceed.
"It's not my decision that can come from the RNC, that's for sure," said Reince Priebus, the RNC's chairman.
Gov. Scott Walker recently said he was intrigued by the notion of Wisconsin divvying up its electoral votes by congressional district, but that he had not made up his mind on whether to back the idea.
We've discussed this before, but for those just joining us, Republicans in a variety of states -- including Wisconsin, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Virginia, and Ohio -- have raised the prospect of changing the way their states' electoral votes are allocated in presidential elections. Instead of winner-take-all contests in which the candidate who wins the most votes in the state then wins that state's electoral haul, some in the GOP want district-by-district races.
That way, in a state like Wisconsin, President Obama can beat Mitt Romney by over 200,000 popular votes, but when it came time for the electoral college, Obama and Romney would split Wisconsin's electoral votes, five to five. Expand this to the national level and Obama would have finished 2012 with 5 million more popular votes than Romney, but Obama still would have lost the election thanks to gerrymandered districts.
As Rachel explained on the show last month, Republicans "are talking about crossing a Rubicon that has never been crossed before." GOP officials, with the national party's blessing, are looking for ways to rig presidential elections in Republicans' favor, and have settled on this scheme as a possible solution to the problem of American voters preferring Democratic candidates.
And while we're on the subject, let's also not forget that voter-ID laws are poised to get worse, too.
While the voter-suppression tactics were originally intended to prevent Obama's re-election, Republican policymakers still hope to use voter-ID schemes to rig elections in their favor going forward.
The national battle over voter ID laws that roiled the presidential campaign for a time then fizzled before Election Day is set to rage again in 2013.
This year promises a flurry of new voter ID legislation across the country as well as reignited court battles in states where the laws were blocked last year and a Supreme Court ruling on part of the Voting Rights Act. [...]
"There are a number of states where there's clearly active legislative attempts to make their voter ID laws more restrictive," said Wendy Weiser, director of the Democracy Program at the Brennan Center for Justice, which has been involved in court challenges to a handful of the voter ID laws around the country. "This is not an issue that has gone away."
Among the states likely to consider voter-ID proposals this year: Alaska, Arkansas, New York, North Carolina, Missouri, Montana, Virginia, West Virginia, and Wisconsin.
These tactics failed to prevent Democrats from having a good year in 2012, but it appears Republicans aren't prepared to walk away from the "war on voting" anytime soon.
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Time to get rid of the electoral college?
The beauty is that this can be done without a constitutional amendment. Eight state legislatures have joined the National Popular Vote Initiiative which provides that if the popular vote in the country goes to a candidate, then the state will allocate its electoral college votes to that candidate. This does not become effective until there are sufficient member states in the intiative that would give it an electoral college majority.
This ought to be a goal of national progressives. If it were in place, Gore would have won over Bush. If it were in place, the national presidential campaign would be, you know- National- instead of ignoring voters in safe states and almost exclusively focusing on voters in Ohio and Florida. The Electoral college system forces candidates to skirt important issues like gun control and climate changes, because it is the smart tactical move to win the Presidency of Ohio.
Victims at Sandy Hook and of Hurricaine Sandy know how brain damaged this system is.
But as this post shows, what can be accomplished by the states can be undone over time by the states. We need to have a constitutional amendment replacing the electoral college with the popular vote to prevent this kind of election-rigging. Anything short of an amendment merely gives troublemakers the opportunity to make trouble.
So what. Pursuing low hanging fruit does not preclude the longer term reform. It's a false choice.
If the initiative were in place, it would have prevented the fiasco of Bush II's presidency.
Would that have been worth it?
#1.3
YES.
I don't think we'd be currently staring into the abyss had Bush lost.
I've always thought the electoral collage was nonsense. The election should be based on the popular vote, period.
I would change the period to a comma.
In an era of growing diversity, having more than two choices on a ballot offers a more representative set of choices. However, the "popular vote" in our current system makes a candidate a spoiler if they present a third or fourth perspective. This is because the conventional popular voting scheme wastes votes.
There are various choice voting schemes that eliminate the spoiler effect. The idea is simply that the voter indicates their ranked choices, and the result of the vote represents the consensus most popular candidate. It's not a new concept- actually it has been a common voting method in deliberative assemblies for centuries. It has not been practical to run multiple votes in a general election, but this is no longer true. The most common method used in the US is instant runoff- some mayor's races are done that way. I prefer single transferable vote system used by Australia- we should used this for selecting all federal elected officials, not just the President - eliminating congressional districts and the attendant corruption associated with gerrymandering.
To abolish the Electoral College would need a constitutional amendment, and could be stopped by states with as little as 3% of the U.S. population.
The 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.
NationalPopularVote
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We are living the failure of the Constitution, Republican viciousness, and Democratic spinelessness. A truly Exceptional nation.
U.S.A! U.S.A! U.S.A! U.S.A! U.S.A! U.S.A! ...
Well said, Disgusted, well said!
DWIA,
Ah, the beauty of American exceptionalism. Far as I can see, the only claim to that is that we've become exceptional dysfunctional.
A great country with amazing natural resources, incredible beauty, wealth, and fertility, taken down by its own government.
At least 30 years of work went into this and now we are reaping that bitter harvest. How can we ever forgive the politicians responsible? It reached its pinnacle with Reagan, so I guess we could start there. But clearly, he wasn't the beginning of the decline. I think it has taken longer than that, really.
Next up: 3/5ths "personhood" for certain voters.
I'd point out that rigging the game is the only way Republicans can win, but moderates won't believe it since after all whatever it is "both sides do it," Dems won't do anything about it for fear that one day THEY might be able to and need to rig the system, and Republicans are cool with it.
One thing that I think is consistently missed in the discussion on this topic is how the electoral votes could potentially be divvied up. Thinkprogress.org reported on a VA legislator who suggested an even more skewed method. In his approach the votes would go by congressional district and then the remaining two votes would not go to the popular vote winner but rather to the person who won more districts. I could be wrong but I think that would put WI at 7-3 Romney rather than the 5-5 split mentioned in this article.
link to the article: http://thinkprogress.org/justice/2012/12/10/1308521/gop-virginia-state-senator-proposes-election-rigging-scheme/
Maybe, just maybe, the GOP should consider concentrating their efforts on appealing to the majority of American voters with sound fiscal policy and strengthening the country through a vibrant middle class.
Rigging elections and the promise of the uber-wealthy dragging the middle class up behind it through their renowned sense of generosity and altruism doesn’t seem to be doing the trick. Go figure.
Why bother when they can get what they want the easy way of just running over door mats?
But that would require that they actually change. And, change is a dirty word to those people.
If at first you can't win, cheat!
Two years from now, and we'll see this enacted in some states.
Anyone want to take a bet?
Oh yeah ... It's coming . They have gerrymandered their way to success at the state level . Thats how we ended up with a supermajority Republican government here in Florida , which is ostensibly a light blue to blue state as far as demographics are concerned. They fixed it and fixed it good.
By any means , taking no prisoners, the devolution of democracy before your eyes
It is really a sad thing to watch, the decline of a great country, brought down to its knees by its own government.
I worry, with all this redistricting and gerrymandering, that we may never get that great country back. They seem so determined to bring it down.
It isn't totally the government that has brought the country to its knees. A lot of voters had something to do with it when they voted in the crazies at all levels from the local up to and including national government.
I was Gerrymandered this year and now my "Representative" comes from clear across the state and his name is -- wait for it..... Steve King. I went to his Facebook page and soon discovered that there is nothing on there that represents me or most of the people in my county. It seems to me that districts should be drawn by a neutral committee with care given for them to be balanced.
Just a few ideas:
1) Get rid of the "Electoral College".
2) Change how the Congress is able to gerrymander their districts, so that they stay in comfortable unchallengeable districts til retirement.
3) Call out the DOJ on starting to hit these state legislatures that are trying to disenfranchise the (minority) voters!
Congress doesn't gerrymander the districts. That is done at the state level by the state governments.
Priebus is a weasel.
Watch what you say about weasels, Bud. They aren't about to take that kind of slander without retaliation.
If the GOP spent even a fraction of the time they spend scheming against dark skinned people on considering how to govern well, they wouldn't need schemes. They are T O A S T and they don't even know it.
Let me start by saying that we need a two party system. The system itself, I think, serves as a check and balance between the masses. However, the simplicity of the latter cannot become a reality until our congress first remembers that they're obligation is first to their country and then to their constituents.
While the head of the RNC claims not to be "inserting" himself into Wisconsin politics, his position as the Chair of the RNC carries, I would think, a lot of weight. So when he publically makes a comment about how "HE" thinks Wisconsin should change how they allocate EC votes, what in this crazy world makes him think that he's 'not' inserting himself. Any person in a position of power whose words are respected by its supporters will, by default, not only be heard but considered. Surely, Preibus knows by making a comment like the one he made about Wisconsin EC votes, that his words would stir the pot and allow for a feeding frenzy in Wisconsin politics.
I don't see why the Justice Department doesn't step in and simply get involved in cases like this. It's clear that that Preibus and any state that ultimately attempts to affect the distribution of EC votes is simply trying to stack the cards in their favor. In this case in the favor of the Republicans.
Surely the Justice Department can get involved...can't they?
Frank
"I like the two party system...one party in the afternoon and one party in the evening"
Politically I would much rather have ONE good idea than have two parties tossing around various so-so ideas enjoyed by their own side. You can't get anything done that way.
So yeah rather than fight about redistricting, we should request that government come up with ideas to improve the country. Who among us would hate an idea that was good for all even though it was brought up by a person from "another party"
#14, Future prez, "Who among us would hate an idea that was good for all even though it was brought up by a person of another party?"
And the answer is, THE T-Party Republicans.
Honey, they've vetoed their OWN ideas because Obama agreed with them!
They keep wanting to call this a credit card mentality like it is an excuse of why people are struggling. Well first of all, most Americans were never even paid a proper wage. But in the meantime, the rich bastards a long with Reagan and Daddy Bush looked to crush the Unions so people’s wages could be pushed down even more. And of course, allow the rich bastards to rack up huge debts on companies just so some equity companies could claim to make huge profits from stolen money. Than screw the workers over on everything they had driving workers ever closer to poverty levels as they sent those companies over seas now for cheap slave labor basically. Plus in addition to this to destroy our environment by the lack of any proper regulations in America or Internationally so we can totally have the earth as a garbage hole. And you want to call Daddy Bush as some kind of good President give me a break. Daddy Bush continued that same load of crap that Reagan did and was and still is as worthless as his fellow rich bastards. Daddy Bush just taught his sons that same load of crap, except to be much worse. Daddy Bush’s concept was garbage in and garbage out. The GOP/Republican Party is just the sum of their stupidity.
I wonder if they'd cheer so loudly if we got the same congressional district system installed in Missouri, North Carolina, Indiana and any other mauve states.
The whole thing is stupid though.
Once the purplish states are split, they'd be ignored. They won't break more than 2 electoral votes. one way r the other.
That means the Republicans have their vast treasure to spend on fewer competitive targets. Bluer and bluer the more successful they are.
Meanwhile, with Democrats free to only casually pursue votes in Ohio and Penna, we can concentrate on flipping those mauve states. We could solidify our presence in Colorado, Florida, and New Mexico. Arizona would be ripe. We'd pour money into Latino turnout in Texas. The GOP victories would be very short lived.
As Voter ID starts to disenfranchise liberal voters, the party can tack right and force even more tea-partyish behavior on the GOP as we start to appeal to economic conservatives. Bible thumping wingnuts will be able to win fewer and fewer states. Those people who are blocked from voting are furious with the GOP so if EVER they are able to vote again, they'll only strengthen the now right-center Democratic party.
The process is already well underway. Cap N Trade? Subsidized PRIVATE health insurance? THESE are wild-eyed liberal radical ideas now. What does that leave the GOP as far as agendas go?
Democrats advocate some use of nuclear power and coal.
Despite recent lip service, we're behind hunters, veterans, and law enforcement.
THEY. GOT. NOTHIN'!!!!
And there just aren't enough tricks to make such a tiny portion of the population equal 50% of the vote +1. The sheer political physics of the matter makes their defeat inevitable.
Here's a thought, let's do away with the electoral college all together and elect our President based on popular vote. That takes these ridiculous gerrymandered ideas right off of the table. End of discussion.
To abolish the Electoral College would need a constitutional amendment, and could be stopped by states with as little as 3% of the U.S. population.
The 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.
NationalPopularVote
Follow National Popular Vote on Facebook via NationalPopularVoteInc
We wont get our country back very soon. It will be rigged to be ruled by the clear minority and only they have to be willing to change it. the next couple of elections will be our last chance to get this country back.
Reince Priebus....
Remove the vowels...
RNC PRBS...
Republican National Committee Public Relations Bull S---...
Describes him pretty well, don't you think?...
Here's what I would like to see. though I know it will never happen... Bear with me, now, as this is a radically democratic, with a small 'd', idea...
The entire concept of Congress is to represent the nation... 2 Senators for each state, originally selected by the state government, now selected by state-wide vote... As many Representatives as the state is allocated, based on the state's proportion of the national population, as determined by the Census every ten years...
The current system has the state's government cut up the state into so many districts, each district electing one Representative... Each district supposedly has as many citizens as the others, so they are equal, but this is where the trouble comes in...
Because Democrats tend towards urban areas, they are concentrated in smaller areas than rural Republicans... Mapping the state's districts by land area therefore favors the more rural Republicans... Gerrymandering, selecting the district borders to exclude Democrat population centers from toss-up areas, exacerbates the problem...
Here is the solution... Get rid of the districts!
Hear me out...
Let us say, a state is determined by the Census to have 10 Representatives... In that state's primaries, citizens of each party are to vote for PRIORITY of ALL those running for that party, each nominee being given priority on what percentage of that party's votes he/she received...
In the general election, each citizen votes for his PARTY, not specific people... The percentage of votes determines how many REPRESENTATIVES that party gets, chosen in order of the primary results... In that state with 10 Representatives. if the state voted 56% (D)- 44% (R), the top 6 Democrats and 4 Republicans would win...
NO gerrymandering... NO 'safe' districts... NO running unopposed... NO redistricting out of office... NO failure to be represented, just because you're a Democrat but all your neighbours are Republican... EVERY Democrat would have six Representatives; EVERY Republican, four...
It would be more economical for the candidates as well... They could concentrate their personal campaigns on the primary, then pool their resources for the general election, while those who got low priority in the primary can save their money...
Too democratic, I know, but... Wouldn't it be lovely?