[EL] electoral college piece

[Rick Hasen]

    "Democrats, Don't Freak Out! Why fears that Republicans will
    gerrymander the Electoral College are overblown"
    <http://electionlawblog.org/?p=46598>

Posted on January 25, 2013 1:36 pm <http://electionlawblog.org/?p=46598> 
by Rick Hasen <http://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

Slate has published my new commentary 
<http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/politics/2013/01/republican_plans_for_electoral_college_reform_democrats_shouldn_t_worry.html>.  
It begins:

    Sound the alarm! Democrats are on high alert! Josh Marshall calls it
    a big, big deal
    <http://talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/2013/01/this_is_a_big_big_deal.php?ref=fpblg>.
    Eric Kleefeld says
    <https://twitter.com/EricKleefeld/status/294596342507008002> if the
    blueprint were in place last November, the GOP would have "stolen
    2012 for Mitt Romney." Steve Benen of the Maddow Blog
    <http://maddowblog.msnbc.com/_news/2013/01/24/16677359-if-you-cant-win-elections-rig-them>
    calls it a "democracy-crushing scheme" showing that "the will of the
    voters and the consent of the governed are now antiquated concepts
    that Republicans no longer value."

    They're all talking about potential plans to change the method for
    electing the president in states like Virginia, Wisconsin, and
    Pennsylvania---states that have Republican legislatures and
    governors but voted for Obama in 2012. Instead of awarding all of
    the state's Electoral College votes to the presidential candidate
    getting the most votes in each of these states, under the proposed
    plans most of the Electoral College votes would be awarded to the
    winner in each congressional district---and thanks to Republican
    gerrymandering of those districts, such a scheme would be a windfall
    for Republicans.

    This plan would be deeply concerning if Republicans were really
    going to enact it. But the same self-interest that is leading
    Republicans to consider this move is also going to lead most of them
    to abandon it almost everywhere. The Great Democratic Freak-out is
    unjustified. But it is not without its usefulness, because it
    reminds wavering Republicans what they will face if they go down the
    road of unilateral Electoral College reform.

Share 
<http://www.addtoany.com/share_save#url=http%3A%2F%2Felectionlawblog.org%2F%3Fp%3D46598&title=%E2%80%9CDemocrats%2C%20Don%E2%80%99t%20Freak%20Out%21%20Why%20fears%20that%20Republicans%20will%20gerrymander%20the%20Electoral%20College%20are%20overblown%E2%80%9D&description=>
Posted in electoral college <http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=44> | 
Comments Off |

-- 
Rick Hasen
Chancellor's Professor of Law and Political Science
UC Irvine School of Law
401 E. Peltason Dr., Suite 1000
Irvine, CA 92697-8000
949.824.3072 - office
949.824.0495 - fax
rhasen at law.uci.edu
http://law.uci.edu/faculty/page1_r_hasen.html
http://electionlawblog.org

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://webshare.law.ucla.edu/Listservs/law-election/attachments/20130125/addb5488/attachment.html>
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: share_save_171_16.png
Type: image/png
Size: 1504 bytes
Desc: not available
URL: <http://webshare.law.ucla.edu/Listservs/law-election/attachments/20130125/addb5488/attachment.png>