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Why the Electoral College exists.

haymarket said:
You presented no evidence that Detroit had problems because of Democratic policies. I, on the other hand, gave you the evidence that the big population loss and loss of tax base that comes with it started and continued for eleven years under two REPUBLICAN MAYORS.
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You, on the other hand, are totally full of it because you neglected to realize it declined another MILLION after Democrats took over. The primary purpose of term limits is to make paying off politicians too costly because they aren't in office long enough for the contributions to pay off. It is designed to limit corruption.
 
OpportunityCost said:
How do you propose to have term limits for a private, unelected function and have it be constitutional? If government weren't so damned intrusive in the first place, politicians would have nothing to sell.
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I was joking, but I don’t line the idea of inexperienced politicians and hyper experienced lobbyists. If I want to return my near dead, corrupt representative to Congress, what business is it of yours, unless you live in the same district?
 
Nickyjo said:
I was joking, but I don’t line the idea of inexperienced politicians and hyper experienced lobbyists. If I want to return my near dead, corrupt representative to Congress, what business is it of yours, unless you live in the same district?
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Its obvious, he passes or rejects laws that have an impact on me just as much as they do you.
 
The number of electoral votes per population level in the states is very slanted towards low population states. The average workup gives one electoral vote per approx. 565 thousand people living in the state. Take Montana for instance, they have 3 electoral votes for around 532 thousand people giving them 318% more say electorally than the average state. This is one problem I have with the electoral college as it currentlt exists. The other being how unless you live in a handful of "swing" states, your vote is more or less meaningless. If you're a conservative living in, say, Rhode Island or Oregon, you know how your state will vote. Same with being a liberal in say Wyoming or Mississippi. Now do I have a solution? I'd toy with the idea of scrapping the winner-take-all electoral system and allow proportionate electoral votes dependant on voting results.
 
Kal'Stang said:
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One major glaring mistake in your lecture. The people were not originally intended to elect the Senators, either. They were to be appointed by the states, however they wished, which could have included a popular vote. It was an amendment that allowed to people to elect Senators, not the original intent of the founders.
 
OpportunityCost said:
You, on the other hand, are totally full of it because you neglected to realize it declined another MILLION after Democrats took over. The primary purpose of term limits is to make paying off politicians too costly because they aren't in office long enough for the contributions to pay off. It is designed to limit corruption.
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Bingo.
 
OpportunityCost said:
Its obvious, he passes or rejects laws that have an impact on me just as much as they do you.
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So move to my district and vote against him. Otherwise vote your guy/gal out when you are tired of them. Why should I and others who live in my community be denied to elect whom we want for as many terms as we want? Is there any study that shows any advantage to Congressional turnover?
 
Nickyjo said:
So move to my district and vote against him. Otherwise vote your guy/gal out when you are tired of them. Why should I and others who live in my community be denied to elect whom we want for as many terms as we want? Is there any study that shows any advantage to Congressional turnover?
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Because the longer politicians are in Washington the more they get accustomed to horse trading and getting things for their district at the cost to the rest of the nation. The advantage is to limit corruption by making it harder to contribute to the elections and expect favors in return.

I keep saying to limit corruption and you keep ignoring it.
 
Masterhawk said:
Well, California has 55 electoral votes while Alabama only has 6 so big states are still worth more than small states. Also, Alabama was completely ignored in the election.
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another fun fact: the constitution does not mandate a winner take all for every state but rather, it allows states to allocate their votes however they want. In other words, they can choose to allocate them to whoever wins the national popular vote. And this isn't just theoretical. There is an actual interstate compact signed by a few states to allocate every electoral vote to whomever wins the popular vote for the entire nation. It will go into effect once the signatories collectively have enough electoral votes to equal a majority:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Popular_Vote_Interstate_Compact
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This idea of a state to allocate its votes based on national popular vote will work fine until a Republican is voted in by this process, then the Democrats will want to change it once again. FYI, it is unconstitutional for any State to enter into a compact with another State unless it is approved by Congress. Article 1, Sec. 10, Clause 3
 
Terryj said:
I don't think that "term limits" would pass the constitutionally test, due to you are restricting a persons ability to run for office and you are restricting the right of a person to vote for the candidate of his choice.
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Then why is restricting the president allowed?
 
Terryj said:
Because the POTUS isn't elected by popular vote like Senators and Representatives.
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But Governors are. And a great many of them also have term limits imposed. As are Mayors.

And yes, Term Limits does indeed pass the test of the Constitution. The only challenge about that was in 1995, in U.S. Term Limits, Inc. v. Thornton. And the SCOTUS determined that it was Unconstitutional for states to impose term limits on their Federally elected officials. It however did not make any such statement if Congress was to pass such legislation.

And in 1994, there was an attempt to make this an actual Amendment to the Constitution, but failed in getting the 2/3 majority required to pass it in the House.
 
OpportunityCost said:
It accelerated drastically after Democrats took over as well as all other economic indicators.

If you cant see the correlation between limited terms of office and the limitation on influence and corruption due to increasing costs (simple economics btw), I can't help you figure it out.
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I am still trying to grasp how he can claim one dude in 1962 created the pit that is Detroit now.

There has not been an alternative to progressive policies running the place for over half a century.

Louis Miriani
September 12, 1957 – January 2, 1962
Republican[101]

Jerome Cavanagh
January 2, 1962 – January 5, 1970
Democratic[7]

Roman Gribbs
January 6, 1970 – January 1, 1974
Democratic[7]

Coleman Young
January 1, 1974 – January 3, 1994
Democratic[7]

Dennis Archer
January 3, 1994 – December 31, 2001
Democratic[106]

Kwame Kilpatrick
January 1, 2002 – September 18, 2008
Democratic[108]

Kenneth Cockrel, Jr.
September 18, 2008 – May 11, 2009
Democratic.[111]

Dave Bing
May 11, 2009 – December 31, 2013
Democratic[111]

Mike Duggan
January 1, 2014 – present
Democratic

1) At this point, the city of Detroit owes money to more than 100,000 creditors.
2) Detroit is facing $20 billion in debt and unfunded liabilities. That breaks down to more than $25,000 per resident.
3) Back in 1960, the city of Detroit actually had the highest per-capita income in the entire nation.
4) In 1950, there were about 296,000 manufacturing jobs in Detroit. Today, there are less than 27,000.
5) Between December 2000 and December 2010, 48 percent of the manufacturing jobs in the state of Michigan were lost.
6) There are lots of houses available for sale in Detroit right now for $500 or less.
7) At this point, there are approximately 78,000 abandoned homes in the city.
8) About one-third of Detroit’s 140 square miles is either vacant or derelict.
9) An astounding 47 percent of the residents of the city of Detroit are functionally illiterate.
10) Less than half of the residents of Detroit over the age of 16 are working at this point.
11) If you can believe it, 60 percent of all children in the city of Detroit are living in poverty.
12) Detroit was once the fourth-largest city in the United States, but over the past 60 years the population of Detroit has fallen by 63 percent.
13) The city of Detroit is now very heavily dependent on the tax revenue it pulls in from the casinos in the city. Right now, Detroit is bringing in about 11 million dollars a month in tax revenue from the casinos.
14) There are 70 “Superfund” hazardous waste sites in Detroit.
15) 40 percent of the street lights do not work.
16) Only about a third of the ambulances are running.
17) Some ambulances in the city of Detroit have been used for so long that they have more than 250,000 miles on them.
18) Two-thirds of the parks in the city of Detroit have been permanently closed down since 2008.
19) The size of the police force in Detroit has been cut by about 40 percent over the past decade.
20) When you call the police in Detroit, it takes them an average of 58 minutes to respond.
21) Due to budget cutbacks, most police stations in Detroit are now closed to the public for 16 hours a day.
22) The violent crime rate in Detroit is five times higher than the national average.
23) The murder rate in Detroit is 11 times higher than it is in New York City.
24) Today, police solve less than 10 percent of the crimes that are committed in Detroit.
25) Crime has gotten so bad in Detroit that even the police are telling people to “enter Detroit at your own risk“.

There was no other option.
 
Nickyjo said:
So move to my district and vote against him. Otherwise vote your guy/gal out when you are tired of them. Why should I and others who live in my community be denied to elect whom we want for as many terms as we want? Is there any study that shows any advantage to Congressional turnover?
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If your preferred reps only affected your community, you would have a point. However all of the Senators and Reps in DC vote on issues that affect the entire nation.

One example. The senators and congressmen in my state never voted for obamacare. Yet enough assholes from other states voted for it and it became law.
 
Oozlefinch said:
But Governors are. And a great many of them also have term limits imposed. As are Mayors.

And yes, Term Limits does indeed pass the test of the Constitution. The only challenge about that was in 1995, in U.S. Term Limits, Inc. v. Thornton. And the SCOTUS determined that it was Unconstitutional for states to impose term limits on their Federally elected officials. It however did not make any such statement if Congress was to pass such legislation.

And in 1994, there was an attempt to make this an actual Amendment to the Constitution, but failed in getting the 2/3 majority required to pass it in the House.
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That is what it is going to take, an amendment to the Constitution to enact term limits, just like they did for the POTUS.

As for Governors and Mayors, that is an issue for the State and local government, it has nothing to do with the federal government or the Constitution. The Constitution was a compact between the States to form a Central Government. The States have their own Constitutions in which they govern, and they spell out how a governor is elected and for how long they may serve. Cities have their own charters that spell out the office of the Mayor and how long they may serve.
 
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Cardinal said:
That doesn't explain why it's good for the rural dwellers to determine policy for the city dwellers.
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You are much smarter than that statement suggests!

Consider California now has 40,000,000 in 1968 19,000,000 it's population has doubled
& has become a 62% minority state. California in the election of 1980 before the results of the
Immigration Act of 1965 began to bare fruit for the Democrats.

Republican votes 4,524,858
Democratic votes 3,083,661

The Democrats received 5 million more votes in in 2016 than they did in 1980
while the Republicans received the same amount no increase since 1980, I wonder
why. In bizarroville California where people with driver liscenses become voter
eligible could it be that of those 5 million more DEM votes over 1/3 may be from the
huge waves of illegals since 1980 who are sheltered in this odd sanctuary state.

Two Democratic legislators in the state, Senate president Kevin de Leon and assembly speaker Anthony Rendon,
issued a statement about the election results

"Today, we woke up feeling like strangers in a foreign land, because yesterday Americans expressed their views on a
pluralistic and democratic society that are clearly inconsistent with the values of the people of California," State Sen.
Leader Kevin de León and Assembly Speaker Anthony Rendon said in a joint statement, according to ABC News.

Maybe you really want the country to be run by the folks that run California, but that's hard to believe.
They say "In our view, the United States of America represents so many things that conflict with Californian values”
Therefore the proponents of Calexit are admitting California values conflict with the rest of this country. Get it!!!!

Lots of reasons to question the rolls in California starting with their laws that automatically register
EVERYONE, including illegal immigrants, when they are issued a drivers license.

Election of 2016
Republican 4,483,810
Democrat 8,753,788
Democrats won by 4,300,00 votes

Do some critical thinking about how this ever could happen.

Thank goodness the founders put forth the electoral college
 
The concerns of people living in the middle of nowhere are as valid as the concerns of people living in dense cities.

However, those concerns are often very different and more than occasionally conflict with one another.

Our state-based system helps ensure the interests of the few are not trampled in the pursuit of the interests of the many by equalizing the typical power imbalance that results from uneven distribution of population.

It's not perfect but it does the trick.
 
JMaximus said:
The concerns of people living in the middle of nowhere are as valid as the concerns of people living in dense cities.

However, those concerns are often very different and more than occasionally conflict with one another.

Our state-based system helps ensure the interests of the few are not trampled in the pursuit of the interests of the many by equalizing the typical power imbalance that results from uneven distribution of population.

It's not perfect but it does the trick.
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You use the perfect word - TRICK. For it is a trick to have a system from the 1700's that allows the vote of the American people to be thwarted by a system designed for elites to protect the supposed ignorant from a foreign power putting a creature of their own design in power. And that sad result is just what we got in 2016.
 
The problem here is that before the election, both candidates new the rules and had a election plan. Trump for example really focused on winning over key swing states where as Clinton bathed in her assumed victory. If the rules at the beginning were to win the populace vote, Trump probably would have done it completely differently and spent his time in California, Texas, and Florida etc... Basically the most dense areas while COMPLETELY ignoring smaller "irrelevant" states.
 
haymarket said:
You use the perfect word - TRICK. For it is a trick to have a system from the 1700's that allows the vote of the American people to be thwarted by a system designed for elites to protect the supposed ignorant from a foreign power putting a creature of their own design in power. And that sad result is just what we got in 2016.
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The "trick" helps protect everyone from the mob rule of runaway democracy.

It is one of the many parts built into the American political system to guard minority groups from oppression and ensure basic individual and universal equality.
 
JMaximus said:
The "trick" helps protect everyone from the mob rule of runaway democracy.

It is one of the many parts built into the American political system to guard minority groups from oppression and ensure basic individual and universal equality.
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"Mob rule" refers to direct democracy. What's being discussed here is the methodology for electing a government representative--indirect democracy.

Deriding the radical notion that the winner of an election should be the person who gets the most votes as "mob rule" is absurd. This works for literally every other elected office in this country.
 
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JMaximus said:
The "trick" helps protect everyone from the mob rule of runaway democracy.

It is one of the many parts built into the American political system to guard minority groups from oppression and ensure basic individual and universal equality.
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Since you butchered the actual meaning of the term, I must ask you straight out - do you even know what MOB RULE is?
 
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