On Sunday, Democrat Representative Jamie Raskin appeared on CBS’s “Face the Nation” and declared that the electoral college “has become a danger not just to democracy, but to the American people.”
Raskin told host Margaret Brennan, “I think that the Electoral College now, which has given us five popular vote losers as president in our history, twice in this century alone, has become a danger not just to democracy, but to the American people. It was a danger on January 6th, there are so many curving byways and nooks and crannies in the Electoral College, that there are opportunities for a lot of strategic mischief. We should elect the president, the way we elect governors, senators, mayors, representatives, everybody else, whoever gets the most votes wins.”
Brennan asked, “So, you don’t think that this reforming of the Electoral Count Act, which is really just making clear that the Vice President’s role is just ceremonial with the electors, you don’t think that solves the issue?
Raskin replied, “It doesn’t solve the fundamental problem. I’m for that, and that’s the very least we can do and we must do. It’s necessary, but it’s not remotely sufficient. You know, we spend hundreds of millions of dollars every year exporting American democracy to other countries, and the one thing they never come back to us with is the idea that, ‘Oh, that Electoral College that you have, that’s so great, we think we will adopt that too.’ You know, Thomas Jefferson said that he deplored the sanctimonious reverence with which some people look at the original handiwork of the framers when they should be looking to their own experience.”
He added, “[Jefferson] said the framers were great and they were patriots, but they didn’t have the benefit of the experience that we’ve lived and we know that the Electoral College doesn’t fit anymore, which is why I’m a big supporter of the national popular vote interstate compact, where it’s bubbling up from below, but there are now 15 or 16 states and the District of Columbia, who’ve said we’re going to cast our electors for the winner of the national vote once we get 270 electors in our coalition.”
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I have to disagree with Raskin. The electoral college is the only thing that keeps a select few large cities from controlling the entire country. New York City and Los Angeles should not have full power to make decisions for rural America.
With the electoral college, everyone has a fair voice.
