I often emphasize the importance of process. Thus in a recent post I criticized the Trump administration for giving advice to the Fed, which violated an “independence” norm that has developed over recent decades. (The content of the advice is less important.)
I am unmoved by people pointing to outcomes, when the process is not sound. Thus I want good judges, not liberal or conservative decisions by judges. I oppose the Electoral College, even if it ends up helping my favored party. I favor term limits, as without them it is much easier for countries to slide from democracy to authoritarianism.
Tesla recently learned the importance of process. Last month they changed the way they tested brakes on their new cars, and when news of this came out the stock immediately plunged by more than 7%, destroying billions in market value. How could this have happened? Is the brake test actually essential?
I’m in no position to offer any advice on the technical aspects of this test; it may or may not be needed. Tesla CEO Elon Musk is ten times smarter than I am, and has created some great products. But I do understand process better than Elon Musk. Let’s look at a timeline of this brake testing decision, in order to see the importance of process:
1. For many months, Tesla has been promising investors that they would soon increase the production rate on their new “Model 3”, up to 5000 cars/week. Unfortunately, they’ve consistently fallen short of production promises made back in 2017, which has frustrated both the 450,000 people who have placed $1000 deposits on the car, and also investors in Tesla stock.
2. Elon Musk recently promised that the production rate would rise to 5000/week by the end of the second quarter of this year. Because he’s a colorful and controversial figure, and because Tesla is an interesting company, he gets a lot of coverage in the business press. There were stories of him sleeping at the factory overnight, yelling at employees to move faster. Tesla’s chief engineer just resigned yesterday, one of a number of top engineers who have recently resigned. Employees report a very hectic work pace. It was all hands on deck to hit the 5000/week target. And they just barely did so in the final week of June, albeit Wall Street does not think they’ll be able to sustain this pace.
3. Then Business Insider reported that Tesla discontinued a standard brake test on June 26. Tesla responded that they still test the brakes of all new cars on the test track. Again, I’m not qualified to comment on the technical aspects of this, but it seems clear that Tesla’s decision-making process was unsound. It would be an amazing coincidence if the June 26 decision had nothing to do with Musk’s strong desire to hit the 5000 car production target that very week.
So even if Tesla is 100% correct that this test is not needed, Wall Street probably reacted rationally to this news. It may not expose quality problems with Tesla cars, but it does expose a faulty decision making process. Wall Street also understands that consumers reading these news stories are going to wonder what else is going on behind the scenes.
Very smart people often think that all that matters is the technical or scientific side of an issue, ignoring process. Similarly, very smart political analysts often focus on the outcome of political decisions, ignoring the process. If you are currently focusing on the outcome of political decisions made in Washington DC, you may be entirely missing the bigger picture.
The US recently walked away from a nuclear arms control agreement with Iran. Soon after, President Trump met with North Korean leader Kim, and soon afterwards announced that North Korea is no longer a nuclear threat. I’m not going to comment here on either of those decisions; indeed I’m probably not even qualified to comment. But when I try to understand the process involved in these two decisions, I’m reminded of a scene in the film Apocalypse Now:
Kurtz: Are my methods unsound?
Willard: I don’t see any method at all, sir.
It’s the process, stupid. We need a transparent, non-corrupt, honest, rules and norm–based political process. While a certain level of corruption in inevitable in politics, there are wide variations in the level of corruption both across countries and over time within a country such as the US.
PS. Speaking of transparency and process, our family has a $1000 deposit on a new Tesla, so I have a financial interest in Tesla getting its act together. Take that into account when considering this post. On the other hand, this post isn’t actually about Tesla, it’s about process.
PPS. Happy 4th of July to my American readers.
READER COMMENTS
Lorenzo from Oz
Jul 4 2018 at 8:46pm
My concern with the EU in a nutshell. Its processes are generally awful. That it does increase economic freedom is less important than the awful ways they get there. See “Adults in the Room”.
Scott Sumner
Jul 4 2018 at 8:56pm
Lorenzo, Yes, they should have probably stuck with a simple free trade/labor mobility agreement.
Steve Fritzinger
Jul 4 2018 at 9:13pm
Why do you oppose the Electoral College on grounds of process?
This is a large, diverse country. The Electoral College was designed to prevent a small number of densely populated areas from dominating the country. It seems to work well for that.
I’m originally from a rural area far from NY or CA. The people I grew up around don’t want NY and CA’s policies shoved onto them.
MikeW
Jul 4 2018 at 9:41pm
I agree.
robc
Jul 5 2018 at 10:43am
I also agree. The Electoral College seems like a very good process, doing exactly what it was meant to do. My only tweak would be having every state adopt the ME/NE rule.
Just from purely a fraud perspective, the EC is a barrier. You can’t swing an election by fraud in one location, unless the election is close enough that swinging that one state matters. Change to the ME/NE rule and fraud in one location flips at most 3 EC votes. Which is even better.
Plus, the ME/NE rule would cause more areas to come into play as opposed to targeting a few swing states.
But while that would be an improvement, the current system is good enough.
BW
Jul 5 2018 at 1:39pm
What is the ME/NE rule?
Jim Wilson
Jul 5 2018 at 5:03pm
Both Maine and Nebraska split electoral votes, and are not winner-takes-all.
robc
Jul 5 2018 at 5:11pm
Maine and Nebraska split their EC votes by congressional district. 1 Vote to the winner of each district and the remaining 2 to the overall state winner.
Mark Bahner
Jul 5 2018 at 10:00pm
Another thing to be said for the Electoral College is that it avoids the need to do a re-count of all the votes in the nation in the event of a close election.
For example, what if there had been a nationwide 100+ million vote recount in Bush vs Gore?
Scott Sumner
Jul 5 2018 at 2:02am
Steve, It’s very simple—everyone’s vote should count equal. With the electoral college, the voters in small states have more power than the voters in big states, when electing the president. I see no reason at all why that system is better than simple majority rule in picking a president. Each voter should have equal influence on the outcome.
Perhaps your concern could be addressed with federalism; taking power away from the federal government and giving it to the states. I’ve very supportive of that idea.
Mark Z
Jul 5 2018 at 2:44am
I would actually say that small states are justified in insisting that the electoral college and the senate remain as they are unless and until an official process for secession is drafted. The electoral college does indeed bolster small states’ votes, or put favorably, forces politicians seek support from a broader geographical segment of the country. But as long as self-determination at the sub-national level is denied (I think the courts are ambiguous about this), I think purely majoritarian elections don’t have such a great case. After all, we agree that national boundaries are basically accidents of history, no? So why should Floridians have more say in what goes on in Washington than British Columbia?
Federalism is a partial solution, but I think small states may be justified in making formalization of the secession process their asking price for dropping the EC.
MikeW
Jul 5 2018 at 11:37am
“The electoral college … forces politicians seek support from a broader geographical segment of the country.”
I think this is an important point. Without the EC, presidential elections would be totally dominated by the big cities. No one would ever see a presidential candidate outside a big city. I think it’s good to force them to get out and see the rest of the country…
Alan Goldhammer
Jul 5 2018 at 1:46pm
@MikeW – right now candidates are only seen a handful of states that can tip the balance. Most states are reliably solid D 0r R and other than for fundraising purposes (R visits to TX and D visits to CA and NY), you don’t see candidates visiting “…the rest of the country…”
MikeW
Jul 5 2018 at 2:06pm
It’s still more than it would be without the Electoral College. The big cities and big states already dominate U.S. politics; I don’t think they need to be even more dominant.
john hare
Jul 5 2018 at 7:28am
I’m not convinced all votes should be equal. I am well aware of many of my own limitations that make my opinion far less accurate than others in various fields. I’m not equal to any of the bloggers here in the field of economics, and third parties are right to be skeptical of giving me equal consideration in that field. I don’t know foreign policy as well as most politicians. I want a qualified doctor rather than a vote by all in the waiting room.
This is not to say we should hand it all over to some expert. I do believe there should be some qualifications on voting. I tend to believe that people that have demonstrated a lack of ability to handle their own lives should be suspect at voting on how the rest of us should run ours.
How those qualifications are derived though is a very sticky problem that could easily lead too worse outcomes than allowing all to vote..
robc
Jul 5 2018 at 10:45am
I think your idea goes against the concept of the USA as a union of sovereign states.
MikeDC
Jul 9 2018 at 3:15pm
So you’d throw out a process with a two hundred year track record of relative success to install a system with a 2000 year old record of being easy to mess up.
Mark Z
Jul 5 2018 at 2:34am
” I oppose the Electoral College, even if it ends up helping my favored party. I favor term limits, as without them it is much easier for countries to slide from democracy to authoritarianism.”
Scott, what do either of these positions have to do with process? Wanting to changes from one process to another doesn’t say anything about following the established process. If one objects to the current set of rules, then why shouldn’t one break them? So I’m not really sure what your point here is. Is it that we shouldn’t make up the rules as we go along? Or is it that the rules are bad and we should change them? You seem to be trying to go in both directions at the same time.
Also, immediately after saying outcome is irrelevant, you say you favor term limits because of their (putative) outcome. The outcome you fear, however, doesn’t make sense to me. Term limits are inherently anti-democratic (just as the electoral college is); far from protecting democracy from authoritarianism, I see it as protecting what liberties we enjoy today from potential democratic authoritarianism. Which is fine. But I don’t see how it’s consistent to oppose the electoral college on principle while supporting term limits for what I see are purely pragmatic reasons (and contradictory to the principle on which you oppose the electoral college).
Alan Goldhammer
Jul 5 2018 at 8:02am
Scott’s comment on the electoral college has elicited several reader posts about the necessity of allowing small states a greater say in the election of the president. It’s worth noting that the Constitution was established at a point in time when there were far fewer states and a much smaller population base. Up through the 1808 election only about five new states were added to the original 13 the ratified the Constitution. Even then the population in terms of electoral votes was more evenly distributed than today (the two outlier states with high electoral vote counts were VA and PA, the equivalent of CA and TX today).
If one accepts the principal of one person – one vote, the Electoral College is hardly democratic. The same can be said about both the Gerrymandering of Congressional districts coupled with large disparities in population demographics (this second is of course used to create imbalanced districts by party). In its recent session, the Supreme Court refused to take up three of the Gerrymander cases that came before it because of technical reasons (I live in MD, one of the states that has created a convoluted map that caused the loss of a Congressional seat for a long serving Republican).
One can make a number of arguments as to why our current representative government fails but I shall point to only one. Consider the farm bill that is currently going through the House and Senate. From a Libertarian perspective it’s a disaster since it violates ‘free market’ principals in a number of ways (sugar quotas, milk marketing orders, etc.) and I’m sure we will see soybean farmers bailed out at some point this year because of the upcoming trade war with China. Does this make sense?
Term limits are but one solution (I’ve long been against them as the voters should be allowed to make their own choice. However, I’ve changed my mind somewhat after our county in Maryland adopted term limits for our municipal government. We had a spirited Democratic primary two weeks ago with eight candidates for county executive and over 30 for the four at-large spots on the County Council. All the incumbents were term limited). Term limits on the Congressional level have worked for the Republican party as they put in place a standing rule that a House member could chair a committee for only three consecutive terms. It’s one of the reasons why there has been a larger than expected retirement of long serving House members. Having to relinquish their chairmanship they did not want to be back benchers. It’s also why the Republicans have fewer ‘old timers’ in the leadership than the Republicans.
Thomas Sewell
Jul 5 2018 at 5:32pm
In terms of process, the right process for changing away from the electoral college is to follow the Amendment process to eliminate it. Alternately, individual States can legitimately change how their own electors are selected.
As stated, there is a significant value in following the established process, rather than just tossing it to get the results you want. Following the Amendment process would also continue to signal the agreements made between the States to ratify the Constitution are taken seriously. A commitment was made to not deprive smaller States of their representation. For example, “… no State, without its Consent, shall be deprived of its equal Suffrage in the Senate.”
I realize it’s considered quaint to think about States as having a measure of power or authority themselves, rather than just being a pass through for the people or just parts of a larger nation, but they were intended to continue to be more than that and it would be a severe violation of the principles mentioned to change that without following the agreed upon process, as opposed to just bowing to recent popular opinion.
The founders of this nation agreed to a power sharing plan and bound the country to protect minority rights in many ways. Democratic representation isn’t the only proper governing ideal. There are competing ideals around protecting individual rights from the sometimes tyranny of the majority. That’s the argument against simple majority votes weighted equally on everything.
The purpose of many of our current processes, however well they sometimes don’t work in practice, is to preserve liberty. There’s a document everyone may have heard of recently which states the purpose of government. It doesn’t say “To always implement the will of the majority of people”, it reads “That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men”.
So you can disagree with the objective of our established government and want to change it and you can disagree with the process previously established for achieving that objective, but don’t say that because the process (electoral college) doesn’t achieve your different objective, it’s not a good process. That’s what Scott’s comment sounds like it’s saying to me and that complaint appears to denigrate the established Constitutional process, rather than encouraging a better process.
MikeW
Jul 5 2018 at 6:47pm
Well put.
Mark Bahner
Jul 7 2018 at 1:06pm
My guess would be that far less than 1% of the citizens of the U.S. could come up with an accurate ratio–say, plus or minus a factor of two–of the average percentage of GDP of U.S. government in the last 40 years versus the first 40 years after the passing of the Constitution.
–SPOILER ALERT…partial answer in postscript–
P.S. And I’ll bet it would still be far less than 1% of the citizens of the U.S. could come up with an accurate value for the first 40 years if they were told that the U.S. government spending in the last 40 years has averaged about 20% of GDP.
Cyril Morong
Jul 5 2018 at 9:36am
“A common objection to totalitarian societies is that they regard the end as justifying the means. Taken literally, this objection is clearly illogical. If the end does not justify the means, what does? But this easy answer does not dispose of the objection; it simply shows that the objection is not well put. To deny that the end justifies the means is indirectly to assert that the end in question is not the ultimate end, that the ultimate end is itself the use of the proper means. Desirable or not, any end that can be attained only by the use of bad means must give way to the more basic end of the use of acceptable means.”
― Milton Friedman, Capitalism and Freedom
Chris
Jul 5 2018 at 10:54am
“I favor term limits, as without them it is much easier for countries to slide from democracy to authoritarianism.”
Why do you think this is true? I’ve gone back and forth on term limits I can think of mental models where either scenario could be the worse outcome.
Juan Manuel Pérez Porrúa Pérez
Jul 5 2018 at 4:32pm
Scott, I think you’re wrong on term limits. Term limits are neither necessary nor sufficient to avoid authoritarianism. In Mexico for much of the XXth century we had term limits for all elected officials, the President (1 single term), both houses of Congress, Governors, mayors, even unelected judges. However, this did not prevent the PRI system of authoritarian rule for enduring for almost a century.
On the other hand, in the US there were no term limits for either President (until the XXth century) and no term limits on Congress or the Judiciary. Now, however you may want to consider the US, authoritarian or not, it certainly was more democratic than Mexico.
Also, it’s a bad idea in the abstract to have term limits. Under term limits, there comes a point in time where the representative does not have to respond anymore to the preferences of his constituency (e.g. lame-duck Presidents), this period offers the opportunity to the politician to engage in corrupt acts without punishment from his constituency. On the other hand, without term limits, the possibility of reelecting himself is always open to the representative. Even if he decides not to run for reelection, he has the incentive to behave well, if he wants his party to win in his district.
BC
Jul 5 2018 at 4:54pm
The Iran deal is a perfect example of the problems with not following process. Our constitutional process for treaties is that a supermajority of the Senate must ratify. That ensures that we have broad support for the treaty which, in turn, also demonstrates national commitment. Unfortunately, Obama bypassed the ratification process. Sure enough, after the subsequent election, we saw what can happen when the President bypasses constitutional processes. It turned out that the national commitment to the agreement just wasn’t there. Ditto the Paris Climate Accord.
The topic of “good judges” is also quite topical. One would think that it would be uncontroversial that judges should make rulings based on the original public meaning of constitutional and statutory text. After all, since we have processes to amend the Constitution and to repeal and replace statutes, how could the meaning of these change without going through those processes? I can understand why someone might think that a judge *didn’t* follow constitutional text in a particular case due to his or her political biases. I wouldn’t think, though, that anyone would argue that a judge *shouldn’t* follow the text. Apparently, however, many legal scholars and judges advocate exactly that:
http://reason.com/reasontv/2018/06/22/randy-barnett-originalism-constitution
If Trump nominates a so-called originalist or textualist, it will be interesting to see how many object to the nominee’s originalist jurisprudential philosophy in and of itself.
Mark Bahner
Jul 7 2018 at 1:30pm
My comments on the percentage of GDP spent by the federal government in the first 40 years after the passing of the Constitution versus federal government spending in the last 40 years are directly related to this. (That is, there was a method to my previous mad comments. It’s not all madness. 😉 )
Mark Bahner
Jul 7 2018 at 2:31pm
In fact, probably 99+% of the U.S. citizenry would hate a judge that made rulings based on the original public meaning of the constitutional and statutory text.
Consider that such a judge would rule the following things unconstitutional:
Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security, the Departments of Energy and Education, the Environmental Protection Agency, all national parks, the FDA, the DEA and virtually all aspects of the federal war on drugs. The federal minimum wage. Etc., etc. etc.
And last, but certainly not least, even the standing army is unconstitutional, according to the public meaning of the Constitution at the time it was written:
Virtually everyone would hate a judge who ruled on constitutional matters based on the original public meaning of the constitutional text. That includes virtually all conservatives as well as all liberals. In fact, no person who publicly proposed to rule in such a manner, and honestly answered questions about the implications for that stance, could come even close to being nominated as federal supreme court judge…let alone being confirmed.
Mark Z
Jul 10 2018 at 4:01am
I think it’s generally accepted that this clause does not preclude a standing army, but rather insists that its funding be reappropriated at least every two years. I believe Hamilton overtly spoke of the necessity of a standing army in the Federalist papers.
Scott Sumner
Jul 5 2018 at 6:10pm
robc, Fraud is a far greater problem with the Electoral College than without it. The national vote is almost never close, in absolute terms. While fraud might have swayed Florida in 2000, it is implausible that it could be widespread enough to sway the national vote.
Mike, You said:
“No one would ever see a presidential candidate outside a big city.”
That’s just wrong. Politicians campaign where the swing votes are. No need to campaign in San Francisco.
Also, Alan is correct, a popular vote system would lead all 50 states to be “in play”.
John, Even if all votes should not be equal, they wouldn’t be based on Delaware voters having more power than New Jersey voters, they’d be based on well-informed voters having more power than the less well-informed.
Mark, The Electoral College is corrupt because it favors one group of voters over another. Americans should not be discriminated against based on where they live.
Term limits weaken the ability of governments to engage in corruption; they make the “process” of government less corrupt.
Chris, You asked:
“Why do you think this is true?”
Look around the world today. Chavez, Putin, Erdogan, and many, many other examples show the danger of not having robust term limits.
When there are term limits, leaders know that they won’t be shielded from prosecution for corruption after they leave office.
It also reduces the danger that governance is about personality, not policy.
Juan, Venezuela under Chavez did far worse than Mexico—that’s the more relevant comparison for Mexico, not the US.
BC, It’s naive to think that “conservative” judges are just following the Constitution. Indeed there are various forms of “conservatism” that differ radically from each other–Gorsuch’s judicial philosophy is nothing like Bork’s, in terms of deferring to the legislature.
I’d encourage you to look at the decision that resolved the 2000 election, if you don’t think conservative (and liberal) judges are often motivated by outcome, not process.
MikeW
Jul 5 2018 at 6:57pm
Scott — I don’t think your response to me is correct. For example, you said no need to campaign in San Francisco. Not so. While the great majority of people in the Bay area are going to vote for the Democrat, there are still potentially millions of swingable voters there — far more than in any low-population area.
BC
Jul 5 2018 at 7:22pm
Scott, I never once used the word “conservative”. I referred to “originalism” and “textualism”. Does constraining judges to original public meaning favor conservatives? In fact, if progressives believed that conservative judges strayed from the Constitution more often than progressive judges did, then shouldn’t progressives advocate originalism even more than conservatives do?
Mark Bahner
Jul 7 2018 at 4:49pm
I don’t see how the word “corrupt” applies. As others have pointed out, the Constitution is essentially a contract negotiated by the original states. The less-populous states only bought into the contract because the terms were favorable to them (i.e., one Elector each for the total of the number of Representatives and Senators). Most definitions of “corrupt” that I know of involve dishonesty for personal gain. There was nothing “dishonest” about the Electoral College…there was no secret trick that the more-populous states didn’t understand when they signed.
Mark Bahner
Jul 8 2018 at 11:58pm
But the Founders, in their wildest dreams, couldn’t have imagined a nation with instantaneous communication possible between anyone. Voting in their time was paper ballots, hand-counted. And then news of the vote results would be delivered by people riding on horseback. It would have been crazy to have a popular vote for President when the Constitution was written. And if it had occurred, it certainly would have been more prone to fraud at that time than the Electoral College at that time.
Mark Z
Jul 10 2018 at 4:18am
Why would eliminating the electoral college put the whole country in play? It seems it would do precisely the opposite. I would argue presidential campaigns are not primarily about winning independent or undecided voters, but about generating turnout among people who, if they do vote, are going to vote red or blue no matter what. That’s the deciding factor, imo, not swinging the moderates. If I’m correct, then candidates would likely spend all their time in California or Texas trying to drive up turnout among loyalists, and little or no time or effort trying to appeal to any other states. Absent the electoral college, we would get far more of one 51% of the country, geographically speaking, trying to impose its will on the other 49%, and the geographical voting blocs would be far more persistent and unchanging.
And again, there needs to be some solution to the inevitable issue of what happens when 51% of the country realizes it can tax the other 49% and redistribute it to themselves. More democracy (“one person, one vote”) is not necessarily good. One person has an incentive to vote for a candidate who will loot another person’s house, causing 100$ of damage, and give the person $50. IOW, democracy is not conducive to Kaldor-Hicks efficiency, at least unless there’s an exit option. Which brings me back to my original point: those most vulnerable to oppression by a numerical majority (small numerical minorities) are justified in demanding a viable exit option, e.g. secession, and if we’re going to make the system more democratic, it’s only fair we also make it easier to leave.
JP
Jul 5 2018 at 9:59pm
Binding term limits allow politicians to make policy choices they would not make if they faced the voters. There is a large literature on this and there seems to be no evidence to make the claim “without them [term limits] it is much easier for countries to slide from democracy to authoritarianism.”
See here for a classic paper on term limits: http://public.econ.duke.edu/~psarcidi/lunchf08/bescase.pdf
See here for how term limits have an “inconsequential impact on the level of federal spending.” https://link.springer.com/article/10.1023/A:1017950004344
Mark Bahner
Jul 7 2018 at 3:15pm
How many terms do you figure Bill Clinton would have served without term limits? Certainly at least four, right? (No way Dubya would have beaten Bill Clinton!) But probably more than six terms, since Obama would not have gone up against Bill Clinton? Would six plus terms of Bill Clinton have been a good thing?
Scott Sumner
Jul 6 2018 at 12:04am
Mike, People matter, not acres of land. It’s appropriate that candidates go where there are people. In any case, only a tiny percentage of Americans will ever see the candidates—most observe the campaign through TV and other media.
And I don’t think there are many swingable voters in San Francisco. As far as places like South Dakota or Idaho, candidates also have no incentive to visit there under an Electoral College system.
BC, My mistake. But I am confident that “originalism” is not a criterion of the Trump administration–they are looking for conservative justices. My complaint is when people conflate the two.
MikeW
Jul 6 2018 at 10:58am
I guess my position is that issues and priorities (and values) are very different for high-population-density areas vs. low-population-density areas. The best solution for that would be to devolve authority down to more local areas, but clearly things have been going in the opposite direction for at least the last 50 years and that is not likely to change. The Electoral College at least gives a little bit of a voice to the low-population-density areas.
A small example is the whole $15 minimum wage thing. While I don’t think it is good even for the big cities, the effects might at least be tolerable for them. However, it seems to me that it will be devastating to rural areas because the wage scales are starting from a much lower level there, so it is an enormous mandated wage increase for them. The people in the big cities who are imposing this sort of thing don’t give a thought to its effects on rural areas because they don’t care. (Yes, I know that many of the $15 minimum wages are being imposed only in cities, but in California, at least, it is statewide.)
I think the comment by Thomas Sewell above is important, too. The Electoral College was a compromise between the big states and the small states at the time of the founding. Without that compromise, there’s no telling what would have happened. There might not have been a United States. You can argue that the compromise has outlived its usefulness, but I’m not sure I agree…
Hazel Meade
Jul 6 2018 at 11:32am
IMO the problem with the electoral college is no so much the “undemocratic” aspect of it, but the winner-take-all allocation of seats that many states have chosen to use. It’s true this tends to make individual swing states more influential in the general election, but when everyone is doing it it has a polarizing effect on politics. This is why third parties have such a difficult time breaking into politics today – because a small number of “spoiler” votes can swing an entire state to the opposing party, along with all of it’s electoral college votes. If votes were divided proportionately to the popular vote in that state, then there would be third party delegates in the electoral college, and those delegates would cast the deciding vote. The third place candidate could drop out at that point and endorse one of the other two candidates. For instance, in the 2000 election, one could imagine Ralph Nader dropping out after the general election and freeing his delegates to vote for Gore. If that was a possibility, people wouldn’t be afraid of voting for Nader in the general election, and the notion that third party candidates are spoilers would vanish, and there would be less tendency to maintain party discipline and terrorize people into voting for one of the two major parties, and that in turn would reduce polarization.
Hazel Meade
Jul 6 2018 at 11:41am
In other words, just to summarize, if you got rid of winner-take-all allocation and went to proportional by party, you could transform the electoral college into something that functioned like a runoff election or a preference list. Like voting for Nader would effectively be voting “first choice Nader, second choice Gore”. Canadidates could declare in advance of the election who their delegates would vote for if they weren’t one of the front runners.
TMC
Jul 7 2018 at 11:15am
Scott, you need to understand the process before you decide if we follow it or not. People do not, ultimately, vote for the President. States do. While it’s trite to remind you we are a Republic, but we are.
Despite your post you seem to be upset about the outcomes rather than the process. You do not like Trump, so you don’t like Gorsuch, even though he’s an originalist – your professed preference. You seem to conflate originalist and conservative so your distaste for conservative takes over. You even bring up the Bush-Gore decision where the NYT analysis was that Gore would have lost under all but the most finely tuned recount. Process won.
I agree with you on term limits, even though they are even more undemocratic than the electoral college. Benefits outweigh the costs. Entrenched leaders are too hard to remove even in the US. We usually re-elect a sitting President.
As mentioned above, Trump seems to follow process, though not norms. Your example with the Fed is a norm, you mention it has been so for only the past few decades and has not been formalized in any way. Killing the Iran deal, the Paris accord, and sending the DACA deal back to Congress to decide were all following process. All these things were to be approved by Congress, but Obama sidestepped the process because he knew they would not survive the process. If we are lucky enough that we get a deal with NK and Trump does not have the Senate ratify it I’ll hit him with the same criticism.
Hazel Meade
Jul 9 2018 at 10:38am
It’s technically incorrect that “states” elect the president. The founder’s original conception of the electoral college was not intended to include “winner-take-all” allocations of the electors by state. It was intended to be one elector per voting district, which would then act like a representative of the district’s interests in the Electoral College, much like the House of Representatives, but the founders did not anticipate the effect that political evolution would have on shaping the states laws governing how the electors were chosen. the winner-take-all system took decades to evolve.
http://www.fairvote.org/how-the-electoral-college-became-winner-take-all
Scott Sumner
Jul 7 2018 at 10:35pm
TMC, You said:
“Despite your post you seem to be upset about the outcomes rather than the process. You do not like Trump, so you don’t like Gorsuch, even though he’s an originalist – your professed preference.”
Just the opposite. I favor having a good process regardless of whether it leads to the outcome I favor. I’ve always been opposed to the Electoral College, even in elections where it seemed to favor my preferred candidate.
I don’t know enough about Gorsuch to even have an opinion. My point is that there’s a big split among conservatives as to whether the Supreme Court should frequently overturn legislation. Both sides are called “conservative” and yet they have little in common, and are often diametrically opposed to each other.
Mike, The minimum wage is an argument for decentralization, not for the Electoral College.
Mark Z
Jul 10 2018 at 4:35am
Scott, I think the question of how often the Supreme Court should overturn legislation is actually pretty orthogonal to the ‘originalist vs. living constitution’ dispute. Aside from disputes over the constitutionally designated role of the judiciary, these are two distinct dimensions, 1) how ought we interpret the constitution, and 2) how far should we go to impose that interpretation on the other branches? These questions may overlap but are not identical.
So, yes, an originalist can be a judicial activist, or favor judicial restraint. Neither position is necessarily reflective of how originalist or unoriginalist he is (again, ignoring the issue that the constitution itself says things about the role of the judiciary;that’s part of the overlap I guess).
The reason this dispute doesn’t have much of a mirror among progressives is because the generous ‘living constitution’ interpretation of the text largely forfeits the Court’s basis for interfering (or correcting, depending on your view) with the other branches, so the second question of how much discretion the Court should exercise in interfering/correcting the actions of the other branches is moot.
Larry
Jul 8 2018 at 1:50am
This reminds me of Scott Adams’ preference for systems over goals. The idea is that good systems are gifts that keep on giving, while goals not achieved are deflating and goals achieved leave you nowhere to go.
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