[EL] New research reports & Jamin Raskin's suggestion of focus on values of National Popular Vote plan

[Rob Richie]

In case anyone's going through withdrawal pains from not having a new email
about the National Popular Vote plan in their election law inbox every 20
minutes, I wanted to share two analyses posted by FairVote this week that
speak to Jamie Raskin's useful suggestion on Saturday that some attention be
paid to the values of adopting the National Popular vote plan As a reminder,
Jamie wrote this:

<<I suspect that the constitutional views of the participants in this debate
tend to mirror their political appreciation of a national popular vote for
president, and I do not exempt myself from this observation. It might be
more fruitful at this point, therefore, to shift to a discussion of the
values at stake.  Should the president be elected in accordance with a
national popular vote or not?  I simply cannot see why we would want to do
it any other way; after all this is how we elect governors, Senators, state
legislators and so on.  And it is how other nations that have presidents
elect them.  The nightmare scenarios that Tara imagines with the NPV plan
are a strikingly accurate depiction of the present chaotic regime in which
electoral mischief and corruption in one state can determine the results of
the presidential election for everyone else.  When she predicts that, under
NPV, "a handful of states will have decided for everyone else that a tally
of individual votes controls the outcome of the election," it is hard to
think of a better description of the way that certain partisan state
officials have recently been able to decide our presidential elections for
the nation, the general will of the American people notwithstanding.>>

I'll take Jamie up on his proposal. First articulated and supported in our
2006* Presidential Elections Inequalit*y report, FairVote sees current state
rules governing allocation of electoral votes as having a perverse and
lasting impact on equality in our representative democracy. The number of
competitive states has dropped sharply since 1960, especially since 1988. At
the same time, the identify of those declining swing states has increased in
its consistency across elections. Tied to voters' evolving perceptions of
the parties and hardening of their own preferences in the choice between
those parties, you can see the same phenomenon play out out in congressional
elections, with increasing predictability of winners and margins based on
underlying partisanship (a trend frequently misunderstood to be a product of
gerrymandering and money in politics, each of which have a relatively slight
role compared to voter preferences and winner-take-all rules).

Below are our two postings. The first one is particularly telling, showing
trends over time, To find out about specific states, download the
spreadsheet from the link and have fun with your own analysis. The second
posting is our latest "POTUS tracker" blog; it reports on President Obama's
travels and the undeniable impact that state winner-take-all rules have on
which states get personal attention from the president and his political
team (as also true of George Bush in 2001-2004, of course).

Together these new reports refute quite effectively the misty-eyed mythology
that the current system leads presidents and presidential candidates to
reach out to all states. That is simply false -- and there is no indication
of that changing any time soon without adoption of the National Popular Vote
plan.

- Rob Richie, FairVote

#################
http://www.fairvote.org/not-your-parents-presidential-elections

Not Your Parents' Presidential Elections: The Decline of Swing States,
1960-2008
// Published June 13, 2011

Download the Report
<http://www.fairvote.org/assets/Uploads/DeclineofSwingStatesfrom1960-2008.xls>

 *Summary: *American presidential elections have undergone a dramatic change
in the past half century, especially since 1988.The number of swing states
(generously defined as ones projected to be won by 9% or less in a year in
which the major parties candidates split the national popular vote) has
dropped sharply since 1988, especially among our nation's largest and
smallest states.

In 2008, only one of the 13 smallest states and only four of the 27 smallest
states were swing states. This trend shows no indication of changing, with
all trends pointing to wider division -- indeed, in 2008 only three of the
smallest 13 states were within even a 15% partisanship disparity.

At the other end of the population spectrum, among our 11 largest population
states today, fewer than half were swing states in 2004 and 2008 -- down
from 10 out of 11 of these states in the 1960 and the 1976 presidential
elections and 8 of 11 in the 1988 election.

None of the 2008 non-swing states are expected to become swing states in
2012 even as some 2008 swing states may well move to non-swing state status,
which would continue a 50-year trend presented below.

 * Swing States (within 9%) by # 2008 Electoral Votes, 1960-2008** *Year*

*2008 Electoral Vote
15 or more *
*2008 Electoral Votes
9 to 14 * *2008 Electoral Votes
5 to 8* *2008 Electoral Votes
4 or less * *Total*  2008  5 of 11 states
 6 of 13 states
 3 of 14 states
 1 of 13 states
15
 2004  4 of 11  6 of 13  5 of 14  1 of 13  16 1988  8 of 11  4 of 13  8 of
14  6 of 13  26 1976  10 of 11  6 of 13  8 of 14  5 of 13  29 1960  10
of 11 7 of 13 8 of 14 6 of 1331
**Washington, D.C. is included in all years except 1960***

 *
* *Partisanship Disparity (P), All States, 1960-2008**  Year P=<9%
9%<P<20%P>=20%Notes
2008 15 19 17 13R & 4D landslide states 2004 16 20 15 10R & 5D landslide
states 1988 27 22 2 1R & 1D landslide states 1976 29 14 8 5R & 3D landslide
states 1960 31 13 6 2R & 4D landslide states

**Washington, D.C. is included in all years except 1960*

*
*

*Of 11 largest population states with 15 or more electors in 2008*
 *2008*: 5 states within 9% partisan division (FL,NC, NJ, OH, PA)
*2004*: 4 states within 9% partisan division (FL, MI, OH, PA)
*1988*: 8 states within 9% partisan division
*1976*: 10 states within 9% partisan division (all but GA)
*1960*: 10 states within a 9% partisan division (all but GA)



*Of 13 mid-sized states with 9 to 14 electors in 2008*
 *2008*: 6 states within 9% partisan division (VA,IN,MO,MN,WI,CO)
*2004*: 6 states within 9% partisan division
*1988*: 5 states within 9% partisan division
*1976*: 6 states within 9% partisan division
*1960*: 7 states within 9% partisan division



*Of 14 smaller mid-sized states with 5 to 8 electors in 2008*
 *2008*: 3 states within 9% partisan division (NM,IA,NV)
*2004*: 5 states within 9% partisan division
*1988*: 8 states within 9% partisan division
*1976*: 8 states within 9% partisan division
*1960*: 8 states within 9% partisan division



*Of 13 smallest population states (including DC except in 1960) with 4 or
fewer electors in 2008*
 *2008*: 1 state within 9% partisan division (NH /Only 2 more within 15%)
*2004*: 1 state within 9% partisan division (NH / Only 3 more within 15%)
*1988*: 6 states within 9% partisan division
*1976*: 5 states within a 9% partisan division
*1960*: 6 states within a 9% partisan division

############################
http://www.fairvote.org/presidential-visits-a-return-to-ohio

Presidential Visits: A Return to Ohio and the Influence of the Electoral
System on Presidential Attention
by Katherine Sicienski<http://www.fairvote.org/list/author/Katherine_Sicienski>
//
Published June 15, 2011

*This blog is one of a series which tracks the movements of the President
using data from the Washington Post's ‘POTUS Tracker' to examine the effect
of battleground status on presidential attention. If you are interested in
examining the data, a copy of our compiled data (as of June 14th, 2011) can
be downloaded here<http://www.fairvote.org/assets/Blog1PresidentialTracker06-14-2011.xls>
.*

   - *What's new since our last
blog<http://www.fairvote.org/presidential-visits-and-electoral-college/>
   : *President Obama has held events for the first time in Puerto Rico, but
   still has yet to visit South Carolina, Oklahoma, Arkansas, Kansas, Utah,
   Nebraska, Idaho, North Dakota, South Dakota, or Vermont.


   - *Ten states with the most presidential events, during the Obama
   presidency: *New York, Virginia, Maryland, Florida, California, Ohio,
   Illinois, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Massachusetts. This remains unchanged
   since our last entry.


   - *States with 5 or more visits in 2011: *California, Florida, Illinois,
   Maryland, Massachusetts, New York, and Virginia.

On Friday, June 3rd, President Barack Obama delivered remarks at the
Chrysler Group Supplier Park in Toledo, Ohio. This was his 22nd event in the
state of Ohio since assuming the presidency. Yet since his inauguration in
2009, the President has yet to hold a single event in ten states: South
Carolina, Oklahoma, Arkansas, Kansas, Utah, Nebraska, Idaho, North Dakota,
South Dakota, or Vermont. Of these 10 states, all but Vermont went strongly
Republican in the 2008 presidential election.All but South Carolina (8.9%),
North Dakota (8.6%), and South Dakota (8.5%) were decided by lopsided
margins of 15% or greater.

Ranked 6th for the number of events attended by the president, Ohio is
joined in the Top Ten for presidential attention by such 2008 swing states
as Virginia (2nd), Florida (4th) and Pennsylvania (8th). These four states -
each won by Obama in 2008 by less than 11% - are seen by some analysts as
representing the key to the president's re-election bid in 2012, with a
sweep for the president making it nearly impossible for a Republican to win.
So far in the President's first term they account for 25% of his total
events.

Carried by President Obama by only 2.5% in 2008, Florida continues to
receive prominent attention in other ways as well. The New York
Times<http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/10/us/politics/10rico.html?_r=1&sq=lizette%20alvarez&st=cse&scp=2&pagewanted=all>
notes
that the 848,000 Puerto Rican residents of Florida may be the reason for the
President's June 14th visit to Puerto Rico. This will be the first official
Presidential visit to Puerto Rico since John F. Kennedy's in 1961, and it is
possibly due to the fact that the Florida residents "are not avowed
Democrats. This has turned them into pivotal swing voters in a crucial swing
state."  Simon Rosenberg, president of the New Democratic Network ,
suggests<http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/obama-courts-latino-vote-with-visit-to-puerto-rico/2011/06/14/AGmu8CVH_story.html>
that,
"the large and growing Puerto Rican population in central Florida will be
key to winning the state in 2012."

The other six states receiving the most attention from the President are New
York (1st), Maryland (3rd), California (5th), Illinois (7th), Massachusetts
(9th), and Wisconsin (10th). While won by Obama by 13% in 2008, Wisconsin
remains a potential swing state.It is traditionally hard-fought, and
Wisconsin's manufacturing economy was hit hard by the economic recession.
 As to Maryland, it is within a few miles of the White House, making it an
easy state for events showcasing new polices, while Illinois was represented
by Obama in the Senate and is a relatively reliable fundraising source.

So, you might ask, why has Obama been to the firmly Democratic states of New
York, Massachusetts and California a combined 76 times? Notably, 23 of those
76 events were fundraisers and these three states donated a total of
$276,896,336 during the 2008 election cycle, 34.3% of nationwide donations.
This calculation for the entire top ten among presidential visits makes that
percentage 60.9%.

The President's political team seems to be doing similar math to many
political analysts, and has been allocating Presidential visits and prestige
to areas based on whether its electoral votes are in play in 2012. In
January 2011, the Cook Political
Report<http://www.cookpolitical.com/charts/president/ev_scorecard_2011-01-13_15-41-48.php>
narrowed
down the highly competitive swing states to a list of just seven: Colorado,
Florida, Iowa, Nevada, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin. Four of the seven
are among the President's ten most visited states, and the other three are
in the top 25. The visits to these seven states (only 14% of the states and
20% of the voting eligible population in 2008) amount to 99 visits or 26.8%
of the total visits. The bottom 25 states received 34 presidential visits or
9.2% of the total visits. That works out to 1.36 visits for every state in
the bottom 25, with each of the battleground states receiving an average of
14.14 visits.

As the 2012 election approaches, it is likely that President Obama will
continue his electoral focus, visiting swing states where his 2008 margin of
victory was within reach of Republicans. Our nation's previous president
George Bush showed similar travel patterns in his first presidential term,
and his senior strategist Matthew Dowd
admitted<http://www.nytimes.com/2004/08/30/us/republicans-convention-new-york-strategist-bush-backer-mixes-caution-with.html>
that
the 2004 re-election campaign had not polled a single American living
outside of 18 potential swing states in the final two and a half years of
Bush's first-term. We have no doubt that states like South Carolina,
Arkansas, or Kansas matter to presidents, but given our state-by-state,
winner-take-all method of electing the president, political incentives for
spending energy on these states are nil. Until we have a national popular
vote <http://www.nationalpopularvote.com/> for president in which every vote
in every corner of the nation is equally meaningful, expect to see White
House political teams making similar calculations.


-- 
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
"Respect for Every Vote and Every Voice"

Rob Richie
Executive Director

FairVote
6930 Carroll Avenue, Suite 610
Takoma Park, MD 20912
www.fairvote.org  <http://www.fairvote.org> rr at fairvote.org
(301) 270-4616

Please support FairVote through action and tax-deductible donations -- see
http://fairvote.org/donate. For federal employees, please consider  a gift
to us through the Combined Federal Campaign (FairVote's  CFC number is
10132.) Thank you!
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