Birch Bayh (D-Ind.), the Senate sponsor of both the 1970 and 1979 efforts to scrap the Electoral College.
One thing I think Americans should be thankful for with this past election is that the popular and electoral vote went in the same direction. Although yes, I know technically that the electoral vote is what wins elections, there’s an additional sense of legitimacy if the popular vote goes the way of the electoral winner. Many people favor eliminating the Electoral College, but that requires a Constitutional change, and that is a difficult matter. This, by the way, is far from a new proposal.
Opposition to the Electoral College is older than you might think…in 1823, Senator Thomas Hart Benton of Missouri, later a founder of the Democratic Party, wrote, “Every reason which induced the convention to institute Electors has failed. They are no longer of any use, and may be dangerous to the liberties of the people” (O’Brien). Even a retired President James Madison, the father of the Constitution, had not supported maintaining the status quo of the Electoral College. He supported a district plan in which states would be divvied up into districts for presidential votes, and each district would choose its electors (O’Brien). President Andrew Jackson was the first to call for its outright abolition in favor of the popular vote. So just remember, when liberal Democrats push for the popular vote over the Electoral College, they are, in fact, acting as traditional Democrats. Some 20th century efforts to abolish or alter the Electoral College were pushed, as direct democracy grew in popularity.
In 1913, Senator Robert Owen (D-Okla.), a progressive and one of the fathers of the Federal Reserve, proposed substituting the electoral college with the popular vote, but this proposal failed on January 31st 32-36 (R 12-27, D 20-9). The Southern vote, perceived as particularly strong against changing the Electoral College, was 6-8 on this proposal. The conservative wing of the GOP overwhelmingly voted against.
In 1934, Senator George W. Norris (R-Neb.), one of the GOP’s most celebrated progressives, pushed for the popular vote of the president and vice president. He had been at the forefront of several movements towards direct democracy and was the father of the amendment to the Constitution that eliminated the “lame duck” session of Congress, and had the presidential term start on January 20th rather than March 4th. This proposal failed to achieve the necessary 2/3’s on a vote of 52-29 (D 40-9; R 11-20; FL 1-0) on May 22nd. The Southern vote was 15-5 for this proposal, the opposition making up 56% of Democratic opposition. Among the Republicans, there was a clear split with the party’s moderate to liberal wing voting for and the party’s conservative wing voting against. This was the high watermark of Southern support for scrapping the Electoral College.
1950: The Lodge-Gossett Amendment – Electoral College with No Electors
In 1950, Senator Henry Cabot Lodge Jr. (R-Mass.) and Representative Ed Gossett (D-Tex.) proposed an amendment to the Constitution that abolished electors and maintained the electoral numbering system, with electoral votes allocated proportionately to the vote. This is known as the fractional-proportional method, and everyone would have had motivation to vote in their states as the electoral vote of a state was no longer to be winner take all. Lodge, a moderate, thought this a good compromise between those who would want to abolish the electoral college and those who wanted to retain the power of states and wanted the GOP to make some headway in the South. His colleagues largely thought the same on the merits of the amendment, and it passed 64-27 (D 46-4; R 18-23) on February 1st. The Senate’s opposition, interestingly enough, consisted almost entirely of conservatives. Gossett, however, was a conservative Democrat and had some other motivations, wanting to limit the power of urban areas and of radicals and racial and ethnic minorities to push left-wing policies and civil rights bills. He expressed his views in 1949, “The Electoral College permits and invites irresponsible control and domination by small organized minority groups, within the large pivotal States. It aggravates and accentuates the building up and solidification within these States of religious, economic, and racial blocs. Small, definable, minority groups, organized religious or economic or racial lines, by voting together, can and do hold a balance of power within these pivotal States. As a result, the political strategists in both parties make special appeals to these various groups as such. These groups have become more and more politically conscious. They know their power. In many instances, they have no political alignments or philosophy as such, but are simply up for sale to the highest bidder. To encourage economic racial, and religious group consciousness and group action, is a dangerously undemocratic practice, aside from its other evil consequences” (National Popular Vote, 5-6). The timing of this amendment is interesting too, as in 1948, both major parties adopted pro-civil rights platforms, and some Southern Democrats broke away from the Democratic Party that year to back the explicitly segregationist State’s Rights Party, which ran South Carolina Governor Strom Thurmond. Given the South’s unity at the time against civil rights legislation, this would turn the South into an even more powerful voting bloc. Once Gossett’s motivations became clear, support for the amendment among Northern liberals collapsed. On July 17th, the Lodge- Gossett Amendment was easily defeated 134-210 (D 85-116; R 49-92; L 0-1; ALP 0-1). This reform proposal was not brought up again.
1956 – Electoral College Reform Debate
In 1956, reforming the Electoral College was brought up again. An effort to abolish the Electoral College and institute the popular vote fared badly in a Senate vote of 17-66 (D 16-25; R 1-41) on March 27th. After the failure of this proposal, liberal Senator Hubert Humphrey (D-Minn.) pushed a compromise reform that would award two electoral votes to the winner of each state and the rest would be proportionately represented (Goldman). This proposal was shelved on voice vote, and no proposed reform had 2/3’s support.
The Nixon Era: The Electoral College Comes Closest to Its Demise
In the 1968 election, although Richard Nixon won by 110 electoral votes he had won with less than 1% in the popular vote, and the third party candidacy of George Wallace was fully intended not to win, but rather to try to force the winner into making a deal with him. Much was also made of a faithless Nixon elector in North Carolina voting for Wallace instead. This set the stage for the consideration of the Bayh (D-Ind.)-Celler (D-N.Y.) Amendment, which if adopted would have scrapped the electoral college but not replaced it with an outright popular vote, rather a two-round system akin to how presidential elections work in France. There would be a first election, and if no duo won at least 40% of the popular vote, there would be a runoff election. The momentum for supporting this proposal was quite strong, with President Nixon as well as Speaker John W. McCormack (D-Mass.) and Minority Leader Gerald Ford (R-Mich.) in support. After a last-ditch effort by conservative Rep. David Dennis (R-Ind.) to institute a district plan was voted down 162-246 (D 62-166; R 100-80), the House passed this amendment on a vote of 339-70 (D 184-44; R 154-26) on September 18, 1969. Nearly all Democrats opposed were from the South, but interestingly two members of the Congressional Black Caucus, Charles Diggs of Michigan and Bill Clay of Missouri, also voted against. However, opposition grew when the measure reached the Senate, and there was a much less favorable climate in the Senate’s Judiciary Committee, as the chairman was James Eastland (D-Miss.) and his Republican counterpart was Nebraska’s Roman Hruska. Both men were strongly opposed to scrapping the Electoral College, and a bloc of Southern and some small state senators, notably Strom Thurmond (R-S.C.) and Carl Curtis (R-Neb.), filibustered. Two motions to end debate failed 54-36 (D 33-18; R 21-18) and 53-34 (D 34-15; R 19-19), and the proposal was scrapped after Majority Leader Mike Mansfield (D-Mont.) gave up in the midst of attempting a third, realizing he didn’t have the votes to proceed. Most of the Democratic opponents were from the South, and the Senate Republicans voting against were mostly a who’s who of its conservative wing.
1979: Jimmy Carter Supports Popular Vote
One of the presidents who supported abolishing the Electoral College was Jimmy Carter, who proposed simply a substitution of the popular vote. This proposal was debated on in the Senate as a Constitutional amendment, again sponsored by Senator Birch Bayh (D-Ind.), but there were some defections among Senate liberals for reasons that are similar to why liberal support collapsed for the Lodge-Gossett Amendment in 1950. These senators were convinced by arguments from black and Jewish groups that the Electoral College would cost them political influence, and the vote was 51-48 on July 10th, far short of the 2/3’s needed to adopt a Constitutional amendment (Weaver). Of the 22 Southern senators, only 6 supported, most of them being “New South” Democrats, a moderate to liberal sort that won with multi-racial coalitions. Another opponent of this proposal was none other than Joe Biden of Delaware.
Other proposals have been made since to abolish the Electoral College, but have not received votes, as attaining the 2/3’s majority is a highly difficult task. Instead, some other movements have been underway, including the National Popular Interstate Vote Compact to try to make the Electoral College irrelevant by granting all electoral votes to the popular vote winner, but this doesn’t go into effect until the number of states that agree to it amounts to 270 electoral votes.
What I found interesting is that although modern narratives surrounding the Electoral College that I’ve read recently seem to like to paint it as a part of historical racism that there were arguments for keeping it as a bulwark against racism. This impacted the 1950 debate on Lodge-Gossett and the 1979 effort to repeal the Electoral College. Furthermore, political journalist Theodore H. White held about scrapping the electoral college in 1970 that a direct election system would produce results that would go “brutally against our black population” and that it would “give the racists a chance” (CQ Press).
References
Electoral College Reform Victim of Senate Filibuster. CQ Press.
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Goldman, R.M. (1958). Hubert Humphrey’s S.J. 152: A New Proposal for Electoral Reform. Midwest Journal of Political Science, 2(1).
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O’Brien, F.D. (2001). The Electoral College: How It Got That Way and Why We’re Stuck With It. American Heritage, 52(1).
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https://www.americanheritage.com/electoral-college-how-it-got-way-and-why-were-stuck-it
S.J. Res. 2. Passage. Govtrack.
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https://www.govtrack.us/congress/votes/81-1950/s242
S.J. Res. 2. Joint Resolution Proposing an Amend. To the Constitution Providing for the Election of a Pres. And Vice-Pres. On Motion to Suspend the Rules and Pass. Govtrack.
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https://www.govtrack.us/congress/votes/81-1950/h211
S.J. Res. 31. Electoral Reform. Substitute Proposal to Abolish Electoral College and Elect President and Vice-President by Direct Popular Vote. Govtrack.
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https://www.govtrack.us/congress/votes/84-1956/s132
The Fractional Proportional (Lodge-Gossett) Method of Awarding Electoral Votes. (2021, May 1). National Popular Vote.
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To Pass S.J. Res. 26, Providing for the Direct Popular Election of the President and Vice President of the United States. (Motion Failed; 2/3 Required). Govtrack.
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https://www.govtrack.us/congress/votes/96-1979/s161
To Pass S.J. Res. 29, Proposing an Amendment to the Constitution of the U.S. Relating to Popular Election for President and Vice President. Govtrack.
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https://www.govtrack.us/congress/votes/73-2/s198
To Recommit H.J. Res. 681, Proposing an Amendment to the Constitution Relating to the Election of the President and Vice-President, to the Committee of the Judiciary with Instructions to Report it Back Forthwith with an Amendment Incorporating the “District Plan”. Govtrack.
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https://www.govtrack.us/congress/votes/91-1969/h82
Weaver, W. (1979, July 11). Senate Rejects Proposal To End Electoral College. The New York Times.
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Mad Politics: The Bizarre, Fascinating, and Unknown of American Political History 