Eric Holder has joined the movement to eradicate the current Electoral College process in an effort to create “real democracy.”
The former Obama attorney general and possible 2020 Democratic presidential contender touted the “good reform measure” on Twitter Tuesday, joining the growing list of voices on the left who are seeking to alter the process established in the Constitution to avoid what James Madison called “the tyranny of the majority.”
“A good reform measure to support,” Holder tweeted. “Change the Electoral College by having a state’s electoral votes go to the national popular vote winner — not the person who won the state. The candidate who gets the most votes — nationally — is elected. Real democracy.”
A good reform measure to support. Change the Electoral College by having a state’s electoral votes go to the national popular vote winner – not the person who won the state. The candidate who gets the most votes – nationally – is elected. Real democracy. https://t.co/tPfNWdKQ46
— Eric Holder (@EricHolder) February 26, 2019
Holder linked to an article about Democratic Colorado Gov. Jared Polis in The Hill and his plan to sign a “bill aimed at bypassing” the Electoral College.
“I’ve long supported electing the president by who gets the most votes,” Polis told The Hill, describing the existing process as an “undemocratic relic” of America’s history. “It’s a way to move towards direct election of the president.”
According to The Hill:
Colorado will become the 12th state to join the national popular vote interstate compact. Those 12 states and the District of Columbia, which has also passed a popular-vote bill, account for 181 electoral votes, just under 90 shy of the 270 votes a presidential candidate needs to win the White House.
The compact will not go into effect until the coalition includes states that add up to 270 electoral votes or more. Once it does go into effect, states that are part of the coalition would award their electoral votes en masse to the candidate who wins the national popular vote.
Tennessee Rep. Steve Cohen, also a Democrat, is seeking a constitutional amendment to abolish the Electoral Process, introducing a bill in January. Other Democrats have been pressing for the change especially after Hillary Clinton’s loss to President Trump in 2016 despite, as critics repeatedly attest, her winning the popular vote.
The National Popular Vote, a group supporting the multi-state compact, agrees with advocates who claim the change would mean candidates would have to expand their reach beyond what is traditionally seen as battleground states.
“Under a national popular vote, the 38 nonbattleground states long ignored by presidential campaigns will be powerful again, because no candidate can win 270 electoral votes and the White House without also winning the popular vote across all 50 states and the District of Columbia,” John Koza, the group’s chairman, told The Hill.
But the progressive push to eliminate the Electoral College in the hopes of creating the “real democracy” Holder touted fails to address the fact that the United States is not a democracy, but a representative republic – and for good reason.
Edwin J. Feulner, the founder and former president of The Heritage Foundation, addressed the issue in a piece that explained why liberals hate the system that chooses a president “through a direct, majority-take-all vote.”
“They see the Electoral College as an impediment to their political victories, therefore it’s got to go,” he wrote, noting that the Founders, in their wisdom, “were looking out for the people in ‘flyover country’ long before there were airplanes to fly over them.”
“Were it not for the Electoral College, presidential candidates could act as if many Americans don’t even exist. They could simply campaign in a small handful of states with big populations. Who would care what the people in Iowa think? Or Wyoming? Or any number of other states with smaller populations?” Feulner asked. “The people in ‘flyover country’ don’t get enough attention as it is, but without the Electoral College, they’d be completely at the mercy of the majority.”
The recent push by the left to have the Electoral College eliminated, thereby removing roadblocks to their political agendas, has seen a conservative pushback. Prager University released a video last month explaining how the established system ensures that 51 percent of the population “can’t tyrannize” the other 49 percent.
Author, lawyer and Electoral College expert Tara Ross explained the process in a more detailed video that can be seen below.
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Frieda@bizpacreview.com
Originally from New York, Powers graduated from New York University and eventually made her way to sunny South Florida where she has been writing for the BizPacReview team since 2015.
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