Republicans, Democrats united to kill Electoral College 55 years ago; filibuster kept it alive
https://www.oregonlive.com/history/2024/10/republicans-democrats-united-to-kill-electoral-college-55-years-ago-filibuster-kept-it-alive.html
Republicans, Democrats united to kill Electoral College 55 years ago; filibuster kept it alive
https://www.oregonlive.com/history/2024/10/republicans-democrats-united-to-kill-electoral-college-55-years-ago-filibuster-kept-it-alive.html
23 comments
Archaic, formulated tools to undermine democratic processes, united in victory.
… and [racism](https://www.npr.org/2021/01/12/955970922/kill-switch-examines-the-racist-history-of-the-senate-filibuster) continues to project it’s foul fruit generations ahead.
Both the filibuster *and* the Electoral College are outdated, unrepresentative, and frankly undemocratic. They both need to go.
It literally exists *purely* to avoid letting the actual proper candidate win every time. There’s a reason democrats always win the popular vote.
That was quite the political showdown!
Give democrats the power to remove it. Go out and vote!
The only thing states should have is anything contained within the state (governors, state supreme courts, state senates, etc). There should be no electoral college and no senate. States should have no bearing on federal politics, that should fall only to individuals
now the GOP will never give it up
Filibustering and the electoral college need to go along with FPTP and unlimited personal campaign contributions.
The electoral college is the only thing keep republicans’ hope alive at the presidential level, so good luck getting rid of it today.
Friendly reminder that the electoral college was the implementation mechanism for the three-fifths compromise.
once upon a time republicans and democrats actually agreed on something—getting rid of the electoral college 55 years ago they teamed up like the unlikeliest of avengers but then the filibuster came in like “not on my watch” and here we are still dealing with it
You don’t have to wait 55 years to try again. This time, you wont have republican support. They can no longer win by popular vote, which would force them to get away from far right politics.
If the democrats retain the Senate and regain control of the house, they should repeal the reapportionment act of 1929 and you’ll mostly fix it that issue along with most of the gerrymandering issues, not to mention you won’t have to go about it trying to get a constitutional amendment that will never be ratified. The National Popular Vote Interstate Compact I don’t think survives a legal challenge, especially not in this current SCOTUS.
So one undemocratic tool saved another…
“With so many politicians and voters backing a constitutional amendment to eliminate the Electoral College in 1970, why didn’t it happen? Southern Democrats in the Senate filibustered the amendment for three weeks, ultimately killing it.”
The last I heard the filibuster was no longer a manual process. They don’t actually have to talk forever to stop legislation; just send a note. So it’s not painful anymore.
Kill them both. Electoral College is antiquated and incorrect for the most part and the filibuster wastes too much time and money to get a bill passed. They’re both waste.
Oop
If a pure popular vote can’t pass perhaps would could at least require states to allocate their EC votes by the winners of the districts instead of winner take all. Maine and Nebraska already do this. It would make our electoral process significantly more fair, competitive, and robust.
It would also end the concept of battleground states. Instead of 5 competitive state deciding the election it would come down to a mix of competitive house districts spread across the country. There are about 70 close district races and the winner in those districts would decide the election.
The reason I would suggest this method is that it could garner bipartisan support. So long as gerrymandering remains strong it actually doesn’t favor either party.
There’s an easy and very well-precedented way to change the narrative and get this fixed quickly. Increase the pixel resolution on the electoral map. Congress added representative seats until the 1920s. Increasing the size of Congress automatically adds electors, which will negate the situation we have now where comparatively empty states take advantage of the lower limit of representation.
So doctor, you’re telling me we have [Three Stooges Democracy](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gmBj8r1-fDo)?
This is such a bullshit narrative. A constitutional amendment requires a two-thirds majority. Breaking a filibuster had the same threshold in 1969, meaning if a filibuster was able to stop this it didn’t have the support to pass in the first place.