The Supreme Court as an Election Issue
News coverage of the election campaign consists of the intense and somewhat nasty contest between Senators Clinton and Obama. Senator McCain, the likely Republican nominee, goes about presenting himself as a nice Republican who isn't George Bush. All the while his staff members are collecting useful snippets from the Clinton-Obama fight to use against whoever wins the Democratic nomination.
Rather than dwell on the inanity of Clinton and Obama trashing each other for McCain's benefit, I worry about an important issue in this election that no one is talking about. Whoever becomes President next January will get to appoint several replacements to the Supreme Court. Senator McCain has already committed himself to following Bush's policy of appointing Christian or ultra right-wing Conservatives like Alito, Roberts, Scalia, and Thomas. A McCain court will do more than merely undo the Roe versus Wade decision. It will make it increasingly difficult for working people to form effective labor unions. It will support the failed drug policy of present and past administrations. It will protect members of the Bush administration from accountability for the torture of prisoners. It will do a lot of things that are dear to the hearts of some conservatives.
Clinton and Obama are wasting their time arguing about whether one of them is better qualified to lead the continuing "war against terror." The war against terror will go on regardless of who is elected. It will be the difficult task of whoever succeeds Mr. Bush to rein in this "war" and convert it into what it should have been in the first place: an international police action against the criminals who flew airplanes into buildings and murdered more than two thousand innocent persons. If Mr. McCain gets to appoint one or two more justices to the Supreme Court, the war against our civil liberties, the war against labor unions, the drug war, and other bad policies of our federal government will receive stronger legal sanction and blessing from the Bush-McCain Court. If Mrs. Clinton or Mr. Obama gets to make the appointments, the Court won't change its conservative bias right away because the four conservatives mentioned above are not going to retire any time soon. However, the Court at least won't become any more biased in favor of conservative causes than it is now. There is also hope that the Court will be influence to some extent by the results of the election.
I hope that when Clinton and Obama finish bashing each other and one becomes the Democratic Nominee, he or she can manage to reunite the Democratic Party and achieve a resounding victory in November.
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Should California choose Presidential Electors by Congressional District?
That’s the proposal that some Republican operators plan to place on the ballot at an election next year. Voters in each Congressional District would elect an Elector. In addition, the two extra electors assigned to the State would be assigned to the Presidential Candidate who gets the majority of the State’s popular vote.
A few days ago I listened to a debate on the proposition on a talk radio program. The proponent argued that it is more representative of the will of the voters than simply assigning all the State’s electoral vote to the candidate who wins a plurality of the State’s popular vote. He was a Republican. The opponent, a Democrat, argued that on a national basis it is unfair unless other States, particularly large States like Texas who normally vote Republican, also change their winner-take-all method of assigning electoral votes. If California alone makes the change, it will be equivalent to giving the Republican candidate an extra 25 or so electoral votes in the next election. It would provide an almost sure win for the Republican, even though the Democrat received several million more popular votes.
Neither debater questioned the assumption that choosing electors by Congressional District, if done nation-wide, would result in results that more closely reflect the actual popular vote in the nation. I question that assumption because most Congressional Districts are gerrymandered to favor heavily one Party or the other. Most Representatives to Congress represent safe seats. Electors chosen by Congressional District would reflect the results of gerrymandering rather than the true will of the voting public.
A better reform would be for each state to apportion its electoral votes in proportion to the votes for the various candidates running. For example, Vermont has three electoral votes and one Congressional District. Under the Congressional District plan, all three of Vermont’s electoral votes would go the candidate who wins a plurality of Vermont’s popular vote. The same rule would apply to Montana, Alaska, and other States that have only one Congressional district. Only in the large States could the Congressional District scheme provide a result that approaches a true popular vote.
A still better reform would be to bypass the Electoral College altogether by having several States who collectively have a majority of the votes in the Electoral College assign their Electoral votes to the candidate who wins the national popular vote, regardless of the vote in the individual States. The California Legislature passed a law to that end last year; the Republican Governor vetoed it.
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Sic'em, Jerry!
The Environmental Protection Agency has ruled against allowing California to put into effect limits on emissions from motor vehicles that are stricter than those required by the Federal Government. Previously the EPA has given California waivers on imposing additional emission restrictions. Our Attorney General, Jerry Brown, plans to sue the agency to compel it to allow California to impose its own standards. Several other States have adopted California's standards and at least two, Washington and Vermont, plan to join the lawsuit. We wish Jerry Brown success in this suit.