Congressional district allocation is not proportional representaton

Nebraska is one of two states allocating its electoral votes by congressional district, not statewide. In an article on the still disputed status of the electoral vote corresponding to NE-2, the New York Times gets it wrong:

Unlike every other state but Maine, Nebraska allocates its five electoral votes proportionally. The winner does not take all. So even though Mr. McCain won the statewide popular vote, it looks as if Mr. Obama was able to carve out a piece of the state, the Second Congressional District, for himself. The district includes most of metropolitan Omaha. [emphasis mine]

Colorado is the most recent state – if not the only – to have considered and defeated allocating its electors in proportion to candidates’ vote shares. Maine and Nebraska do not. In those states, the statewide winner gets the two electors corresponding to the states’ Senators, and the elector corresponding to each congressional district goes to the candidate winning that district.

The conflation of PR and single-member districts is relatively unique to American political culture. I believe it is a legacy of our founding.

When the Framers met in 1787, the debate over legislative representation was framed in terms of apportionment. Would all states receive equal numbers of seats (New Jersey Plan), or would apportionment be proportional to states’ populations (Virginia Plan)? The Connecticut Compromise, of course, gave us both: equal delegations in the Senate and “proportional” delegations in the House. A search of the Federalist Papers for the string “proportional representation” returns references, but all mean proportional apportionment by population of the seats each state will elect – not proportional allocation by vote share of a state’s seats to parties. To this day, the Wikipedia article for New Jersey Plan cited above still calls proportional apportionment “proportional representation.”

This is not surprising. Proportional representation as framed today, of parties by vote shares, did not exist until two generations later, when Thomas Hare articulated and J.S. Mill popularized the concept. (See also a later essay by Henry Droop.)

Had PR existed, of course, the Framers likely would have opted for it. PR is consistent with the views in Federalist No. 10 on “controlling [faction's] effects.” By multiplying the factions represented, one reduces the likelihood that a tyrannical majority will emerge.

A fundamentally majoritarian system in which seats are allocated to states in proportion to their populations can deliver proportionality of seats to votes more or less by accident, but that is not a proportional representation system.

Hawaii joins National Popular Vote

Hawaii’s state legislature has overridden the governor’s veto of the state-based plan to elect the president by national, popular vote, according to a Common Cause news release. That means the compact now has four member states accounting for 50 total electors: MD, IL, NJ and the Aloha state.

Until now, the only states to ratify NPV have had united, Democratic governments. Otherwise it has died on Republican governors’ desks or in Republican legislatures. Hawaii is the first state to break the pattern – sort of.

See plan co-author Rob Richie’s comment on NPV’s background and prospects from the perspective of a movement leader. Just because Hawaii only breaks the pattern “sort of” doesn’t mean we can’t have a normal presidential election by 2012. After all, electoral reform is about defying the model predictions.

IL signs onto National Popular Vote

Illinois’ governor today signed the interstate compact to elect the President by national, popular vote.

Illinois is the third state to ratify the agreement, joining New Jersey and Maryland. NPV’s website reports the compact now accounts for one-sixth of the electoral votes needed to bring it into effect.

Here is what the governor said:

“This nation is built on the principle ‘for the people, by the people.’ By signing this law, we in Illinois are making it clear that we believe every voter has an equal voice in electing our nation’s leaders.”

Corzine signs NPV; Bill before IL governor

Someone at FairVote reports:

Gov. Corzine signed the National Popular Vote (NPV) bill into law last week, ushering New Jersey into the interstate compact to change the way the president is elected, nine months after Maryland enacted the same law.

The NPV compact will require an Electoral College majority of 270 electors to take effect. In addition to Maryland’s 10 votes and the Garden State’s 15, all eyes now turn to Illinois, where the bill was sent to the governor for signing last week as well.

FairVote is the main group leading public education efforts on the NPV plan for direct election of the president. They launched it together with Common Cause at a press conference in March 2006.

As always, more information can be had from National Popular Vote, Inc.

National Popular Vote on NJ governor’s desk

This excerpt from New Jersey’s Gannett desk says it all:

On the same day the presidential race kicked off with the Iowa caucuses, the state Senate gave final legislative approval to adding New Jersey to an interstate compact to skirt the Electoral College by requiring the state’s electors to cast their vote for president and vice president based on the national popular vote winner.

The compact might never take effect, and electors chosen this year will still back the winner in New Jersey.

The legislation, passed 21-12, in effect circumvents the Constitution without an amendment by changing the way presidents are elected. The bill, passed by the Assembly in December, now heads to Gov. Jon S. Corzine, who is expected to sign it.

Well, almost. Sadly the belief is that NPV somehow “circumvents” a constitutional provision that elections be held state-by-state on an at-large, plurality basis. No such provision exists. The framers left open the question of how to elect a president for want of compromise on any manner of (s)election:

The Founding Fathers gave the states exclusive and plenary control over the manner of awarding of their electoral votes. The winner-take-all rule is not in the U.S. Constitution. It was used by only 3 states in the nation’s first presidential election. Maine (since 1969) and Nebraska (since 1992) award electoral votes by congressional districts—another reminder that a federal constitutional amendment is not required to change the way the President is elected.

If Corzine signs, the compact will be 15 electors closer to implementation – not likely to be in effect this year, but a possibility for 2012.

NJ Assembly passes National Popular Vote

New Jersey’s lower house has passed the National Popular Vote plan:

The Assembly voted 43-32 on Thursday to approve legislation delivering the state’s 15 electoral votes for president to the winner of the national popular vote, although the measure could result in the electoral votes going to a candidate opposed by Garden State voters.

The apparent warning reminds me how much this discussion is mired in a state-by-state paradigm. No other consolidated, presidential democracy uses an electoral college, and our government certainly would not set one up in any autocracy it overthrew.

Though some congressional districts near New York City have gotten gradually more Republican-leaning since 2000, there’s little chance New Jersey would see its electors go to a Republican candidate any time soon. That would require seismic movements in the major parties’ coalitions.

One letter writer implores voters to “listen to and respect the wisdom of the founding fathers” who intentionally designed the system to protect small states and check mob rule. Yet another reminder of how misinformed the debate is.

The electoral college was a last-minute compromise in the spirit of keeping perfect’s hands off the good. In the final days of the convention, delegates could not agree on how to elect a president – whether one should be elected at all, in fact – so they threw the matter to the individual states.

The electoral college moreover does not protect small states, depending on the observer’s time horizon. It protects “battleground” states like Wisconsin, Florida and Ohio. Everyone else doesn’t matter.

According to BAN, the state senate votes on the bill on Monday.

National Popular Vote to see floor vote in Mass.

Ballot Access News reports that the National Popular Vote plan “cleared all House Committee hurdles on October 24, and will probably receive a vote on the House floor in the next ten days.”

What are the compact’s prospects in Massachusetts? It’s hard to tell, but a betting man would say “good.”

Mitt Romney is governor and a contender for the Republican presidential nomination. Republicans do not like National Popular Vote. While the battleground/spectator state divide is relatively indiscriminate in partisan impact, small states get affirmative action in the Electoral College as a result of Senate malapportionment. Right or wrong, the Republican establishment seems to calculate that bonus is stable. So Republican governors like Schwarzenegger, reform credentials notwithstanding, veto the thing.

What about the state General Court? In the Senate, Democrats have a veto-proof majority. Same in the House of Representatives. Massachusetts well could be the second state to sign on, following Maryland (D legislature, D governor) last April.

NationalPopularVote.com (linked above) has a neat map tracking the status of the compact.

Gerrymandering the presidency

CA Congressman Darrell Issa (R-49) will help bankroll the effort to split California’s Electoral College votes by congressional district (CD allocation). And he’s defending it as a move to “proportional representation.”
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