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Approaching the Electoral College

Thursday, March 1 at 12:01 AM

This Speakout has not been edited

By Lonnie Meder, Thornton

On February 24, RMN published a Speakout by Bill Blomberg (Electoral balancing act, by the numbers) attempting to tie Electoral College votes to "Taxation without Representation". I have never read a more convoluted, illogical approach to this issue. Mr. Blomberg compares the populations of California and Wyoming to the US population, indicating that California's percentage of total population makes them under represented in the Electoral College by 18% and Wyoming over represented by 300%.

To address this, he recommends increasing taxes on the "over represented" states by the percentage they are "over represented", and decreasing taxes in the "under represented" states in a similar manner. He tries to link taxes to the Electoral College representation, AND the Electoral College to Colorado Senate Bill 46.

He then goes on to DECLARE that, "In our republic, representation is a zero-sum game". I question whether Mr Blomberg understands the difference between a Republic and a DIRECT Democracy.

Sorry, but NOTHING in our republic is "zero-sum". If taxes were zero-sum, there would be only ONE rate for rich and poor, people without kids in school would not be paying taxes for schools, and there would be no highways across mid America for the liberals in California to reach their liberal kin in New York. Whenever representation of a diverse society with diverse conditions is involved, Zero-sum goes out the window.

There's a reason Mr Blomberg's numbers come out the way they do. The US congress is composed of the House (which is population driven) and the Senate, (which is NOT). The Electoral College representation is based on TOTAL representatives in the Congress. Perhaps Mr Blomberg would eliminate the Senate in order to make everything zero-sum.

There were reasons the founding fathers created the congress this way. In the Senate, it decreases the bullying potential of large states, and at the same time, gives them the advantages in the House. We in effect, get the ADVANTAGES of BOTH conditions. This is reflected in the Electoral College. It's called "checks and balances".

In Mr Blomberg's convoluted approach, he states that today, Colorado has 1.53 % of the US population and 1.67 % of the representation in the Electoral College, and should therefore pay a 9.2 percent surcharge on Federal taxes for its "surplus representation".

Even his math was incorrect. If Colorado has 1.53% of the total population, then, in order to have zero-sum, we should only have 1.53 % of the Electoral College. But if we have 1.67% of the representation, then we are only 0.14 % "over represented", not the 9.2% Mr. Blomberg suggested. I just remembered again why I don't trust liberals with taxing policy.

Also in his Speakout, he refers to the Electoral College as being an "18th century compromise, as though coming from the 18th century automatically makes the Electoral College an outdated environment, and therefore to be eliminated. Well, the House, Senate, and Constitution were 18th century decisions too. Perhaps, we should do away with them.

Mr. Blomberg also attempted to imply that Colorado Senate Bill 46 was a right step to fixing the Electoral College.

In declaring state term limits for federal representatives unconstitutional, the Supreme Court noted that, to sustain such a policy, would result in "a patchwork of state qualifications". Further, the consequences were inconsistent with "the uniformity and national character that the framers sought to insure".

These same judgments also apply to Senate Bill 46 when you consider that, this bill simply gives our electoral votes to whoever the rest of the nation elected by popular vote, in spite of the corruption in other states that affect popular votes. Also, the other states will continue with their winner take all philosophy.

If there are to be changes in the Electoral College, the only legitimate way to do so is by a US constitutional amendment. That way ALL states can provide input to it and debate it thoroughly.

It ain't broke folks ---- don't "fix" it!!!!

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