As a substantive matter, I think the electoral college sucks and it especially sucks to allow faithless electors. Yet, at least on the face of it, I find the claim that faithlessness is permitted pretty plausible. I find Lessig's parallel with Senators highly persuasive. Both were originally selected by state legislatures, at their discretion, to represent them in federal affairs. Presumably, despite state legislatures selecting senators, once selected, the states had no power to determine their votes, nor to punish them for how they voted after the fact. But then what about the text or structure of the law indicates that electors are any different?
I mean: "because it would suck," yes, but a whole lot of things about the constitution suck so that's not exactly novel.
Edit: additionally, the entire idea of using electors seems bizarre if states were intended to be empowered to compel their votes. Why not simply allow states to declare the votes directly?
Edit edit: or, Kavanaugh sounds extremely right here--
"In questions for Weiser, Kavanaugh posited that, if anything, the text of the Constitution might support the electors. What, he asked, is the purpose of having the electors and a detailed scheme if not to make them “free agents”? Weiser reiterated that the Constitution gives the states a choice: electors can act as proxy voters on behalf of the public, or they can be “free agents.” But Kavanaugh was unsatisfied. If that was what the Founding Fathers wanted, he asked, why didn’t they just leave it to the states instead of including a host of details about how the plan is supposed to operate?"
I kind of agree. It seems weird to have electors but not let them be faithless. Its certainly been an article of lore that it was a thing that "could happen". But lore is not law and the answer in retort is twofold
1) They did not give a host of details. They specifically left the manner in which to choose electors to the states. If the states wish to choose electors based on the vote that they cast then this is their right. The only aspect that is proscribed specifically is that the electors should seal their choice. This may be to prevent fraud or for another manner but that reason is not specified. It is certainly not specified that electors are to be free from influence from their state. If the Founding Fathers wished that states did not have the right to do this when why did they not limit the states power at the same time they limited the states power to determine who was an elector?
2) The host of details that they did give has been changed by amendment twice. Any appropriate ruling based on authorial intent or historical norms would be based at the time of the latest amendment, 1804 or 1932 depending on how you would wish to take it. Which while this may include some Founding Fathers it certainly does not include all of them. And definitely includes a large group of people who are not of that group.
edit: Potentially one more retort
3. No state has on its books a law that allows them to recall their senators. Nor have they done so on their own initiative. That they have not done so is not an indication that is it not within their power. If it is indeed not within their power then this is almost certainly a result of amendment 17 and not the language that let the legislatures of the respective states choose their senators as that language is no longer binding and the People had subsequently decided it needed changing.
obligatory ianal disclosure and all--
That out of the way: everyone agrees that states' right to determine how electors are chosen extends to selecting those that promise to vote a certain way. And, indeed, that's been good enough in practice since forever. But what's at issue is whether, once selected, states can revoke elector status for those who they now suspect will not vote that way, or whether they can punish them for voting against their word. Unlike the method of selection, these powers are not explicitly delegated to the states. Yet neither are they explicitly withheld, as you point out. If states were not intended to have that power, why were they not explicitly withheld?
One answer is that it is implicit in the scheme that electors be free, hence there is no need to redundantly state their freedom. And I don't think that any of what you've put in those rebuttals really answers why it would make sense to install a scheme of electors whose votes could be overrulled by their states. If that were intended, it would make more sense to simply let states vote directly--which, if they saw fit, they could do through selecting "free" electors without needing that to be specified by the constitution. You mention subsequent amendments. Some subsequent amendments mention electors, but as far as I can see none of the subsequent amendments which mention electors give any indication that they intend to change whether they are bound or not. If they intended such a change, they didn't say so. But that seems like a very weird thing to intend yet not say.
In addition to the idea of freedom being implicit in making sense of why electors exist at all, another answer is that states do not generally have the power to control their federal representatives, and hence there is no need to specify, in describing the role of every federal official, that states cannot try to control their execution of their function. The first legal summary I turned up said that the framers considered, but rejected the idea of state recall of their federal officials. Some state constitutions claim that power, but it has never been tested in court. The closest precedent is unfriendly, in which the supreme court ruled that states cannot impose any requirements on federal officials representing them which are stricter than those laid out in the federal constitution (overturning many states' attempts to term limit their federal officials). State AGs and Courts which have considered the question have spoken against state authority to recall. So I think you're off about Senators--Senators were free from recall even before amendment 17, and not because of it, and their freedom once selected is not unique to them.
So this continues to strike me as a case where there's a results-oriented answer which is obviously better, because the electoral college was a shitty idea to begin with, but where reasonable canons of interpretation--assume things are put in place for a reason, assume consistency unless otherwise explicitly stated, etc.--seem like they really come down on the other side.
So some types of ignoring votes are ok but not others?
What if a state wanted to divide up electors by congressional district to effectively gerrymander the presidential race
Someone's vote doesn't not count because they lost. You're arguing against the entire concept of voting.
No. He is not. He is suggesting that the encompassing line drawn by the state is no more nor less legitimate because it encompasses the nation, the state in its entirety, or districts within it. That if its considering a vote not having been counted because the margin at one level is not used then it should be reasonably when the margin at any other level is similarly.
They responded to a post explaining that losing a vote doesn't mean your vote was discounted with "so some types of ignoring votes are ok?" That is making an argument against the entire concept of voting because the people who voted for the loser are having their votes "ignored".
And were it the argument you are explaining, it's arguing against the entire concept of sub national political organization. Which isn't any better of an argument.
The President is the President of the United States. Not the President of Alabama, Alaska, Arizona, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Michigan, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, North Carolina, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, West Virginia, Wisconsin, Wyoming, and Parts of Maine.
And that president, who is to represent all 50 states, is elected by electors from all 50 states who are in turn elected by the residents of those states. It's a fairly simple system which is meant to help ensure that the interests of e.g. Nebraska aren't entirely drowned out by the interests of e.g. California simply by virtue of population when it came to the federal executive branch.
Because of the political leaning of this forum generally, the idea of more populous blue states effectively running the show is "good" so this is ignore. (and within this is a streak of paternalism). But let's say, in a hypothetical one world government a reasonable person might not feel that their interests were being seriously considered if the residents of China and India were effectively solely determining how they in the US interacted with the global executive branch.
I'd rather tyranny of the majority over tyranny of the minority. At least it more accurately reflects the will of the populace. Besides, we've been doing this whole United States thing with the tiny states drowning out the interests of the large, actually productive states, for a couple hundred years now. Time to change it up.
I'm ignoring your hypothetical one-world government because it's purely strawman bullshit.
I didn't take that as a straw man, it's a perfectly fair analogy. Our present situation is quite similar, in that we created a system where states have power, but never outlined a metric-based requirement to be considered a state, and the end result is a patchwork of wildy disparate economies, populations, and natural resources.
If we, as a country, do not feel that the 3 billion residents of Asia deserve more influence than us, because we're wealthier or have more guns, then we should not be party to a union that does grants it. (It also follows that a scenario in which US is not spearheading that empire is one in which our geopolitical relevance has been greatly diminished)
Conversely, if we did wish to be part of such a one world government, I think it would be pretty unhealthy to expect that we should have an equal or greater power than that population to enact global policy (rather than merely veto it).
It's a very fair comparison, in fact, because it also illustrates the kind of horse trading that had to happen in the first place to get the original colonies on board with the current system of federal representation that managed to balanced the equation for those specific 13 states and no others.
Since the flaws of that system have been exasperated over time and with the number states quadroupling, I have no issue ceding that the concerns of the largest concentration of people deserve more weight with regard to the direction of shared resources than my local area (which happens to be the third largest state, sure, but...)
Nominal Topicality Edit:
You'd have an easier time proposing a federation between the US and China than convincing the independent nation's equivalent to modern CA and TX to join a union where the Dakota region gets four votes on federal judges (eh? eh? :winky: ) and they each get two. Our system would look very different, whether in terms of state representation, or the definition of states.
So some types of ignoring votes are ok but not others?
What if a state wanted to divide up electors by congressional district to effectively gerrymander the presidential race
Someone's vote doesn't not count because they lost. You're arguing against the entire concept of voting.
No. He is not. He is suggesting that the encompassing line drawn by the state is no more nor less legitimate because it encompasses the nation, the state in its entirety, or districts within it. That if its considering a vote not having been counted because the margin at one level is not used then it should be reasonably when the margin at any other level is similarly.
They responded to a post explaining that losing a vote doesn't mean your vote was discounted with "so some types of ignoring votes are ok?" That is making an argument against the entire concept of voting because the people who voted for the loser are having their votes "ignored".
And were it the argument you are explaining, it's arguing against the entire concept of sub national political organization. Which isn't any better of an argument.
The President is the President of the United States. Not the President of Alabama, Alaska, Arizona, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Michigan, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, North Carolina, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, West Virginia, Wisconsin, Wyoming, and Parts of Maine.
And that president, who is to represent all 50 states, is elected by electors from all 50 states who are in turn elected by the residents of those states. It's a fairly simple system which is meant to help ensure that the interests of e.g. Nebraska aren't entirely drowned out by the interests of e.g. California simply by virtue of population when it came to the federal executive branch.
Because of the political leaning of this forum generally, the idea of more populous blue states effectively running the show is "good" so this is ignore. (and within this is a streak of paternalism). But let's say, in a hypothetical one world government a reasonable person might not feel that their interests were being seriously considered if the residents of China and India were effectively solely determining how they in the US interacted with the global executive branch.
Except that 1 Man 1 Vote eliminates the very idea of 'Blue/ Red States' in the context of a national Presidential election entirely. California isn't calling the shots over Nebraska, every individual voter is. The interests of Nebraska are represented in the Congress, not in the Executive which is National by it's very nature. Again, the President is President of the United States, not just the States he personally cares about.
If we, as a country, do not feel that the 3 billion residents of Asia deserve more influence than us, because we're wealthier or have more guns, then we should not be party to a union that does grants it. (It also follows that a scenario in which US is not spearheading that empire is one in which our geopolitical relevance has been greatly diminished)
Conversely, if we did wish to be part of such a one world government, I think it would be pretty unhealthy to expect that we should have an equal or greater power than that population to enact global policy (rather than merely veto it).
Or, you know, we could try diplomacy/politics and try to get other populations to align with us to achieve our goals. This is the argument that the right quietly concedes, and they do so quietly because it is tantamount to admitting that they have given up on actually appealing to the majority.
If we, as a country, do not feel that the 3 billion residents of Asia deserve more influence than us, because we're wealthier or have more guns, then we should not be party to a union that does grants it. (It also follows that a scenario in which US is not spearheading that empire is one in which our geopolitical relevance has been greatly diminished)
Conversely, if we did wish to be part of such a one world government, I think it would be pretty unhealthy to expect that we should have an equal or greater power than that population to enact global policy (rather than merely veto it).
Or, you know, we could try diplomacy/politics and try to get other populations to align with us to achieve our goals. This is the argument that the right quietly concedes, and they do so quietly because it is tantamount to admitting that they have given up on actually appealing to the majority.
Do your interests align with China and India enough to overcome any problems you have with the policy they want in order to join a coalition with them? If, for example, it is in the interests of China to maintain a Han ethnostate and the interests of India to accelerate Hindu nationalism within the boundaries of their sub global political organization? What if their economic interest in global governance will make your material conditions worse?
Interests, politics, and economics can be, and often are, localized and subject to local context. Ignoring those is a common criticism of interventionism military and civil.
If we, as a country, do not feel that the 3 billion residents of Asia deserve more influence than us, because we're wealthier or have more guns, then we should not be party to a union that does grants it. (It also follows that a scenario in which US is not spearheading that empire is one in which our geopolitical relevance has been greatly diminished)
Conversely, if we did wish to be part of such a one world government, I think it would be pretty unhealthy to expect that we should have an equal or greater power than that population to enact global policy (rather than merely veto it).
Or, you know, we could try diplomacy/politics and try to get other populations to align with us to achieve our goals. This is the argument that the right quietly concedes, and they do so quietly because it is tantamount to admitting that they have given up on actually appealing to the majority.
Do your interests align with China and India enough to overcome any problems you have with the policy they want in order to join a coalition with them? If, for example, it is in the interests of China to maintain a Han ethnostate and the interests of India to accelerate Hindu nationalism within the boundaries of their sub global political organization? What if their economic interest in global governance will make your material conditions worse?
Interests, politics, and economics can be, and often are, localized and subject to local context. Ignoring those is a common criticism of interventionism military and civil.
Well, since there's no one-world government, this hypothetical seems silly. There is, though, a one-america government. It's called the federal government.
And the EC doesn't preserve local context better then the popular vote. It just privileges some local contexts over others, based on the random historical distribution of state borders rather then population.
If we, as a country, do not feel that the 3 billion residents of Asia deserve more influence than us, because we're wealthier or have more guns, then we should not be party to a union that does grants it. (It also follows that a scenario in which US is not spearheading that empire is one in which our geopolitical relevance has been greatly diminished)
Conversely, if we did wish to be part of such a one world government, I think it would be pretty unhealthy to expect that we should have an equal or greater power than that population to enact global policy (rather than merely veto it).
Or, you know, we could try diplomacy/politics and try to get other populations to align with us to achieve our goals. This is the argument that the right quietly concedes, and they do so quietly because it is tantamount to admitting that they have given up on actually appealing to the majority.
Do your interests align with China and India enough to overcome any problems you have with the policy they want in order to join a coalition with them? If, for example, it is in the interests of China to maintain a Han ethnostate and the interests of India to accelerate Hindu nationalism within the boundaries of their sub global political organization? What if their economic interest in global governance will make your material conditions worse?
Interests, politics, and economics can be, and often are, localized and subject to local context. Ignoring those is a common criticism of interventionism military and civil.
Your Freudian slip is showing. Much like the US, China and India are diverse nations that are far from monolithic - so in your hypothetical world government, there would be space to attract like-minded groups. In fact, there are a number of international movements built on that very principle.
If we, as a country, do not feel that the 3 billion residents of Asia deserve more influence than us, because we're wealthier or have more guns, then we should not be party to a union that does grants it. (It also follows that a scenario in which US is not spearheading that empire is one in which our geopolitical relevance has been greatly diminished)
Conversely, if we did wish to be part of such a one world government, I think it would be pretty unhealthy to expect that we should have an equal or greater power than that population to enact global policy (rather than merely veto it).
Or, you know, we could try diplomacy/politics and try to get other populations to align with us to achieve our goals. This is the argument that the right quietly concedes, and they do so quietly because it is tantamount to admitting that they have given up on actually appealing to the majority.
Do your interests align with China and India enough to overcome any problems you have with the policy they want in order to join a coalition with them? If, for example, it is in the interests of China to maintain a Han ethnostate and the interests of India to accelerate Hindu nationalism within the boundaries of their sub global political organization? What if their economic interest in global governance will make your material conditions worse?
Interests, politics, and economics can be, and often are, localized and subject to local context. Ignoring those is a common criticism of interventionism military and civil.
Your Freudian slip is showing. Much like the US, China and India are diverse nations that are far from monolithic - so in your hypothetical world government, there would be space to attract like-minded groups. In fact, there are a number of international movements built on that very principle.
So You're going to deflect instead of directly answer the question.
I can only conclude that you're afraid to answer truthfully. It would require you to say that partnering with e.g. China for the pursuit of political power would be worth the reprehensible things they would do or recognize that other people have interests and disagreeing with you doesn't mean they are working against their own better interests.
If we, as a country, do not feel that the 3 billion residents of Asia deserve more influence than us, because we're wealthier or have more guns, then we should not be party to a union that does grants it. (It also follows that a scenario in which US is not spearheading that empire is one in which our geopolitical relevance has been greatly diminished)
Conversely, if we did wish to be part of such a one world government, I think it would be pretty unhealthy to expect that we should have an equal or greater power than that population to enact global policy (rather than merely veto it).
Or, you know, we could try diplomacy/politics and try to get other populations to align with us to achieve our goals. This is the argument that the right quietly concedes, and they do so quietly because it is tantamount to admitting that they have given up on actually appealing to the majority.
Do your interests align with China and India enough to overcome any problems you have with the policy they want in order to join a coalition with them? If, for example, it is in the interests of China to maintain a Han ethnostate and the interests of India to accelerate Hindu nationalism within the boundaries of their sub global political organization? What if their economic interest in global governance will make your material conditions worse?
Interests, politics, and economics can be, and often are, localized and subject to local context. Ignoring those is a common criticism of interventionism military and civil.
Your Freudian slip is showing. Much like the US, China and India are diverse nations that are far from monolithic - so in your hypothetical world government, there would be space to attract like-minded groups. In fact, there are a number of international movements built on that very principle.
So You're going to deflect instead of directly answer the question.
I can only conclude that you're afraid to answer truthfully. It would require you to say that partnering with e.g. China for the pursuit of political power would be worth the reprehensible things they would do or recognize that other people have interests and disagreeing with you doesn't mean they are working against their own better interests.
I didn't deflect, I openly rejected the basis of your argument, most notibly how you're treating China - a large nation made up of a number of ethnic groups and has massive friction on those lines (you know, just like the United States) - as a single monolithic entity (which in a world government it would be even less of one.)
If we, as a country, do not feel that the 3 billion residents of Asia deserve more influence than us, because we're wealthier or have more guns, then we should not be party to a union that does grants it. (It also follows that a scenario in which US is not spearheading that empire is one in which our geopolitical relevance has been greatly diminished)
Conversely, if we did wish to be part of such a one world government, I think it would be pretty unhealthy to expect that we should have an equal or greater power than that population to enact global policy (rather than merely veto it).
Or, you know, we could try diplomacy/politics and try to get other populations to align with us to achieve our goals. This is the argument that the right quietly concedes, and they do so quietly because it is tantamount to admitting that they have given up on actually appealing to the majority.
Do your interests align with China and India enough to overcome any problems you have with the policy they want in order to join a coalition with them? If, for example, it is in the interests of China to maintain a Han ethnostate and the interests of India to accelerate Hindu nationalism within the boundaries of their sub global political organization? What if their economic interest in global governance will make your material conditions worse?
Interests, politics, and economics can be, and often are, localized and subject to local context. Ignoring those is a common criticism of interventionism military and civil.
Your Freudian slip is showing. Much like the US, China and India are diverse nations that are far from monolithic - so in your hypothetical world government, there would be space to attract like-minded groups. In fact, there are a number of international movements built on that very principle.
So You're going to deflect instead of directly answer the question.
I can only conclude that you're afraid to answer truthfully. It would require you to say that partnering with e.g. China for the pursuit of political power would be worth the reprehensible things they would do or recognize that other people have interests and disagreeing with you doesn't mean they are working against their own better interests.
I didn't deflect, I openly rejected the basis of your argument, most notibly how you're treating China - a large nation made up of a number of ethnic groups and has massive friction on those lines (you know, just like the United States) - as a single monolithic entity (which in a world government it would be even less of one.)
Your argument is built on false premises.
Han Chinese outnumber all other Chinese ethnic minorities and all Americans put together by a margin of approximately 3:1. If everyone really were put in a single voting pool, Americans could make all the allies they wanted to with ethnic minorities in China and they would be lucky to crack 25% of the joint electorate.
Pace Rand, I don’t think that objections to world government tell us that much about the best structure of US federalism, but this ‘well, actually’ point about diversity in China misses the mark.
If we, as a country, do not feel that the 3 billion residents of Asia deserve more influence than us, because we're wealthier or have more guns, then we should not be party to a union that does grants it. (It also follows that a scenario in which US is not spearheading that empire is one in which our geopolitical relevance has been greatly diminished)
Conversely, if we did wish to be part of such a one world government, I think it would be pretty unhealthy to expect that we should have an equal or greater power than that population to enact global policy (rather than merely veto it).
Or, you know, we could try diplomacy/politics and try to get other populations to align with us to achieve our goals. This is the argument that the right quietly concedes, and they do so quietly because it is tantamount to admitting that they have given up on actually appealing to the majority.
Do your interests align with China and India enough to overcome any problems you have with the policy they want in order to join a coalition with them? If, for example, it is in the interests of China to maintain a Han ethnostate and the interests of India to accelerate Hindu nationalism within the boundaries of their sub global political organization? What if their economic interest in global governance will make your material conditions worse?
Interests, politics, and economics can be, and often are, localized and subject to local context. Ignoring those is a common criticism of interventionism military and civil.
Your Freudian slip is showing. Much like the US, China and India are diverse nations that are far from monolithic - so in your hypothetical world government, there would be space to attract like-minded groups. In fact, there are a number of international movements built on that very principle.
So You're going to deflect instead of directly answer the question.
I can only conclude that you're afraid to answer truthfully. It would require you to say that partnering with e.g. China for the pursuit of political power would be worth the reprehensible things they would do or recognize that other people have interests and disagreeing with you doesn't mean they are working against their own better interests.
I didn't deflect, I openly rejected the basis of your argument, most notibly how you're treating China - a large nation made up of a number of ethnic groups and has massive friction on those lines (you know, just like the United States) - as a single monolithic entity (which in a world government it would be even less of one.)
Your argument is built on false premises.
China is over 90% Han. A greater percentage of the membership of the CCP is Han. And the CCP absolutely works with a single hand towards their interests. It is literally in their constitution that the CCP is the vanguard party and their institutions are built in such a way that the party exercises ultimate control.
They are currently engaged in ethnic cleansing on a scale that I'm sure the Likud and even more Zionist parties in Israel would probably think was pretty alright, while Israel's Jewish population is roughly 20 points lower. But I am sure I could look through your post history and find a comment about how Israel is an ethno state engaging in apartheid.
You're just afraid to answer the question because it either betrays you really aren't so Liberal or you have to admit maybe people can disagree with you and not be evil or stupid.
If we, as a country, do not feel that the 3 billion residents of Asia deserve more influence than us, because we're wealthier or have more guns, then we should not be party to a union that does grants it. (It also follows that a scenario in which US is not spearheading that empire is one in which our geopolitical relevance has been greatly diminished)
Conversely, if we did wish to be part of such a one world government, I think it would be pretty unhealthy to expect that we should have an equal or greater power than that population to enact global policy (rather than merely veto it).
Or, you know, we could try diplomacy/politics and try to get other populations to align with us to achieve our goals. This is the argument that the right quietly concedes, and they do so quietly because it is tantamount to admitting that they have given up on actually appealing to the majority.
Do your interests align with China and India enough to overcome any problems you have with the policy they want in order to join a coalition with them? If, for example, it is in the interests of China to maintain a Han ethnostate and the interests of India to accelerate Hindu nationalism within the boundaries of their sub global political organization? What if their economic interest in global governance will make your material conditions worse?
Interests, politics, and economics can be, and often are, localized and subject to local context. Ignoring those is a common criticism of interventionism military and civil.
Your Freudian slip is showing. Much like the US, China and India are diverse nations that are far from monolithic - so in your hypothetical world government, there would be space to attract like-minded groups. In fact, there are a number of international movements built on that very principle.
So You're going to deflect instead of directly answer the question.
I can only conclude that you're afraid to answer truthfully. It would require you to say that partnering with e.g. China for the pursuit of political power would be worth the reprehensible things they would do or recognize that other people have interests and disagreeing with you doesn't mean they are working against their own better interests.
I didn't deflect, I openly rejected the basis of your argument, most notibly how you're treating China - a large nation made up of a number of ethnic groups and has massive friction on those lines (you know, just like the United States) - as a single monolithic entity (which in a world government it would be even less of one.)
Your argument is built on false premises.
Han Chinese outnumber all other Chinese ethnic minorities and all Americans put together by a margin of approximately 3:1. If everyone really were put in a single voting pool, Americans could make all the allies they wanted to with ethnic minorities in China and they would be lucky to crack 25% of the joint electorate.
Pace Rand, I don’t think that objections to world government tell us that much about the best structure of US federalism, but this ‘well, actually’ point about diversity in China misses the mark.
You're making a similar faulty argument. Just as no one nation is a monolith, neither is any "race" (which, let's remember, is a social and cultural construct.) The point wasn't diversity, but that treating any group as monolithic without good evidence for it being so is a faulty premise at best.
The Electoral College is bad and has been bad the whole time it existed.
The Electoral College was made specifically as a way to prevent people like Trump from taking the Presidency. The moment they failed to actualize their one purpose they lost all validity.
If we, as a country, do not feel that the 3 billion residents of Asia deserve more influence than us, because we're wealthier or have more guns, then we should not be party to a union that does grants it. (It also follows that a scenario in which US is not spearheading that empire is one in which our geopolitical relevance has been greatly diminished)
Conversely, if we did wish to be part of such a one world government, I think it would be pretty unhealthy to expect that we should have an equal or greater power than that population to enact global policy (rather than merely veto it).
Or, you know, we could try diplomacy/politics and try to get other populations to align with us to achieve our goals. This is the argument that the right quietly concedes, and they do so quietly because it is tantamount to admitting that they have given up on actually appealing to the majority.
Do your interests align with China and India enough to overcome any problems you have with the policy they want in order to join a coalition with them? If, for example, it is in the interests of China to maintain a Han ethnostate and the interests of India to accelerate Hindu nationalism within the boundaries of their sub global political organization? What if their economic interest in global governance will make your material conditions worse?
Interests, politics, and economics can be, and often are, localized and subject to local context. Ignoring those is a common criticism of interventionism military and civil.
It sure sounds like you are describing a lot of legislative related problems that would need to be addressed by the Legislature and not the Executive Branch enforcing the will of the Legislature. Which is the sole provision of the Electoral College. Legalizing faithless electors and eliminating the possibility of the NPVIC makes things worse all around since it makes Presidential elections literally meaningless if enough Electors decide it is. A national popular vote, even within State strictures like the NPVIC, eliminates the very idea of jurisdictional influence by residents on the sole National office in the Federal Government while retaining that in the House and especially the Senate. It makes 1 Vote = 1 Vote No matter if it's cast in California or Nebraska. The best way to get a majority of those votes would be to appeal to the most people, who are rather changeable in their views from year to year, rather than to the most populous and changeable/ swingey States. Hopefully SCOTUS realizes the far reaching problems of this, and oral argument seems to suggest they do.
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MrMisterJesus dying on the cross in pain? Morally better than us. One has to go "all in".Registered Userregular
If we, as a country, do not feel that the 3 billion residents of Asia deserve more influence than us, because we're wealthier or have more guns, then we should not be party to a union that does grants it. (It also follows that a scenario in which US is not spearheading that empire is one in which our geopolitical relevance has been greatly diminished)
Conversely, if we did wish to be part of such a one world government, I think it would be pretty unhealthy to expect that we should have an equal or greater power than that population to enact global policy (rather than merely veto it).
Or, you know, we could try diplomacy/politics and try to get other populations to align with us to achieve our goals. This is the argument that the right quietly concedes, and they do so quietly because it is tantamount to admitting that they have given up on actually appealing to the majority.
Do your interests align with China and India enough to overcome any problems you have with the policy they want in order to join a coalition with them? If, for example, it is in the interests of China to maintain a Han ethnostate and the interests of India to accelerate Hindu nationalism within the boundaries of their sub global political organization? What if their economic interest in global governance will make your material conditions worse?
Interests, politics, and economics can be, and often are, localized and subject to local context. Ignoring those is a common criticism of interventionism military and civil.
It sure sounds like you are describing a lot of legislative related problems that would need to be addressed by the Legislature and not the Executive Branch enforcing the will of the Legislature. Which is the sole provision of the Electoral College. Legalizing faithless electors and eliminating the possibility of the NPVIC makes things worse all around since it makes Presidential elections literally meaningless if enough Electors decide it is. A national popular vote, even within State strictures like the NPVIC, eliminates the very idea of jurisdictional influence by residents on the sole National office in the Federal Government while retaining that in the House and especially the Senate. It makes 1 Vote = 1 Vote No matter if it's cast in California or Nebraska. The best way to get a majority of those votes would be to appeal to the most people, who are rather changeable in their views from year to year, rather than to the most populous and changeable/ swingey States. Hopefully SCOTUS realizes the far reaching problems of this, and oral argument seems to suggest they do.
Whether electors are free or not is orthogonal to whether a NPVIC is legal or feasible. Even if SCOTUS rules that electors can vote their conscience, no one is questioning that states have the right to determine their slate of electors however they want and states that sign on to the NPVIC can still send out a slate of people that promised to vote for the candidate who won the national vote.
But isn't the argument for the EC that the people are supposed to be able to override the votes of the state's population if the candidate they chose is unfit for the office?
So what's the point of the EC if they have to promise to vote for whoever gets more votes in that state? (Rhetorical question: The current point of the EC is to give states with lower population disproportionate power over presidential elections, because those states tend to swing Republican, while the most populous states swing Democratic.)
Bonus side-effect of popular election: Third-party candidates become more important/viable.
If we, as a country, do not feel that the 3 billion residents of Asia deserve more influence than us, because we're wealthier or have more guns, then we should not be party to a union that does grants it. (It also follows that a scenario in which US is not spearheading that empire is one in which our geopolitical relevance has been greatly diminished)
Conversely, if we did wish to be part of such a one world government, I think it would be pretty unhealthy to expect that we should have an equal or greater power than that population to enact global policy (rather than merely veto it).
Or, you know, we could try diplomacy/politics and try to get other populations to align with us to achieve our goals. This is the argument that the right quietly concedes, and they do so quietly because it is tantamount to admitting that they have given up on actually appealing to the majority.
Do your interests align with China and India enough to overcome any problems you have with the policy they want in order to join a coalition with them? If, for example, it is in the interests of China to maintain a Han ethnostate and the interests of India to accelerate Hindu nationalism within the boundaries of their sub global political organization? What if their economic interest in global governance will make your material conditions worse?
Interests, politics, and economics can be, and often are, localized and subject to local context. Ignoring those is a common criticism of interventionism military and civil.
It sure sounds like you are describing a lot of legislative related problems that would need to be addressed by the Legislature and not the Executive Branch enforcing the will of the Legislature. Which is the sole provision of the Electoral College. Legalizing faithless electors and eliminating the possibility of the NPVIC makes things worse all around since it makes Presidential elections literally meaningless if enough Electors decide it is. A national popular vote, even within State strictures like the NPVIC, eliminates the very idea of jurisdictional influence by residents on the sole National office in the Federal Government while retaining that in the House and especially the Senate. It makes 1 Vote = 1 Vote No matter if it's cast in California or Nebraska. The best way to get a majority of those votes would be to appeal to the most people, who are rather changeable in their views from year to year, rather than to the most populous and changeable/ swingey States. Hopefully SCOTUS realizes the far reaching problems of this, and oral argument seems to suggest they do.
Whether electors are free or not is orthogonal to whether a NPVIC is legal or feasible. Even if SCOTUS rules that electors can vote their conscience, no one is questioning that states have the right to determine their slate of electors however they want and states that sign on to the NPVIC can still send out a slate of people that promised to vote for the candidate who won the national vote.
And can then break that promise with no consequence.
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MrMisterJesus dying on the cross in pain? Morally better than us. One has to go "all in".Registered Userregular
If we, as a country, do not feel that the 3 billion residents of Asia deserve more influence than us, because we're wealthier or have more guns, then we should not be party to a union that does grants it. (It also follows that a scenario in which US is not spearheading that empire is one in which our geopolitical relevance has been greatly diminished)
Conversely, if we did wish to be part of such a one world government, I think it would be pretty unhealthy to expect that we should have an equal or greater power than that population to enact global policy (rather than merely veto it).
Or, you know, we could try diplomacy/politics and try to get other populations to align with us to achieve our goals. This is the argument that the right quietly concedes, and they do so quietly because it is tantamount to admitting that they have given up on actually appealing to the majority.
Do your interests align with China and India enough to overcome any problems you have with the policy they want in order to join a coalition with them? If, for example, it is in the interests of China to maintain a Han ethnostate and the interests of India to accelerate Hindu nationalism within the boundaries of their sub global political organization? What if their economic interest in global governance will make your material conditions worse?
Interests, politics, and economics can be, and often are, localized and subject to local context. Ignoring those is a common criticism of interventionism military and civil.
It sure sounds like you are describing a lot of legislative related problems that would need to be addressed by the Legislature and not the Executive Branch enforcing the will of the Legislature. Which is the sole provision of the Electoral College. Legalizing faithless electors and eliminating the possibility of the NPVIC makes things worse all around since it makes Presidential elections literally meaningless if enough Electors decide it is. A national popular vote, even within State strictures like the NPVIC, eliminates the very idea of jurisdictional influence by residents on the sole National office in the Federal Government while retaining that in the House and especially the Senate. It makes 1 Vote = 1 Vote No matter if it's cast in California or Nebraska. The best way to get a majority of those votes would be to appeal to the most people, who are rather changeable in their views from year to year, rather than to the most populous and changeable/ swingey States. Hopefully SCOTUS realizes the far reaching problems of this, and oral argument seems to suggest they do.
Whether electors are free or not is orthogonal to whether a NPVIC is legal or feasible. Even if SCOTUS rules that electors can vote their conscience, no one is questioning that states have the right to determine their slate of electors however they want and states that sign on to the NPVIC can still send out a slate of people that promised to vote for the candidate who won the national vote.
And can then break that promise with no consequence.
Which, as far as anyone can tell, was already true irrespective of an NPVIC or not... hence the issues being orthogonal.
If we, as a country, do not feel that the 3 billion residents of Asia deserve more influence than us, because we're wealthier or have more guns, then we should not be party to a union that does grants it. (It also follows that a scenario in which US is not spearheading that empire is one in which our geopolitical relevance has been greatly diminished)
Conversely, if we did wish to be part of such a one world government, I think it would be pretty unhealthy to expect that we should have an equal or greater power than that population to enact global policy (rather than merely veto it).
Or, you know, we could try diplomacy/politics and try to get other populations to align with us to achieve our goals. This is the argument that the right quietly concedes, and they do so quietly because it is tantamount to admitting that they have given up on actually appealing to the majority.
Do your interests align with China and India enough to overcome any problems you have with the policy they want in order to join a coalition with them? If, for example, it is in the interests of China to maintain a Han ethnostate and the interests of India to accelerate Hindu nationalism within the boundaries of their sub global political organization? What if their economic interest in global governance will make your material conditions worse?
Interests, politics, and economics can be, and often are, localized and subject to local context. Ignoring those is a common criticism of interventionism military and civil.
It sure sounds like you are describing a lot of legislative related problems that would need to be addressed by the Legislature and not the Executive Branch enforcing the will of the Legislature. Which is the sole provision of the Electoral College. Legalizing faithless electors and eliminating the possibility of the NPVIC makes things worse all around since it makes Presidential elections literally meaningless if enough Electors decide it is. A national popular vote, even within State strictures like the NPVIC, eliminates the very idea of jurisdictional influence by residents on the sole National office in the Federal Government while retaining that in the House and especially the Senate. It makes 1 Vote = 1 Vote No matter if it's cast in California or Nebraska. The best way to get a majority of those votes would be to appeal to the most people, who are rather changeable in their views from year to year, rather than to the most populous and changeable/ swingey States. Hopefully SCOTUS realizes the far reaching problems of this, and oral argument seems to suggest they do.
Whether electors are free or not is orthogonal to whether a NPVIC is legal or feasible. Even if SCOTUS rules that electors can vote their conscience, no one is questioning that states have the right to determine their slate of electors however they want and states that sign on to the NPVIC can still send out a slate of people that promised to vote for the candidate who won the national vote.
And can then break that promise with no consequence.
Which, as far as anyone can tell, was already true irrespective of an NPVIC or not... hence the issues being orthogonal.
No, several States have criminalized Electors breaking faith. Depending on how SCOTUS rules, they would have legal repercussions.
As a substantive matter, I think the electoral college sucks and it especially sucks to allow faithless electors. Yet, at least on the face of it, I find the claim that faithlessness is permitted pretty plausible. I find Lessig's parallel with Senators highly persuasive. Both were originally selected by state legislatures, at their discretion, to represent them in federal affairs. Presumably, despite state legislatures selecting senators, once selected, the states had no power to determine their votes, nor to punish them for how they voted after the fact. But then what about the text or structure of the law indicates that electors are any different?
I mean: "because it would suck," yes, but a whole lot of things about the constitution suck so that's not exactly novel.
Edit: additionally, the entire idea of using electors seems bizarre if states were intended to be empowered to compel their votes. Why not simply allow states to declare the votes directly?
Edit edit: or, Kavanaugh sounds extremely right here--
"In questions for Weiser, Kavanaugh posited that, if anything, the text of the Constitution might support the electors. What, he asked, is the purpose of having the electors and a detailed scheme if not to make them “free agents”? Weiser reiterated that the Constitution gives the states a choice: electors can act as proxy voters on behalf of the public, or they can be “free agents.” But Kavanaugh was unsatisfied. If that was what the Founding Fathers wanted, he asked, why didn’t they just leave it to the states instead of including a host of details about how the plan is supposed to operate?"
I kind of agree. It seems weird to have electors but not let them be faithless. Its certainly been an article of lore that it was a thing that "could happen". But lore is not law and the answer in retort is twofold
1) They did not give a host of details. They specifically left the manner in which to choose electors to the states. If the states wish to choose electors based on the vote that they cast then this is their right. The only aspect that is proscribed specifically is that the electors should seal their choice. This may be to prevent fraud or for another manner but that reason is not specified. It is certainly not specified that electors are to be free from influence from their state. If the Founding Fathers wished that states did not have the right to do this when why did they not limit the states power at the same time they limited the states power to determine who was an elector?
2) The host of details that they did give has been changed by amendment twice. Any appropriate ruling based on authorial intent or historical norms would be based at the time of the latest amendment, 1804 or 1932 depending on how you would wish to take it. Which while this may include some Founding Fathers it certainly does not include all of them. And definitely includes a large group of people who are not of that group.
edit: Potentially one more retort
3. No state has on its books a law that allows them to recall their senators. Nor have they done so on their own initiative. That they have not done so is not an indication that is it not within their power. If it is indeed not within their power then this is almost certainly a result of amendment 17 and not the language that let the legislatures of the respective states choose their senators as that language is no longer binding and the People had subsequently decided it needed changing.
obligatory ianal disclosure and all--
That out of the way: everyone agrees that states' right to determine how electors are chosen extends to selecting those that promise to vote a certain way. And, indeed, that's been good enough in practice since forever. But what's at issue is whether, once selected, states can revoke elector status for those who they now suspect will not vote that way, or whether they can punish them for voting against their word. Unlike the method of selection, these powers are not explicitly delegated to the states. Yet neither are they explicitly withheld, as you point out. If states were not intended to have that power, why were they not explicitly withheld?
One answer is that it is implicit in the scheme that electors be free, hence there is no need to redundantly state their freedom. And I don't think that any of what you've put in those rebuttals really answers why it would make sense to install a scheme of electors whose votes could be overrulled by their states. If that were intended, it would make more sense to simply let states vote directly--which, if they saw fit, they could do through selecting "free" electors without needing that to be specified by the constitution. You mention subsequent amendments. Some subsequent amendments mention electors, but as far as I can see none of the subsequent amendments which mention electors give any indication that they intend to change whether they are bound or not. If they intended such a change, they didn't say so. But that seems like a very weird thing to intend yet not say.
In addition to the idea of freedom being implicit in making sense of why electors exist at all, another answer is that states do not generally have the power to control their federal representatives, and hence there is no need to specify, in describing the role of every federal official, that states cannot try to control their execution of their function. The first legal summary I turned up said that the framers considered, but rejected the idea of state recall of their federal officials. Some state constitutions claim that power, but it has never been tested in court. The closest precedent is unfriendly, in which the supreme court ruled that states cannot impose any requirements on federal officials representing them which are stricter than those laid out in the federal constitution (overturning many states' attempts to term limit their federal officials). State AGs and Courts which have considered the question have spoken against state authority to recall. So I think you're off about Senators--Senators were free from recall even before amendment 17, and not because of it, and their freedom once selected is not unique to them.
So this continues to strike me as a case where there's a results-oriented answer which is obviously better, because the electoral college was a shitty idea to begin with, but where reasonable canons of interpretation--assume things are put in place for a reason, assume consistency unless otherwise explicitly stated, etc.--seem like they really come down on the other side.
Some retorts:
There is no difference between “its implicit” and “i want it to be so”. If its not written down somewhere then like thats just your opinion, man. And not the intent of the legislatures at the time of the writing. Which is what Kavanaugh is claiming. At the time of the writing i dont think there is much difference between states voting directly and states having representatives. Representatives existed because the mechanisms of state did not operate on a level that would allow them to do that.
Plus the distinction that they can choose them for how they vote but not enforce that is no distinction. Its implicit in the ability to choose legal actions that punishment for illegal action can be punished. Similarly its implicit in the ability to choose based on how someone will vote to punish them for not voting in the way they claimed.
Let us say the state requires a sworn affadavit in front of a judge as to the manner in which they vote. Would we prevent the state charging people who lie in court with perjury? What is the difference between that method and the current less formal method?
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MrMisterJesus dying on the cross in pain? Morally better than us. One has to go "all in".Registered Userregular
If we, as a country, do not feel that the 3 billion residents of Asia deserve more influence than us, because we're wealthier or have more guns, then we should not be party to a union that does grants it. (It also follows that a scenario in which US is not spearheading that empire is one in which our geopolitical relevance has been greatly diminished)
Conversely, if we did wish to be part of such a one world government, I think it would be pretty unhealthy to expect that we should have an equal or greater power than that population to enact global policy (rather than merely veto it).
Or, you know, we could try diplomacy/politics and try to get other populations to align with us to achieve our goals. This is the argument that the right quietly concedes, and they do so quietly because it is tantamount to admitting that they have given up on actually appealing to the majority.
Do your interests align with China and India enough to overcome any problems you have with the policy they want in order to join a coalition with them? If, for example, it is in the interests of China to maintain a Han ethnostate and the interests of India to accelerate Hindu nationalism within the boundaries of their sub global political organization? What if their economic interest in global governance will make your material conditions worse?
Interests, politics, and economics can be, and often are, localized and subject to local context. Ignoring those is a common criticism of interventionism military and civil.
It sure sounds like you are describing a lot of legislative related problems that would need to be addressed by the Legislature and not the Executive Branch enforcing the will of the Legislature. Which is the sole provision of the Electoral College. Legalizing faithless electors and eliminating the possibility of the NPVIC makes things worse all around since it makes Presidential elections literally meaningless if enough Electors decide it is. A national popular vote, even within State strictures like the NPVIC, eliminates the very idea of jurisdictional influence by residents on the sole National office in the Federal Government while retaining that in the House and especially the Senate. It makes 1 Vote = 1 Vote No matter if it's cast in California or Nebraska. The best way to get a majority of those votes would be to appeal to the most people, who are rather changeable in their views from year to year, rather than to the most populous and changeable/ swingey States. Hopefully SCOTUS realizes the far reaching problems of this, and oral argument seems to suggest they do.
Whether electors are free or not is orthogonal to whether a NPVIC is legal or feasible. Even if SCOTUS rules that electors can vote their conscience, no one is questioning that states have the right to determine their slate of electors however they want and states that sign on to the NPVIC can still send out a slate of people that promised to vote for the candidate who won the national vote.
And can then break that promise with no consequence.
Which, as far as anyone can tell, was already true irrespective of an NPVIC or not... hence the issues being orthogonal.
No, several States have criminalized Electors breaking faith. Depending on how SCOTUS rules, they would have legal repercussions.
Yes, some States have passed such laws; have they ever been enforced? My understanding was that they have not, that this is the first attempt, and that it is correspondingly the first time SCOTUS has directly considered their constitutionality. Hence it has been true up till now that whether such laws were enforceable was an open question.
It is still unclear to me whether you recognize that these are in fact two separate issues: the NPVIC governs how electors are selected; whereas the current court case is about whether electors, however they are selected, are free.
It's true that if the court ruled electors are free, then electors could theoretically stage a mass revolt where they refused to vote for the candidates they promised, and hence they could subvert an NPVIC against the will of the states. Then again, if the court ruled electors are free, then electors could also theoretically stage a mass revolt wherein they instituted an effective national vote against the will of the states, simply by all agreeing to vote for the national vote winner. Again, two distinct issues.
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MrMisterJesus dying on the cross in pain? Morally better than us. One has to go "all in".Registered Userregular
As a substantive matter, I think the electoral college sucks and it especially sucks to allow faithless electors. Yet, at least on the face of it, I find the claim that faithlessness is permitted pretty plausible. I find Lessig's parallel with Senators highly persuasive. Both were originally selected by state legislatures, at their discretion, to represent them in federal affairs. Presumably, despite state legislatures selecting senators, once selected, the states had no power to determine their votes, nor to punish them for how they voted after the fact. But then what about the text or structure of the law indicates that electors are any different?
I mean: "because it would suck," yes, but a whole lot of things about the constitution suck so that's not exactly novel.
Edit: additionally, the entire idea of using electors seems bizarre if states were intended to be empowered to compel their votes. Why not simply allow states to declare the votes directly?
Edit edit: or, Kavanaugh sounds extremely right here--
"In questions for Weiser, Kavanaugh posited that, if anything, the text of the Constitution might support the electors. What, he asked, is the purpose of having the electors and a detailed scheme if not to make them “free agents”? Weiser reiterated that the Constitution gives the states a choice: electors can act as proxy voters on behalf of the public, or they can be “free agents.” But Kavanaugh was unsatisfied. If that was what the Founding Fathers wanted, he asked, why didn’t they just leave it to the states instead of including a host of details about how the plan is supposed to operate?"
I kind of agree. It seems weird to have electors but not let them be faithless. Its certainly been an article of lore that it was a thing that "could happen". But lore is not law and the answer in retort is twofold
1) They did not give a host of details. They specifically left the manner in which to choose electors to the states. If the states wish to choose electors based on the vote that they cast then this is their right. The only aspect that is proscribed specifically is that the electors should seal their choice. This may be to prevent fraud or for another manner but that reason is not specified. It is certainly not specified that electors are to be free from influence from their state. If the Founding Fathers wished that states did not have the right to do this when why did they not limit the states power at the same time they limited the states power to determine who was an elector?
2) The host of details that they did give has been changed by amendment twice. Any appropriate ruling based on authorial intent or historical norms would be based at the time of the latest amendment, 1804 or 1932 depending on how you would wish to take it. Which while this may include some Founding Fathers it certainly does not include all of them. And definitely includes a large group of people who are not of that group.
edit: Potentially one more retort
3. No state has on its books a law that allows them to recall their senators. Nor have they done so on their own initiative. That they have not done so is not an indication that is it not within their power. If it is indeed not within their power then this is almost certainly a result of amendment 17 and not the language that let the legislatures of the respective states choose their senators as that language is no longer binding and the People had subsequently decided it needed changing.
obligatory ianal disclosure and all--
That out of the way: everyone agrees that states' right to determine how electors are chosen extends to selecting those that promise to vote a certain way. And, indeed, that's been good enough in practice since forever. But what's at issue is whether, once selected, states can revoke elector status for those who they now suspect will not vote that way, or whether they can punish them for voting against their word. Unlike the method of selection, these powers are not explicitly delegated to the states. Yet neither are they explicitly withheld, as you point out. If states were not intended to have that power, why were they not explicitly withheld?
One answer is that it is implicit in the scheme that electors be free, hence there is no need to redundantly state their freedom. And I don't think that any of what you've put in those rebuttals really answers why it would make sense to install a scheme of electors whose votes could be overrulled by their states. If that were intended, it would make more sense to simply let states vote directly--which, if they saw fit, they could do through selecting "free" electors without needing that to be specified by the constitution. You mention subsequent amendments. Some subsequent amendments mention electors, but as far as I can see none of the subsequent amendments which mention electors give any indication that they intend to change whether they are bound or not. If they intended such a change, they didn't say so. But that seems like a very weird thing to intend yet not say.
In addition to the idea of freedom being implicit in making sense of why electors exist at all, another answer is that states do not generally have the power to control their federal representatives, and hence there is no need to specify, in describing the role of every federal official, that states cannot try to control their execution of their function. The first legal summary I turned up said that the framers considered, but rejected the idea of state recall of their federal officials. Some state constitutions claim that power, but it has never been tested in court. The closest precedent is unfriendly, in which the supreme court ruled that states cannot impose any requirements on federal officials representing them which are stricter than those laid out in the federal constitution (overturning many states' attempts to term limit their federal officials). State AGs and Courts which have considered the question have spoken against state authority to recall. So I think you're off about Senators--Senators were free from recall even before amendment 17, and not because of it, and their freedom once selected is not unique to them.
So this continues to strike me as a case where there's a results-oriented answer which is obviously better, because the electoral college was a shitty idea to begin with, but where reasonable canons of interpretation--assume things are put in place for a reason, assume consistency unless otherwise explicitly stated, etc.--seem like they really come down on the other side.
Some retorts:
There is no difference between “its implicit” and “i want it to be so”. If its not written down somewhere then like thats just your opinion, man. And not the intent of the legislatures at the time of the writing. Which is what Kavanaugh is claiming. At the time of the writing i dont think there is much difference between states voting directly and states having representatives. Representatives existed because the mechanisms of state did not operate on a level that would allow them to do that.
Plus the distinction that they can choose them for how they vote but not enforce that is no distinction. Its implicit in the ability to choose legal actions that punishment for illegal action can be punished. Similarly its implicit in the ability to choose based on how someone will vote to punish them for not voting in the way they claimed.
Let us say the state requires a sworn affadavit in front of a judge as to the manner in which they vote. Would we prevent the state charging people who lie in court with perjury? What is the difference between that method and the current less formal method?
Point #1: is drifting toward the Air Bud theory of interpretation--where does it say you can't make a dog a supreme court justice? But even textualists think that explicit provisions imply further implicit content, and there is no feasible way to record law in a way that would allow all implicit content to be made explicit.
Point #2: When the Supreme Court considered the constitutionality of the pledge requirement, they were clear that ruling on the requirement to pledge was not the same as ruling on whether electors were required to follow through on their pledges. Ray v. Blair, 1952: "However, even if such promises of candidates for the electoral college are legally unenforceable because violative of an assumed constitutional freedom of the elector under the Constitution, Art. II, § 1, to vote as he may choose in the electoral college, it would not follow that the requirement of a pledge in the primary is unconstitutional." The court explicitly rejected the claim that the power to require a pledge inherently includes a power to require faithfulness to that pledge.
Point #3: no, as a matter of law I don't believe the method you describe would be enforceable.
As a matter of law a pledge that is not enforcable is not a pledge. How is this not like any other contract?
My post directly quoted the Supreme Court holding in which they ruled that requiring a pledge from electors does not imply the ability to enforce that pledge on electors, so, as a matter of law, no.
As a matter of law a pledge that is not enforcable is not a pledge. How is this not like any other contract?
My post directly quoted the Supreme Court holding in which they ruled that requiring a pledge from electors does not imply the ability to enforce that pledge on electors, so, as a matter of law, no.
Only in that they did not want to answer the question. Not that there was no implication. There is a difference.
As a matter of law a pledge that is not enforcable is not a pledge. How is this not like any other contract?
Have pledges ever been enforcible, anywhere? Maybe for testimony in court, but even then I suspect the crime isn't actually the violation of the pledge.
As a matter of law a pledge that is not enforcable is not a pledge. How is this not like any other contract?
Have pledges ever been enforcible, anywhere? Maybe for testimony in court, but even then I suspect the crime isn't actually the violation of the pledge.
Yes. The enforcability of pledges is more or less the entire basis of contract law. You pledge to do X in exchange for Y. Y gets done and the state will force you to do X if you attempt to reneg. (or equivalent stuffs)
As a matter of law a pledge that is not enforcable is not a pledge. How is this not like any other contract?
Have pledges ever been enforcible, anywhere? Maybe for testimony in court, but even then I suspect the crime isn't actually the violation of the pledge.
Yes. The enforcability of pledges is more or less the entire basis of contract law. You pledge to do X in exchange for Y. Y gets done and the state will force you to do X if you attempt to reneg. (or equivalent stuffs)
Yet many pledges are unenforceable. If I pledged to you to murder someone, you could not collect damages against me when I failed to murder someone. Perhaps closer to the present case, candidates for political often promise to make certain decisions before being elected but then renege ('read my lips: no new taxes'). It is broadly recognized that these promises are unenforceable, because the discretion inherent in being and officeholder cannot legally be promised away beforehand. Plausibly, that also describes electors, whose role was envisioned and described as a discretionary one. You're speaking in an authoritative voice about this issue, but please cite any legal source which agrees with your interpretation.
Scotusblog put out a collection of short pieces on the faithless elector cases here that might be of interest to the thread.
I think Rob Natelson is extremely persuasive on the point that electors were meant to be free, and everyone assumed them to be free, for at the very least quite a while. Paul Smith and Adav Noti are persuasive that nonetheless the decision should at least be punted till after 2020, because a formal recognition of freedom before election law has time to catch up could be a disaster. The contra-arguments naturally strike me as bullshittier, but of course ymmv.
The act of the pledge is illegal. You cannot contract to do a crime
There is no consideration for the pledge. A contract must be give/take.
The officeholder pledge being unenforceable is either a or b. You cannot promise before hand because you receive nothing for your promise. You cannot contract to do so because it’s explicitly illegal by statute.
So by analogy is there a criminal law that prevents this kind of situation? Does the elector receive nothing from the state? Both claims fail, i think.
I broadly agree, personally, that electors were meant to be free. That is the fiction we have told ourselves in school houses around the nation since there has been one. But i dont think the law is clear on that.
We also hold a public election and that implies that electors are not free. If they were then there would be no need of one. There would be no need of it being on the same date in the many states. It would serve no purpose in law unless it was meant to bind the electors. And yet it is required.
The electors' votes are public, too, which to some extent weakens the idea that they're intended to be free to choose.
life's a game that you're bound to lose / like using a hammer to pound in screws
fuck up once and you break your thumb / if you're happy at all then you're god damn dumb
that's right we're on a fucked up cruise / God is dead but at least we have booze
bad things happen, no one knows why / the sun burns out and everyone dies
What I'm reading is that Kavanaugh's dissent is completely insane (like, so crazy Alito felt he had to write a separate one that was less crazy) and Roberts wrote his opinion specifically to attack it.
Self-righteousness is incompatible with coalition building.
California isn't making grocery stores limit to 25% occupancy so they can't do that to churches.
They're similar because I haven't gone to church in a decade and I know I starved to death years ago.
More importantly they aren't similar exposure risks. California is applying similar restrictions to theaters and lectures so the Church complaint is basically they aren't being treated as an exception.
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obligatory ianal disclosure and all--
That out of the way: everyone agrees that states' right to determine how electors are chosen extends to selecting those that promise to vote a certain way. And, indeed, that's been good enough in practice since forever. But what's at issue is whether, once selected, states can revoke elector status for those who they now suspect will not vote that way, or whether they can punish them for voting against their word. Unlike the method of selection, these powers are not explicitly delegated to the states. Yet neither are they explicitly withheld, as you point out. If states were not intended to have that power, why were they not explicitly withheld?
One answer is that it is implicit in the scheme that electors be free, hence there is no need to redundantly state their freedom. And I don't think that any of what you've put in those rebuttals really answers why it would make sense to install a scheme of electors whose votes could be overrulled by their states. If that were intended, it would make more sense to simply let states vote directly--which, if they saw fit, they could do through selecting "free" electors without needing that to be specified by the constitution. You mention subsequent amendments. Some subsequent amendments mention electors, but as far as I can see none of the subsequent amendments which mention electors give any indication that they intend to change whether they are bound or not. If they intended such a change, they didn't say so. But that seems like a very weird thing to intend yet not say.
In addition to the idea of freedom being implicit in making sense of why electors exist at all, another answer is that states do not generally have the power to control their federal representatives, and hence there is no need to specify, in describing the role of every federal official, that states cannot try to control their execution of their function. The first legal summary I turned up said that the framers considered, but rejected the idea of state recall of their federal officials. Some state constitutions claim that power, but it has never been tested in court. The closest precedent is unfriendly, in which the supreme court ruled that states cannot impose any requirements on federal officials representing them which are stricter than those laid out in the federal constitution (overturning many states' attempts to term limit their federal officials). State AGs and Courts which have considered the question have spoken against state authority to recall. So I think you're off about Senators--Senators were free from recall even before amendment 17, and not because of it, and their freedom once selected is not unique to them.
So this continues to strike me as a case where there's a results-oriented answer which is obviously better, because the electoral college was a shitty idea to begin with, but where reasonable canons of interpretation--assume things are put in place for a reason, assume consistency unless otherwise explicitly stated, etc.--seem like they really come down on the other side.
I didn't take that as a straw man, it's a perfectly fair analogy. Our present situation is quite similar, in that we created a system where states have power, but never outlined a metric-based requirement to be considered a state, and the end result is a patchwork of wildy disparate economies, populations, and natural resources.
If we, as a country, do not feel that the 3 billion residents of Asia deserve more influence than us, because we're wealthier or have more guns, then we should not be party to a union that does grants it. (It also follows that a scenario in which US is not spearheading that empire is one in which our geopolitical relevance has been greatly diminished)
Conversely, if we did wish to be part of such a one world government, I think it would be pretty unhealthy to expect that we should have an equal or greater power than that population to enact global policy (rather than merely veto it).
It's a very fair comparison, in fact, because it also illustrates the kind of horse trading that had to happen in the first place to get the original colonies on board with the current system of federal representation that managed to balanced the equation for those specific 13 states and no others.
Since the flaws of that system have been exasperated over time and with the number states quadroupling, I have no issue ceding that the concerns of the largest concentration of people deserve more weight with regard to the direction of shared resources than my local area (which happens to be the third largest state, sure, but...)
Nominal Topicality Edit:
You'd have an easier time proposing a federation between the US and China than convincing the independent nation's equivalent to modern CA and TX to join a union where the Dakota region gets four votes on federal judges (eh? eh? :winky: ) and they each get two. Our system would look very different, whether in terms of state representation, or the definition of states.
Except that 1 Man 1 Vote eliminates the very idea of 'Blue/ Red States' in the context of a national Presidential election entirely. California isn't calling the shots over Nebraska, every individual voter is. The interests of Nebraska are represented in the Congress, not in the Executive which is National by it's very nature. Again, the President is President of the United States, not just the States he personally cares about.
Or, you know, we could try diplomacy/politics and try to get other populations to align with us to achieve our goals. This is the argument that the right quietly concedes, and they do so quietly because it is tantamount to admitting that they have given up on actually appealing to the majority.
Do your interests align with China and India enough to overcome any problems you have with the policy they want in order to join a coalition with them? If, for example, it is in the interests of China to maintain a Han ethnostate and the interests of India to accelerate Hindu nationalism within the boundaries of their sub global political organization? What if their economic interest in global governance will make your material conditions worse?
Interests, politics, and economics can be, and often are, localized and subject to local context. Ignoring those is a common criticism of interventionism military and civil.
Well, since there's no one-world government, this hypothetical seems silly. There is, though, a one-america government. It's called the federal government.
And the EC doesn't preserve local context better then the popular vote. It just privileges some local contexts over others, based on the random historical distribution of state borders rather then population.
Your Freudian slip is showing. Much like the US, China and India are diverse nations that are far from monolithic - so in your hypothetical world government, there would be space to attract like-minded groups. In fact, there are a number of international movements built on that very principle.
Hell, there's no sensible reason to have a Senate with 2 Senators per state. It's just a bad way to arrange a democratic state.
So You're going to deflect instead of directly answer the question.
I can only conclude that you're afraid to answer truthfully. It would require you to say that partnering with e.g. China for the pursuit of political power would be worth the reprehensible things they would do or recognize that other people have interests and disagreeing with you doesn't mean they are working against their own better interests.
I didn't deflect, I openly rejected the basis of your argument, most notibly how you're treating China - a large nation made up of a number of ethnic groups and has massive friction on those lines (you know, just like the United States) - as a single monolithic entity (which in a world government it would be even less of one.)
Your argument is built on false premises.
Han Chinese outnumber all other Chinese ethnic minorities and all Americans put together by a margin of approximately 3:1. If everyone really were put in a single voting pool, Americans could make all the allies they wanted to with ethnic minorities in China and they would be lucky to crack 25% of the joint electorate.
Pace Rand, I don’t think that objections to world government tell us that much about the best structure of US federalism, but this ‘well, actually’ point about diversity in China misses the mark.
China is over 90% Han. A greater percentage of the membership of the CCP is Han. And the CCP absolutely works with a single hand towards their interests. It is literally in their constitution that the CCP is the vanguard party and their institutions are built in such a way that the party exercises ultimate control.
They are currently engaged in ethnic cleansing on a scale that I'm sure the Likud and even more Zionist parties in Israel would probably think was pretty alright, while Israel's Jewish population is roughly 20 points lower. But I am sure I could look through your post history and find a comment about how Israel is an ethno state engaging in apartheid.
You're just afraid to answer the question because it either betrays you really aren't so Liberal or you have to admit maybe people can disagree with you and not be evil or stupid.
Rock Band DLC | GW:OttW - arrcd | WLD - Thortar
You're making a similar faulty argument. Just as no one nation is a monolith, neither is any "race" (which, let's remember, is a social and cultural construct.) The point wasn't diversity, but that treating any group as monolithic without good evidence for it being so is a faulty premise at best.
The Electoral College was made specifically as a way to prevent people like Trump from taking the Presidency. The moment they failed to actualize their one purpose they lost all validity.
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It sure sounds like you are describing a lot of legislative related problems that would need to be addressed by the Legislature and not the Executive Branch enforcing the will of the Legislature. Which is the sole provision of the Electoral College. Legalizing faithless electors and eliminating the possibility of the NPVIC makes things worse all around since it makes Presidential elections literally meaningless if enough Electors decide it is. A national popular vote, even within State strictures like the NPVIC, eliminates the very idea of jurisdictional influence by residents on the sole National office in the Federal Government while retaining that in the House and especially the Senate. It makes 1 Vote = 1 Vote No matter if it's cast in California or Nebraska. The best way to get a majority of those votes would be to appeal to the most people, who are rather changeable in their views from year to year, rather than to the most populous and changeable/ swingey States. Hopefully SCOTUS realizes the far reaching problems of this, and oral argument seems to suggest they do.
Whether electors are free or not is orthogonal to whether a NPVIC is legal or feasible. Even if SCOTUS rules that electors can vote their conscience, no one is questioning that states have the right to determine their slate of electors however they want and states that sign on to the NPVIC can still send out a slate of people that promised to vote for the candidate who won the national vote.
So what's the point of the EC if they have to promise to vote for whoever gets more votes in that state? (Rhetorical question: The current point of the EC is to give states with lower population disproportionate power over presidential elections, because those states tend to swing Republican, while the most populous states swing Democratic.)
Bonus side-effect of popular election: Third-party candidates become more important/viable.
Rock Band DLC | GW:OttW - arrcd | WLD - Thortar
And can then break that promise with no consequence.
Which, as far as anyone can tell, was already true irrespective of an NPVIC or not... hence the issues being orthogonal.
No, several States have criminalized Electors breaking faith. Depending on how SCOTUS rules, they would have legal repercussions.
Some retorts:
There is no difference between “its implicit” and “i want it to be so”. If its not written down somewhere then like thats just your opinion, man. And not the intent of the legislatures at the time of the writing. Which is what Kavanaugh is claiming. At the time of the writing i dont think there is much difference between states voting directly and states having representatives. Representatives existed because the mechanisms of state did not operate on a level that would allow them to do that.
Plus the distinction that they can choose them for how they vote but not enforce that is no distinction. Its implicit in the ability to choose legal actions that punishment for illegal action can be punished. Similarly its implicit in the ability to choose based on how someone will vote to punish them for not voting in the way they claimed.
Let us say the state requires a sworn affadavit in front of a judge as to the manner in which they vote. Would we prevent the state charging people who lie in court with perjury? What is the difference between that method and the current less formal method?
Yes, some States have passed such laws; have they ever been enforced? My understanding was that they have not, that this is the first attempt, and that it is correspondingly the first time SCOTUS has directly considered their constitutionality. Hence it has been true up till now that whether such laws were enforceable was an open question.
It is still unclear to me whether you recognize that these are in fact two separate issues: the NPVIC governs how electors are selected; whereas the current court case is about whether electors, however they are selected, are free.
It's true that if the court ruled electors are free, then electors could theoretically stage a mass revolt where they refused to vote for the candidates they promised, and hence they could subvert an NPVIC against the will of the states. Then again, if the court ruled electors are free, then electors could also theoretically stage a mass revolt wherein they instituted an effective national vote against the will of the states, simply by all agreeing to vote for the national vote winner. Again, two distinct issues.
Point #1: is drifting toward the Air Bud theory of interpretation--where does it say you can't make a dog a supreme court justice? But even textualists think that explicit provisions imply further implicit content, and there is no feasible way to record law in a way that would allow all implicit content to be made explicit.
Point #2: When the Supreme Court considered the constitutionality of the pledge requirement, they were clear that ruling on the requirement to pledge was not the same as ruling on whether electors were required to follow through on their pledges. Ray v. Blair, 1952: "However, even if such promises of candidates for the electoral college are legally unenforceable because violative of an assumed constitutional freedom of the elector under the Constitution, Art. II, § 1, to vote as he may choose in the electoral college, it would not follow that the requirement of a pledge in the primary is unconstitutional." The court explicitly rejected the claim that the power to require a pledge inherently includes a power to require faithfulness to that pledge.
Point #3: no, as a matter of law I don't believe the method you describe would be enforceable.
My post directly quoted the Supreme Court holding in which they ruled that requiring a pledge from electors does not imply the ability to enforce that pledge on electors, so, as a matter of law, no.
Only in that they did not want to answer the question. Not that there was no implication. There is a difference.
Have pledges ever been enforcible, anywhere? Maybe for testimony in court, but even then I suspect the crime isn't actually the violation of the pledge.
Yes. The enforcability of pledges is more or less the entire basis of contract law. You pledge to do X in exchange for Y. Y gets done and the state will force you to do X if you attempt to reneg. (or equivalent stuffs)
Yet many pledges are unenforceable. If I pledged to you to murder someone, you could not collect damages against me when I failed to murder someone. Perhaps closer to the present case, candidates for political often promise to make certain decisions before being elected but then renege ('read my lips: no new taxes'). It is broadly recognized that these promises are unenforceable, because the discretion inherent in being and officeholder cannot legally be promised away beforehand. Plausibly, that also describes electors, whose role was envisioned and described as a discretionary one. You're speaking in an authoritative voice about this issue, but please cite any legal source which agrees with your interpretation.
Scotusblog put out a collection of short pieces on the faithless elector cases here that might be of interest to the thread.
I think Rob Natelson is extremely persuasive on the point that electors were meant to be free, and everyone assumed them to be free, for at the very least quite a while. Paul Smith and Adav Noti are persuasive that nonetheless the decision should at least be punted till after 2020, because a formal recognition of freedom before election law has time to catch up could be a disaster. The contra-arguments naturally strike me as bullshittier, but of course ymmv.
The act of the pledge is illegal. You cannot contract to do a crime
There is no consideration for the pledge. A contract must be give/take.
The officeholder pledge being unenforceable is either a or b. You cannot promise before hand because you receive nothing for your promise. You cannot contract to do so because it’s explicitly illegal by statute.
So by analogy is there a criminal law that prevents this kind of situation? Does the elector receive nothing from the state? Both claims fail, i think.
I broadly agree, personally, that electors were meant to be free. That is the fiction we have told ourselves in school houses around the nation since there has been one. But i dont think the law is clear on that.
We also hold a public election and that implies that electors are not free. If they were then there would be no need of one. There would be no need of it being on the same date in the many states. It would serve no purpose in law unless it was meant to bind the electors. And yet it is required.
fuck up once and you break your thumb / if you're happy at all then you're god damn dumb
that's right we're on a fucked up cruise / God is dead but at least we have booze
bad things happen, no one knows why / the sun burns out and everyone dies
(Slate reporter)
Hey, some good SCOTUS news
California isn't making grocery stores limit to 25% occupancy so they can't do that to churches.
They're similar because I haven't gone to church in a decade and I know I starved to death years ago.