One Step Closer to a National Popular Vote
This column originally appeared in the Williston Observer on May 19, 2011.
The Electoral College is a unique feature of our system of electing a national leader. After two centuries, though, is it time to do away with the College?
The Electoral College is the body that actually elects the President and Vice President. When we, the people, vote for a presidential candidate, we are not actually voting for a single person. We are, instead, voting for a slate of electors. The chosen electors meet on Elector Day, sometime in December following the general election, and cast their votes for the two offices.
Each state has a number of electors equal to its congressional representation. With one seat in the House and two seats in the Senate, Vermont has three electors. Electors are selected by each party fielding a presidential candidate. The electors are typically party loyalists, pledged to cast their vote for the party's choice for President and Vice President.
The Electoral College was designed, in 1787, for an entirely different America. Time, however, revealed some fatal flaws in the Electoral College system, and though the most egregious flaws were fixed long ago, it may be time to take another serious look.
Originally, each elector cast two votes for President. The person with the most votes became President, and the runner-up became Vice President. This system would have worked fine if people did not begin to divide themselves into parties - but they did, almost immediately.
In the election of 1800, the Democratic-Republican party ran Thomas Jefferson and Aaron Burr against Federalists John Adams and Thomas Pinckney. Each dutiful Democratic-Republican elector cast his votes, toeing the party line: one for Jefferson and one for Burr. In the end, both Jefferson and Burr got 73 votes, even though the plan had been to elect Jefferson. Someone forgot to tell at least one Democratic-Republican elector to vote for someone other than Burr. The resulting fray, where the election was decided in the House by a Federalist majority, lead to the 12th Amendment, that specified separate ballots for the two executive positions.
The 1876 election of Rutherford Hayes was a partisan mess. Hayes's opponent, Samuel Tilden, won a narrow majority of the popular vote, but when it came time to count the electoral votes, the results were not quite so clear. Hayes and Tilden were both close to the needed majority, but many electoral votes were challenged. It took a congressional commission, and the end of military occupation in the post-war South, to assign enough votes to Hayes.
Most of us remember the controversy between George Bush and Al Gore in 2000. Gore had a narrow lead over Bush in the popular vote, beating Bush by just over half a percentage point. After much controversy in several states, and Florida in particular, the electoral vote went to Bush, 271-266.
The National Popular Vote movement, which aims to make the winner of the popular vote the President without concern for these electoral college vagaries, got a boost this year when the Vermont legislature threw its support behind the plan. The NPV movement looks not to amend the Constitution, but to work within its confines.
It seeks to create a compact of sorts, accumulating support one state at a time, until at least enough states to make up the majority of 270 electoral votes sign on. In states where NPV is enacted, the state's law would change to direct its electors to cast their votes for whichever candidate won the national popular vote, without regard to the candidate's vote tally in that state.
Including Vermont's three, NPV now has 77 electoral votes from eight states to its name.
I'm a fan of working within the system, and would like to see the NPV plan come to fruition. I am dubious that electors could be punished for not voting with the national popular vote (the Constitution gives the electors wide latitude in their votes), but it would not be difficult to avoid faithless electors with proper vetting.
I do think that losing the Electoral College would be a sad thing. It is quirky, uniquely American, and an avenue into learning more about where we came from as a nation. But despite the value of these things, having a simple, straight-forward, and predictable system, based on the popular vote, seems like the best way forward for our democracy. Hopefully, Vermont's support for the compact will nudge other states to support NPV, too.
Thursday, May 19, 2011
Thursday, May 5, 2011
With Somber Reflection
With Somber Reflection
This column originally appeared in the Williston Observer on May 5, 2011.
It was getting late on Sunday night when I heard a rumor that the President was going to make an announcement on TV within a few minutes. I quickly tuned to CNN to see if the report was true. It seemed to be - Wolf Blitzer was telling viewers that the President would be speaking to the nation from the East Room of the White House "any minute now."
CNN was very careful not to speculate what the announcement was about, so my mind started to race. Such an announcement is very unusual, and reserved for big (and usually bad) news. Did something happen to the President's family? Is the Vice President dead? Did terrorists strike somewhere? Was there a tragedy with our troops overseas?
Checking Internet news feeds, reports that Osama bin Laden was dead started to become more and more frequent. And finally CNN had enough strong sources that they could say that this was, indeed, the big news. When the President finally came on the screen, his announcement was almost anti-climactic, though the scant details he provided were interesting:
Bin Laden was expertly killed by U.S. forces operating in Pakistan. His body had been taken into custody by those forces. The identity of bin Laden was definite. No Americans lost their lives in the process.
CNN was also reporting that there were cheering crowds just outside the fence surrounding the White House. Just off-camera, I could hear emotionally raw and off-tune renditions of The Star-Spangled Banner being belted out. There was obvious joy in the news. Watching, I knew that this was good news, for America and the world.
Beyond that raw and emotionally-informed knowledge, though, I wasn't so sure how I felt. It was only after discussing it with some friends and hearing what they had to say that I could begin to sort it out.
It feels odd to celebrate the death of a person. In our culture, we are taught to value life so highly, above almost anything else. I know this is not a universal value (though it should be). Bin Laden himself could easily be described as someone who valued politics over human life. He could even be rightly described as a misanthrope. But even given that, should I feel joy in his death?
I recall feeling the same sort of confusion when Saddam Hussein was executed in Iraq in 2006. Here was this tyrant, this despicable human being, responsible for war and the deaths of thousands of innocents, reduced to a cowering shell, stripped of his power and influence ... and the best we can do is kill him?
I'm convinced there are people who are better off dead. But it is much easier to be sure of this in the abstract. I wonder how evolved we really are if destruction of life is our best answer to these people.
The details of the bin Laden killing place his death in a slightly different category - he died in a firefight, not in front of a firing squad. Part of me wanted to see him captured, tried, and imprisoned. But if he'd been captured, his detention and trial would have been epic in scope and undoubtedly circus-like in ways I can only imagine.
I must conclude, then, that we are better off with him shot dead and buried at sea.
I'm just not sure joyful celebration is the proper response.
Another friend called it a Pyrrhic victory. We have already lost so many lives to bin Laden and al Qaeda, both as a nation and a species. Will we lose even more now that he is gone? Hopefully we have cut off the head of the snake. But the snake could end up being like the mythological hydra, with two or three new heads growing back where one was before.
To ensure that terrorism dies, we must not just be rid of its sponsors. We must change the minds of those who follow. Perhaps a means to that end is not to celebrate bin Laden's death with cheers and song, but to reflect on it somberly.
This column originally appeared in the Williston Observer on May 5, 2011.
It was getting late on Sunday night when I heard a rumor that the President was going to make an announcement on TV within a few minutes. I quickly tuned to CNN to see if the report was true. It seemed to be - Wolf Blitzer was telling viewers that the President would be speaking to the nation from the East Room of the White House "any minute now."
CNN was very careful not to speculate what the announcement was about, so my mind started to race. Such an announcement is very unusual, and reserved for big (and usually bad) news. Did something happen to the President's family? Is the Vice President dead? Did terrorists strike somewhere? Was there a tragedy with our troops overseas?
Checking Internet news feeds, reports that Osama bin Laden was dead started to become more and more frequent. And finally CNN had enough strong sources that they could say that this was, indeed, the big news. When the President finally came on the screen, his announcement was almost anti-climactic, though the scant details he provided were interesting:
Bin Laden was expertly killed by U.S. forces operating in Pakistan. His body had been taken into custody by those forces. The identity of bin Laden was definite. No Americans lost their lives in the process.
CNN was also reporting that there were cheering crowds just outside the fence surrounding the White House. Just off-camera, I could hear emotionally raw and off-tune renditions of The Star-Spangled Banner being belted out. There was obvious joy in the news. Watching, I knew that this was good news, for America and the world.
Beyond that raw and emotionally-informed knowledge, though, I wasn't so sure how I felt. It was only after discussing it with some friends and hearing what they had to say that I could begin to sort it out.
It feels odd to celebrate the death of a person. In our culture, we are taught to value life so highly, above almost anything else. I know this is not a universal value (though it should be). Bin Laden himself could easily be described as someone who valued politics over human life. He could even be rightly described as a misanthrope. But even given that, should I feel joy in his death?
I recall feeling the same sort of confusion when Saddam Hussein was executed in Iraq in 2006. Here was this tyrant, this despicable human being, responsible for war and the deaths of thousands of innocents, reduced to a cowering shell, stripped of his power and influence ... and the best we can do is kill him?
I'm convinced there are people who are better off dead. But it is much easier to be sure of this in the abstract. I wonder how evolved we really are if destruction of life is our best answer to these people.
The details of the bin Laden killing place his death in a slightly different category - he died in a firefight, not in front of a firing squad. Part of me wanted to see him captured, tried, and imprisoned. But if he'd been captured, his detention and trial would have been epic in scope and undoubtedly circus-like in ways I can only imagine.
I must conclude, then, that we are better off with him shot dead and buried at sea.
I'm just not sure joyful celebration is the proper response.
Another friend called it a Pyrrhic victory. We have already lost so many lives to bin Laden and al Qaeda, both as a nation and a species. Will we lose even more now that he is gone? Hopefully we have cut off the head of the snake. But the snake could end up being like the mythological hydra, with two or three new heads growing back where one was before.
To ensure that terrorism dies, we must not just be rid of its sponsors. We must change the minds of those who follow. Perhaps a means to that end is not to celebrate bin Laden's death with cheers and song, but to reflect on it somberly.
Thursday, April 21, 2011
Connections: GE and the Royal Wedding
Connections: GE and the Royal Wedding
This column originally appeared in the Williston Observer on April 21, 2011.
As I was recently pondering two seemingly disparate and unrelated topics the other day, the television series Connections, and its sequels and imitators, came to mind.
In Connections, historian James Burke started with an historical event and connected that event to something new and current. One made-up example might explain how the threads of history weave and intersect so that without the development of the cotton gin, we would not today have Velcro.
My connection has to do with two items in the national (and even international) news the past few weeks: the tiresome wedding of Prince William to Kate Middleton and the irksome news that General Electric paid no corporate income tax in 2010.
First, to the wedding. My weekday morning schedule is such that just as I'm getting ready for work, the CBS morning news is starting its royal wedding coverage. I was tired of hearing about William and Kate after the very first report of their impending nuptials; I got more so when CBS began weekly reports; now I'm positively driven insane by the daily reports from London.
The reports are all about what dress the M.O.B. (mother of the bride) is wearing, how much the Middletons are contributing to the billionaire royal family for the ceremonies, the route the royal wedding carriage will take, the bloody nose the queen developed, and how the wedding will compare to that of Charles and Diana.
Frankly, I don't understand why any American wants to give the wedding any more than an iota of their brain power. We, my fellow Americans, fought several wars, on our own soil, to throw off the reins of royalty. And not any royalty - the English royalty.
And yet when I want to find out about tornadoes in North Carolina, I instead am subjected to the latest from Buckingham Palace; instead of learning about the latest movie Gwyneth Paltrow is making, I have to hear about how long Kate's bridal train will be.
If I were king for a day (irony noted), I would ban all present and future coverage of any royal goings-on.
The other topic concerns a New York Times report that GE paid no corporate income tax in 2010. Worldwide, GE made $14.2 billion, $5.1 billion of that from U.S. operations. And $0 in taxes paid to the United States Treasury. In fact, the Times article reports, GE took a $3.2 billion tax benefit.
Since I work for GE, it might seem odd that I call such news "irksome." But I do - in fact, I'm a bit ashamed of the tax news. I do, however, have to defend GE.
That GE paid no income tax to the U.S. is not GE's fault. In fact, if there were loopholes and exceptions in the tax code that GE knew about and did not take advantage of, its shareholders would be right to raise red flags.
As I drove by the small cadre of protesters standing on the corner of Shelburne Road and IDX Drive on Monday, I felt like stopping to tell them that where they should be camped out is not at my office, but at the offices of our members of Congress.
The tax code is a mess. It is incomprehensible, and it is that way virtually on purpose. The influence of lobbyists on the tax code is despicable. It should be scrapped and we should start over. Simpler is better, and our tax code is not simple.
My connection is this: we threw off the yoke of the monarchy over 200 years ago (even though a sizable portion of our population is still inexplicably fascinated by it); it is time for us to throw off the yoke of our tax code. I'm not a proponent of a flat tax (there is such a thing as "too simple"), but we should be able to explain our tax structure in 20 pages or less, rather than the almost 15,000 pages that it currently consists of.
Maybe if all these people paying so much attention to the future king of England paid half as much attention to Congress and the tax code, more people might actually make this same connection, and we would have the critical mass needed to do something about it.
This column originally appeared in the Williston Observer on April 21, 2011.
As I was recently pondering two seemingly disparate and unrelated topics the other day, the television series Connections, and its sequels and imitators, came to mind.
In Connections, historian James Burke started with an historical event and connected that event to something new and current. One made-up example might explain how the threads of history weave and intersect so that without the development of the cotton gin, we would not today have Velcro.
My connection has to do with two items in the national (and even international) news the past few weeks: the tiresome wedding of Prince William to Kate Middleton and the irksome news that General Electric paid no corporate income tax in 2010.
First, to the wedding. My weekday morning schedule is such that just as I'm getting ready for work, the CBS morning news is starting its royal wedding coverage. I was tired of hearing about William and Kate after the very first report of their impending nuptials; I got more so when CBS began weekly reports; now I'm positively driven insane by the daily reports from London.
The reports are all about what dress the M.O.B. (mother of the bride) is wearing, how much the Middletons are contributing to the billionaire royal family for the ceremonies, the route the royal wedding carriage will take, the bloody nose the queen developed, and how the wedding will compare to that of Charles and Diana.
Frankly, I don't understand why any American wants to give the wedding any more than an iota of their brain power. We, my fellow Americans, fought several wars, on our own soil, to throw off the reins of royalty. And not any royalty - the English royalty.
And yet when I want to find out about tornadoes in North Carolina, I instead am subjected to the latest from Buckingham Palace; instead of learning about the latest movie Gwyneth Paltrow is making, I have to hear about how long Kate's bridal train will be.
If I were king for a day (irony noted), I would ban all present and future coverage of any royal goings-on.
The other topic concerns a New York Times report that GE paid no corporate income tax in 2010. Worldwide, GE made $14.2 billion, $5.1 billion of that from U.S. operations. And $0 in taxes paid to the United States Treasury. In fact, the Times article reports, GE took a $3.2 billion tax benefit.
Since I work for GE, it might seem odd that I call such news "irksome." But I do - in fact, I'm a bit ashamed of the tax news. I do, however, have to defend GE.
That GE paid no income tax to the U.S. is not GE's fault. In fact, if there were loopholes and exceptions in the tax code that GE knew about and did not take advantage of, its shareholders would be right to raise red flags.
As I drove by the small cadre of protesters standing on the corner of Shelburne Road and IDX Drive on Monday, I felt like stopping to tell them that where they should be camped out is not at my office, but at the offices of our members of Congress.
The tax code is a mess. It is incomprehensible, and it is that way virtually on purpose. The influence of lobbyists on the tax code is despicable. It should be scrapped and we should start over. Simpler is better, and our tax code is not simple.
My connection is this: we threw off the yoke of the monarchy over 200 years ago (even though a sizable portion of our population is still inexplicably fascinated by it); it is time for us to throw off the yoke of our tax code. I'm not a proponent of a flat tax (there is such a thing as "too simple"), but we should be able to explain our tax structure in 20 pages or less, rather than the almost 15,000 pages that it currently consists of.
Maybe if all these people paying so much attention to the future king of England paid half as much attention to Congress and the tax code, more people might actually make this same connection, and we would have the critical mass needed to do something about it.
Thursday, April 7, 2011
Discovering the Obama Doctrine
Discovering the Obama Doctrine
This column originally appeared in the Williston Observer on April 7, 2011.
President Barack Obama spoke to the nation last week to explain why the United States committed troops and material to aid the rebels in Libya. Though to many the reasons seem obvious - to avoid a humanitarian disaster of the types we regretted allowing to happen in Africa; because on March 17, the United Nations voted to impose a no-fly zone in the skies over Libya; and because though other nations' air forces are closer, there is no doubt that ours is the most capable and powerful - the President was right to explain himself to the American people.
In his speech on the 28th of March, Obama articulated a reason for the Libyan conflict that could be a policy, a Doctrine, he will apply in future conflicts:
"Mindful of the risks and costs of military action, we are naturally reluctant to use force to solve the world’s many challenges. But when our interests and values are at stake, we have a responsibility to act."
Not only when our interests are at stake, but also, perhaps more importantly, when our values are at stake.
Our values - the principles that we extol as examples for other nations, the principles that make us proud to be Americans, the principles that make us Americans - are what set us apart from modern barbarians like Muammar Gaddafi, North Korea's Kim Jong-il, al-Qaeda, and the Iranian state. We cannot sit back and watch, helplessly and impotently, as dictators slaughter their own people.
More importantly, these values are not uniquely American. They are universal - or should be. There is nothing uniquely American about love of freedom, of desire for a government run on democratic principles, of the desire to protect innocents from the vagaries of the powerful. These are human values.
Whether the forcible imposition of these values becomes a true "doctrine," a policy for use in future, unknown and unknowable situations, remains to be seen. But this is certain: it is honorable and even necessary. Even with our military stretched with a war in Afghanistan, extensive residual deployments in Iraq, and doing humanitarian work in Japan, we are capable of a mission such as that in Libya. As long as we are capable, and there is a need, we should act.
Ultimately, though, we cannot free the people of Libya. They must accomplish this goal themselves. They must convince Gaddafi's own military of the rightness of their struggle, convince Gaddafi's inner circle that they are sitting on the wrong side of the table, convince the people of Libya that the cause, that of freedom, is the right one.
Our own Revolutionary War history shows that winning the hearts and minds of the people is at least as important as military victory. It was an internal struggle that we had to fight and win ourselves. But at the same time, with the help of international friends, especially the French, our rebel forces were able to overcome an enemy that seemed superior in almost every way.
Like the French in 1781, the international community allying with the Libyan rebels against Gaddafi could be a turning point in their struggle. And, as in Libya, our help may be needed in other nations in the future.
The best way to bring change is at the ballot box. And change can be had. The people of Southern Sudan overwhelmingly voted for independence in January, and a peaceful separation of Sudan and Southern Sudan is planned for July.
When that sort of change is not possible, the popular uprisings in Egypt and Tunisia show that the voice of the people can still be heard. Even without a peaceful vote, change can be had with a minimum of bloodshed.
For the intransigent dictator, though, armed conflict may be the only option. The people of Libya thought so. And when the international community saw that the rebels in Libya were serious, the weight of a UN resolution was thrown their way. It is not inconceivable that another such situation could arise in any of a number of other nations.
The Obama Doctrine, if it can truly be called that, is in line with our values and as such should be supported by all Americans. We do not want to get involved in the internal politics of every nation. But when innocent life is at stake, especially when freedom is the ultimate goal, we must be prepared to act.
This column originally appeared in the Williston Observer on April 7, 2011.
President Barack Obama spoke to the nation last week to explain why the United States committed troops and material to aid the rebels in Libya. Though to many the reasons seem obvious - to avoid a humanitarian disaster of the types we regretted allowing to happen in Africa; because on March 17, the United Nations voted to impose a no-fly zone in the skies over Libya; and because though other nations' air forces are closer, there is no doubt that ours is the most capable and powerful - the President was right to explain himself to the American people.
In his speech on the 28th of March, Obama articulated a reason for the Libyan conflict that could be a policy, a Doctrine, he will apply in future conflicts:
"Mindful of the risks and costs of military action, we are naturally reluctant to use force to solve the world’s many challenges. But when our interests and values are at stake, we have a responsibility to act."
Not only when our interests are at stake, but also, perhaps more importantly, when our values are at stake.
Our values - the principles that we extol as examples for other nations, the principles that make us proud to be Americans, the principles that make us Americans - are what set us apart from modern barbarians like Muammar Gaddafi, North Korea's Kim Jong-il, al-Qaeda, and the Iranian state. We cannot sit back and watch, helplessly and impotently, as dictators slaughter their own people.
More importantly, these values are not uniquely American. They are universal - or should be. There is nothing uniquely American about love of freedom, of desire for a government run on democratic principles, of the desire to protect innocents from the vagaries of the powerful. These are human values.
Whether the forcible imposition of these values becomes a true "doctrine," a policy for use in future, unknown and unknowable situations, remains to be seen. But this is certain: it is honorable and even necessary. Even with our military stretched with a war in Afghanistan, extensive residual deployments in Iraq, and doing humanitarian work in Japan, we are capable of a mission such as that in Libya. As long as we are capable, and there is a need, we should act.
Ultimately, though, we cannot free the people of Libya. They must accomplish this goal themselves. They must convince Gaddafi's own military of the rightness of their struggle, convince Gaddafi's inner circle that they are sitting on the wrong side of the table, convince the people of Libya that the cause, that of freedom, is the right one.
Our own Revolutionary War history shows that winning the hearts and minds of the people is at least as important as military victory. It was an internal struggle that we had to fight and win ourselves. But at the same time, with the help of international friends, especially the French, our rebel forces were able to overcome an enemy that seemed superior in almost every way.
Like the French in 1781, the international community allying with the Libyan rebels against Gaddafi could be a turning point in their struggle. And, as in Libya, our help may be needed in other nations in the future.
The best way to bring change is at the ballot box. And change can be had. The people of Southern Sudan overwhelmingly voted for independence in January, and a peaceful separation of Sudan and Southern Sudan is planned for July.
When that sort of change is not possible, the popular uprisings in Egypt and Tunisia show that the voice of the people can still be heard. Even without a peaceful vote, change can be had with a minimum of bloodshed.
For the intransigent dictator, though, armed conflict may be the only option. The people of Libya thought so. And when the international community saw that the rebels in Libya were serious, the weight of a UN resolution was thrown their way. It is not inconceivable that another such situation could arise in any of a number of other nations.
The Obama Doctrine, if it can truly be called that, is in line with our values and as such should be supported by all Americans. We do not want to get involved in the internal politics of every nation. But when innocent life is at stake, especially when freedom is the ultimate goal, we must be prepared to act.
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