HispanicVista Columnists
A Fair Presidential Election?
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By
Raoul Lowery Contreras/HispanicVista.com - October 15, 2007
- A Fair Presidential Election?
- By Raoul Lowery Contreras
Why is it if Democrats, Liberals, want to correct what they define as electoral, governmental and public policy deficiencies they are called reformers and visionaries?
Why is it when Republicans tell the truth, they are reviled, smeared, called "crack addicts," racists, deceptive and manipulators?
Issue: A Democratic proposal in North Carolina to change the state’s implementation of its distribution of presidential electoral votes. The Constitution assigns each state electoral votes to be cast for President based on the number of congressional members the state is entitled to after each census.
North Carolina Democrats want the state to assign two electoral votes to the statewide presidential vote winner and each individual congressional district’s electoral vote to the winner of the specific district. Nebraska and Maine currently use this system.
So far so good…Liberals and Democrats laud the North Carolina Democrats for forward-looking vision, for political integrity and "good government" policies.
Issue: California Republicans are currently hustling petition signatures for an initiative (peoples’ legislation) that will change how California distributes its 55 presidential electoral votes, all of which have gone to Democrats since 1992.
Harvard Law School’s Lawrence Tribe claims that California can’t change the Electoral vote distribution because the U.S. Constitution states specifically that only the "legislature" can make such a change. He is wrong and no court in the country would agree with him. The California Constitution outranks Tribe’s theory because California has reserved for the people the right to overrule and/or bypass the legislature to make law directly.
For example, the U.S. Constitution did not anticipate what happened in 1992. Candidate William Jefferson Clinton did not carry majorities in 30—count them—30 states including California in 1992. In 13 of those states Clinton won with pluralities of 43% or less. He "carried" three states with less than 40% of the vote en route to victory.
In other words, the Electoral College constitutional process of deference to state legislatures gave the Presidency to Bill Clinton, who never mustered a 50.1% majority like President George W. Bush did in 2004 with a 51% majority.
In Maine, Clinton received 38% of the vote and was awarded two electoral votes for carrying the state and one more because he won one of two congressional districts; President George H.W. Bush carried one district thus he received one (1) electoral vote. That is how California would distribute its electoral votes if the initiative passes.
If the proposed California and North Carolina electoral vote reforms had been implemented in 1992, President George H.W. Bush would have been reelected. Clinton would have faded from view and Hillary would still be lawyer-ing at Little Rock’s infamous Rose Law firm. Moreover, she wouldn’t be a New York senator or running for President today.
National security would not have been compromised by Chinese campaign contributions. George W. Bush might not have run for President. Monica Lewinsky would have never had 15-miuntes of fame. It is possible that 3000 Americans wouldn’t have been killed on September 11, 2001.
Given the Clinton experience, one must seriously weigh this California/North Carolina proposed electoral vote change.
If one’s vote is to be taken seriously, it must count, not just as a minority vote buried in a massive vote by sheep-like partisan people with closed minds.
So, the question is, if a majority in a congressional district vote for one candidate or another, why shouldn’t that candidate get credit for that vote?
In 2004, Senator John Kerry carried California while carrying 32 of 53 congressional districts, mostly urban, coastal with lots of minorities. So why shouldn’t have President Bush been awarded 20 electoral votes from California for the congressional districts he carried?
Isn’t that fair?
Democrat liberal columnist Bob Herbert opines in two separate Op-Ed pieces recently in The New York Times, "The folks who gave us the Willie Horton ads, the Swift boat campaign, the purges of black voters in Florida and endless other dirty electoral tricks are at it again. Like crack addicts confronting the irresistible vial, the evil geniuses of the G.O.P. can’t seem to help themselves. This time — with an eye toward seizing the White House again next year, even if they lose the popular vote — they’re trying to rewrite the rules for the distribution of electoral votes in California."
Fanatical Republican/Bush-hater Herbert neglects to tell us that Democrat Senator Al Gore first used Black rapist and murderer Willie Horton as a campaign issue. Senator John Kerry has validated Swift Boat Veteran’s attacks as accurate by not releasing his naval service record. Herbert forgets to tell us that vote purging in Florida was Democrat law when they ran the state for a hundred years. Lastly, what’s so sacrosanct about the "popular vote?" The United States has never elected a President by "popular vote."
California Republicans are just as right and visionary as North Carolina Democrats -- aren’t they?
Contreras’ books, THE ILLEGAL ALIEN: A DAGGER INTO THE HEART OF AMERICA?? and, A HISPANIC VIEW OF AMERICAN POLITICS AND THE POLITICS OF IMMIGRATION are available at www.amazon.com and www.barnesandnoble.com