Idaho latest venue for president election reform
Thursday, October 8, 2009 11:14 AM PDT
JOHN MILLER - Associated Press
BOISE — A group pushing to shake up how America elects the president has added a lobbyist in Idaho to push legislation that, had it been in effect in 2008, would have given the state’s four Electoral College votes to Democrat Barack Obama.
National Popular Vote aims to dump the existing system for a de facto national popular election, where states give all their Electoral College votes to the national winner, not the candidate who wins the state, as generally happens now.
Reform proponents criticize the Electoral College as complicated, antiquated and antidemocratic, in part because four presidents, most recently George W. Bush in 2000, won the presidency without securing a national majority.
John Koza, a Stanford University engineering professor in Palo Alto, Calif., behind National Popular Vote, didn’t immediately return a phone call. But Pat Rosenstiel, a Republican activist in Minnesota who was an aide for former GOP presidential candidate Steve Forbes, registered last month to lobby Idaho lawmakers.
Rosenstiel said states with small populations like Idaho could gain from scrapping the present system, because residents’ votes would count toward a national total.
That would force presidential hopefuls to pay attention to issues and interests beyond traditional battleground states where they now focus the bulk of their attention, he said.
‘‘It’ll make sure that in presidential elections that every vote cast in Boise counts just as much as a vote cast in Boca Raton,’’ he said.
Rosenstiel said he’ll be in Idaho, the lone state where his group hasn’t introduced a bill, to gather support among lawmakers in early November.
Five states — Hawaii, Illinois, Maryland, New Jersey and Washington — so far have passed popular vote measures. National Popular Vote’s compact wouldn’t take effect until states representing 270 of the 538 total Electoral College votes sign on. That’s the number needed to win the White House.
Idaho lawmakers say they know that National Popular Vote wants their support.
But with the economy weak and state government strapped for cash, election reform seems an unlikely priority come January when the 2010 Legislature starts, some said.
‘‘I’m not aware it’s gotten any significant enthusiasm,’’ said Senate Assistant Majority Leader Joe Stegner, R-Lewiston.
By pushing the issue state by state, National Popular Vote would effectively end the Electoral College system without the heavy-lifting of amending the U.S. Constitution.
Even so, Boise State University political scientist Gary Moncrief said change in Idaho or elsewhere won’t come easily, as other states have already demonstrated. Popular-vote bills failed this year in Nevada, Connecticut, Minnesota, New Mexico, Colorado and Iowa.
‘‘Moving off the status quo is always hard politically,’’ Moncrief said. ‘‘After all, it was the Founders that created this system — for better or worse.’’
Opponents of National Popular Vote also argue the changes would allow candidates to pander to specific regions of the country, while ignoring the present system’s historical necessity of appealing to state border-crossing coalitions of disparate voters.
James Whitson, who runs the www.presidentelect.org Web site, points to the 1888 presidential election in which Grover Cleveland won the popular vote by 90,000 votes, with a campaign that appealed to residents of six southern states who voted for him in droves. Benjamin Harrison became president, however, after winning 32 other states and securing the Electoral College.
‘‘The whole idea is to get as many areas of the country involved as possible, and to let each state-sized community decide,’’ said Judith Best, a political scientist from the State University of New York at Cortland. ‘‘That means candidates have to form coalitions. That makes for moderation, because the only way you can form a coalition is by compromise.’’
Best contends the chaos that followed the 2000 presidential election would likely pale in comparison to rancor arising from a disputed national popular vote. Bush beat Democrat Al Gore in the Electoral College after a U.S. Supreme Court challenge over Florida results.
For one, she said, voters in reliably Republican states such as Idaho would likely be outraged if their four electoral college votes went to a Democrat who won the national popular vote. And razor-thin margins in a nationwide popular vote could result in vote-count challenges not just in one state, but everywhere.
‘‘You would have 50 Floridas,’’ Best said.
