Hillary Clinton was at it again the other day, complaining about how, if it weren’t for that darned electoral college, she’d be president now. The Daily Mail reports on Clinton’s remarks in her recent speech in the UK:
“Populists can stay in power by mobilizing a fervent base. Now, there are many other lessons like this,” she said, adding that she had “my personal experience with winning three million more votes but still losing.”
But there’s nothing really novel about this. Clinton has been whining about the Electoral College since 2016.
The real news here, as Ed Morrissey at Hot Air notes, is that Clinton was condemning populism while at the same time condemning the electoral college. In other words, Clinton doesn’t realize the electoral college is an anti-populist measure. In her speech
And why did the framers of the Constitution create it? To act as a buffer against populism, at least in form. The Electoral College reflects the popular vote on a state-by-state basis to prevent a handful of the most populous states from controlling the executive through the nationwide popular vote, which creates a buffer against the very impulse Hillary decries in this speech.
In other words, the purpose of the electoral college is to ensure that a successful presidential candidate appeals to a broader base of voters than would be the case under a simple majoritarian popular vote.
This makes it harder to win by doing what Clinton did during the campaign: focus on a thin sliver of rich Hollywood and business elites, coupled with urban ethnics.It’s true that those two groups can offer a lot of votes and a lot of campaign dollars. But they also tend to be limited to very specific regions, states, and metro areas. The groups Clinton ignored: the suburban middle class and working class make up a much larger, more geographically diverse coalition. This can be seen in the fact that Trump won such diverse states as Alabama, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin.
In 2016, the electoral college worked exactly as it’s supposed to — it forces candidates to broaden their appeal. Or as a cynic like myself might say: it forces politicians to pander to a broader base.
Clinton complains that a fervent group of voters can take over the machinery of government. But that’s harder to do with the electoral college than without it. So, Clinton is making a mockery of her own argument by one minute complaining about populism, and then complaining about the electoral college the next.
But it was the Clinton team that had the more populist strategy. For example, in the US the 4 largest states (California, Texas, New York, and Florida) constitute one-third of the US population. The top-ten largest states total 54 percent of the US population. Hillary thought she could just focus on the larger states and that would be enough. Her strategy was to ignore half the country, call them “deplorables,” and just count on the resentments of people in some big cities to carry her to victory. It’s hard to see how that’s somehow less “populist” than what Trump did.
For Hillary Clinton though, everything is personal, and the fact that the electoral college came between her and the presidency means it must be a bad thing.
The fact that it also guards against Clinton-style demagoguery, however, doesn’t make the electoral college “anti-democratic” as is thought my many who so tiresomely chant “we’re a republic not a democracy.“ 50 separate presidential elections (plus DC and the territories) is not somehow less democratic than holding one big national election. It’s simply a democratic method designed to ensure more buy in from a larger range of voters, not less. Other similar tactics include “double majorities” as used in Switzerland. And for all these reasons, as I note here, the electoral college should be expanded:
Double-majority and multiple-majority systems mandate more widespread support for a candidate or measure than would be needed under an ordinary majority vote.
Unfortunately, in the United States, it is possible to pass tax increases and other types of sweeping and costly legislation with nothing more than bare majorities from Congress which is itself largely a collection of millionaires with similar educations, backgrounds, and economic status. Even this low standard is not required in cases where the president rules via executive order with “ a pen and ... a phone .”
In response to this centralization of political power, the electoral college should be expanded to function as a veto on legislation, executive orders, and Supreme Court rulings.
For example, if Congress seeks to pass a tax increase, their legislation should be null and void without also obtaining a majority of electoral college votes in a manner similar to that of presidential elections. Under such a scheme, the federal government would be forced to submit new legal changes to the voters for approval. The same could be applied to executive orders and treaties. It would be even better to require both a popular-vote majority in addition to the electoral-vote majority. And while we’re at it, let’s require that at least 25 states approve the measures as well.
