by Alex Marshall, Editor, Spotlight on the Region
Barring a revolution of sorts, in a few weeks New York State will deliver its whopping 31 electoral votes to Senator John Kerry, more than a tenth of what he needs to be elected president. Although millions of New Yorkers will vote for President George Bush, he will get no electoral votes and the state will move him no closer to a second term.
Because of this dynamic, neither Kerry nor Bush has been spending much time here. Kerry considers New York in the bag, while Bush considers it out of reach. The same logic applies to Connecticut, New Jersey and much of the Northeast, although some of these states are more in play this election than four years ago. More important than the candidates' physical presence is the lack of focus on issues of concern for the region.
This is a problem. For the last year, both parties have been pandering to Nevada and New Mexico - two of the so-called swing states - offering everything from getting rid of nuclear waste dumps to reforming immigration. Meanwhile, the candidates and parties ignore many of the issues specific to the Northeast, such as funding for Amtrak or fighting acid rain. That's not good.
So what could be done about it? One idea gaining momentum is to scrap the Electoral College, the somewhat bizarre system set up by the founding fathers two centuries ago for reasons completely unrelated to its current effects. The New York Times editorial board recently reversed itself and called for its abolition. Sen. Hillary Clinton has backed the idea. It's a good one. Four years ago, we saw President George W. Bush put his hand on a bible and take the oath of office even though he lost the national election by more than a half million votes. Regardless of party identification, many people would agree that's a good reason to scrap the Electoral College and replace it with a direct election.
But scrapping the Electoral College would require a difficult and unlikely constitutional amendment. It's unlikely because, like our system of allocating U.S. senate seats, the Electoral College gives disproportionate power to less populated rural states. Wyoming, which with 490,000 people has about the same population as a couple of neighborhoods in Brooklyn, has two U.S. senators and a congressman - and three electoral votes. With no Electoral College or electoral votes, Wyoming's say in the presidential race would drop to a fraction of what it is now. Because of this, it and other more rural states are unlikely to support switching to a system that decreases their political power.
But there's another way to significantly change the system, although not as drastically as scrapping the Electoral College. It would be for each state to distribute its electoral votes proportionately, rather than winner take all.
This is what voters in Colorado will have a chance to support or oppose on Nov. 2 in a binding statewide referendum that activists managed to put on the ballot. Commentators and political types around the country are watching this proposal closely because they fear or hope it could trigger similar changes around the country.
Although many people don't realize it, states don't need permission from the federal government to make such changes. Under the present constitution, states can distribute their electoral votes any way they want.
The politics of such a proposal depends on the state. In Colorado, the Republicans oppose proportional allotment because their party has tended to win this state. They fear giving Kerry a few electoral votes could give him the election. In the Northeast and in California, I assume the Republicans would support changing the system because the Democratic nominee now gets almost all the electoral votes.
Leaving partisan concerns aside, I think both parties and certainly most voters in our region should support such a change, because it is in the interest of states to have their concerns weighed in presidential politics.
Given all this and the potential of electoral reform to shift a significant amount of electoral votes to Republican presidential candidates in the future, I thought I would find that Republican legislators and activists would be busy trying to make such a change here in New York. But I couldn't find evidence of it.
Senator Joseph L. Bruno, a Republican and Senate majority leader, might be expected to lead any such effort. But a spokesman for the senator pooh-poohed the idea.
"It's pretty low on the radar screen," said Mark Hansen, from the senator's Albany office. "There is greater concern with issues that affect things like taxes, economic development, education and health care. Those are the issues that important to people. Issues like electoral voting are not of as great a concern." Of course, a president does affect a state's taxes, economic development, education and health care.
If a state decided to distribute its electoral votes proportionally, then there are two principal ways to do it, each of them different in its mechanisms and political effects.
If the measure wins in Colorado, then the votes would be distributed in accordance with the percentage of votes that each candidate won in the state as a whole.
Maine and Nebraska, however, the only two states that currently distribute their electoral votes proportionally, do it differently. These states award an electoral vote to every congressional district a candidate wins, plus two electoral votes to whoever wins the state as a whole.
While allotting votes by congressional districts has a certain simplicity, it would have several problems and bad effects in most states. In New York state, candidates would ignore congressional districts in and around New York city and upstate new York, because the ones in the city are assuredly Democratic, and the ones upstate are assuredly Republican. The second problem is that congressional districts are now so often severely gerrymandered, they don't correspond to any actual physical community.
Allotting the votes on a percentage basis makes the most sense. Right now, the proposal leads in pre-election polling in Colorado. If it passes, maybe some northeastern states will be next. In Colorado, some have argued against change because they say politicians will ignore the state even more, if Colorado adopts proportional distribution. Colorado now has nine electoral votes. In most presidential elections, the winning candidate would get five votes, and the losing candidate four votes. The one vote difference may not be worth a candidate's time in Colorado.
But this dynamic may be reversed in the largest states, such as California, New York, Texas and Florida. If Bush won 40 percent of the vote in New York, he would get 12 votes. If he won 45 percent, he would get 14 votes, and if he won more than 50 percent, he would get 16 votes. These differences might be enough to ensure that both candidates paid attention to the needs of this or any other big state that distributed their electoral votes proportionally.
There's another, less abstract reason to make a change: it would make presidential elections more relevant to millions of voters, such as myself.
During the six presidential races in my adult lifetime, I've lived in three states - Virginia, Massachusetts and New York - that collectively have 31 million people and 56 electoral votes. But despite all this political muscle, I can't recall ever seeing a campaign ad by Reagan or Bush, or a local appearance by Carter, Clinton or Dukakis. No, each presidential race has been like a distant battle I've watched with interest, but from afar.
I'm tired of this. I'm tired, I realized, of presidential candidates not caring whether or not I vote for them. I expect my sentiments are shared by millions of voters around the country.
Barring a revolution of sorts, in a few weeks New York State will deliver its whopping 31 electoral votes to Senator John Kerry, more than a tenth of what he needs to be elected president. Although millions of New Yorkers will vote for President George Bush, he will get no electoral votes and the state will move him no closer to a second term.
Because of this dynamic, neither Kerry nor Bush has been spending much time here. Kerry considers New York in the bag, while Bush considers it out of reach. The same logic applies to Connecticut, New Jersey and much of the Northeast, although some of these states are more in play this election than four years ago. More important than the candidates' physical presence is the lack of focus on issues of concern for the region.
This is a problem. For the last year, both parties have been pandering to Nevada and New Mexico - two of the so-called swing states - offering everything from getting rid of nuclear waste dumps to reforming immigration. Meanwhile, the candidates and parties ignore many of the issues specific to the Northeast, such as funding for Amtrak or fighting acid rain. That's not good.
So what could be done about it? One idea gaining momentum is to scrap the Electoral College, the somewhat bizarre system set up by the founding fathers two centuries ago for reasons completely unrelated to its current effects. The New York Times editorial board recently reversed itself and called for its abolition. Sen. Hillary Clinton has backed the idea. It's a good one. Four years ago, we saw President George W. Bush put his hand on a bible and take the oath of office even though he lost the national election by more than a half million votes. Regardless of party identification, many people would agree that's a good reason to scrap the Electoral College and replace it with a direct election.
But scrapping the Electoral College would require a difficult and unlikely constitutional amendment. It's unlikely because, like our system of allocating U.S. senate seats, the Electoral College gives disproportionate power to less populated rural states. Wyoming, which with 490,000 people has about the same population as a couple of neighborhoods in Brooklyn, has two U.S. senators and a congressman - and three electoral votes. With no Electoral College or electoral votes, Wyoming's say in the presidential race would drop to a fraction of what it is now. Because of this, it and other more rural states are unlikely to support switching to a system that decreases their political power.
But there's another way to significantly change the system, although not as drastically as scrapping the Electoral College. It would be for each state to distribute its electoral votes proportionately, rather than winner take all.
This is what voters in Colorado will have a chance to support or oppose on Nov. 2 in a binding statewide referendum that activists managed to put on the ballot. Commentators and political types around the country are watching this proposal closely because they fear or hope it could trigger similar changes around the country.
Although many people don't realize it, states don't need permission from the federal government to make such changes. Under the present constitution, states can distribute their electoral votes any way they want.
The politics of such a proposal depends on the state. In Colorado, the Republicans oppose proportional allotment because their party has tended to win this state. They fear giving Kerry a few electoral votes could give him the election. In the Northeast and in California, I assume the Republicans would support changing the system because the Democratic nominee now gets almost all the electoral votes.
Leaving partisan concerns aside, I think both parties and certainly most voters in our region should support such a change, because it is in the interest of states to have their concerns weighed in presidential politics.
Given all this and the potential of electoral reform to shift a significant amount of electoral votes to Republican presidential candidates in the future, I thought I would find that Republican legislators and activists would be busy trying to make such a change here in New York. But I couldn't find evidence of it.
Senator Joseph L. Bruno, a Republican and Senate majority leader, might be expected to lead any such effort. But a spokesman for the senator pooh-poohed the idea.
"It's pretty low on the radar screen," said Mark Hansen, from the senator's Albany office. "There is greater concern with issues that affect things like taxes, economic development, education and health care. Those are the issues that important to people. Issues like electoral voting are not of as great a concern." Of course, a president does affect a state's taxes, economic development, education and health care.
If a state decided to distribute its electoral votes proportionally, then there are two principal ways to do it, each of them different in its mechanisms and political effects.
If the measure wins in Colorado, then the votes would be distributed in accordance with the percentage of votes that each candidate won in the state as a whole.
Maine and Nebraska, however, the only two states that currently distribute their electoral votes proportionally, do it differently. These states award an electoral vote to every congressional district a candidate wins, plus two electoral votes to whoever wins the state as a whole.
While allotting votes by congressional districts has a certain simplicity, it would have several problems and bad effects in most states. In New York state, candidates would ignore congressional districts in and around New York city and upstate new York, because the ones in the city are assuredly Democratic, and the ones upstate are assuredly Republican. The second problem is that congressional districts are now so often severely gerrymandered, they don't correspond to any actual physical community.
Allotting the votes on a percentage basis makes the most sense. Right now, the proposal leads in pre-election polling in Colorado. If it passes, maybe some northeastern states will be next. In Colorado, some have argued against change because they say politicians will ignore the state even more, if Colorado adopts proportional distribution. Colorado now has nine electoral votes. In most presidential elections, the winning candidate would get five votes, and the losing candidate four votes. The one vote difference may not be worth a candidate's time in Colorado.
But this dynamic may be reversed in the largest states, such as California, New York, Texas and Florida. If Bush won 40 percent of the vote in New York, he would get 12 votes. If he won 45 percent, he would get 14 votes, and if he won more than 50 percent, he would get 16 votes. These differences might be enough to ensure that both candidates paid attention to the needs of this or any other big state that distributed their electoral votes proportionally.
There's another, less abstract reason to make a change: it would make presidential elections more relevant to millions of voters, such as myself.
During the six presidential races in my adult lifetime, I've lived in three states - Virginia, Massachusetts and New York - that collectively have 31 million people and 56 electoral votes. But despite all this political muscle, I can't recall ever seeing a campaign ad by Reagan or Bush, or a local appearance by Carter, Clinton or Dukakis. No, each presidential race has been like a distant battle I've watched with interest, but from afar.
I'm tired of this. I'm tired, I realized, of presidential candidates not caring whether or not I vote for them. I expect my sentiments are shared by millions of voters around the country.
@RegionalPlan