Through States, Republicans Plot 2016 Electoral College Coup

[Unknown Beatle]

Source: Crooks and Liars
By Karoli

Back in 2011, Pennsylvania state legislators toyed with the idea of changing their electoral college vote system so that they would align with already-gerrymandered Congressional districts. Ultimately they didn't go with that idea, but that doesn't mean it died.

Shortly after the November election, that idea was floated again. Stung by the "shocking" outcome of the 2012 general election, Senate Majority Leader Domenic Pileggi proposed changing the electoral college votes from winner-take-all to apportionment by Congressional districts.

But it isn't just Pennsylvania. It's Michigan, Ohio, Florida, and Virginia, too. Via fairvote.org:

A little number-crunching demonstrates why. If Republicans in 2011 had abused their monopoly control of state government in several key swing states and passed new laws for allocating electoral votes, the exact same votes cast in the exact same way in the 2012 election would have converted Barack Obama's advantage of nearly five million popular votes and 126 electoral votes into a resounding Electoral College defeat.

The power of elector-allocation rule changes goes further. Taken to an extreme, these Republican-run states have the ability to lock Democrats out of a chance of victory in 2016 absent the Democratic nominee winning a national landslide of some 12 million votes. In short, the Republicans could win the 2016 election in by state law changes made in 2013.

These states could actually do it. They all have Republican majorities in their statehouses, and they all have gerrymandered districts. Now that states have begun their legislative calendars, there is absolutely nothing to stop them from taking this kind of action.

More - With a video of Rachel Maddow describing the plan of the GOP to win at all costs

[0rganism]

1. This is incredibly important

These are states that voted for a Democratic president in 2008 and 2012.

They also voted in tea-party freak shows to run their state governments in 2010.

2010 was a census year, which means the states were redistricted by tea-party freaks.

Because of this, even though the states' electorates leaned Democratic in 2012, their national delegations to the House are overwhelmingly Republican.

This is what the state governments plan to do with their electoral college votes.

There is no question in my mind that they will pass laws to do this.

The only hope I can see is citizen ballot initiatives to revoke this catastrophe.

It's about to get much harder for Democrats to win the presidency.

[0rganism]

2. kick

kicking a thread here before they kick us in the ass in Pennsylvania, Michigan, Ohio, Florida, and Virginia

[Blue Nile]

3. Tough to pull off

I wrote a long reply to another thread in my home state of Pennsylvania about this earlier today.Ohio must be stupid to start sharing electoral votes as it is generally a red-leaning state (the auto bailout effect will not last forever). Virginia has a divided senate and Lt.Gov Bolling (tie-breaker) is still entertaining ideas of running for Governor.Florida's Rick Scott is in trouble already. We should not be complacent but at the same time I see no reason to be sweating bullets

[okaawhatever]

6. Maybe you could share a copy of the letter w/other DUers in those

states that might need it? Take out personal info and let them change the rest. Thanks

[Blue Nile]

8. Sorry

I apologize for not being clear in my previous post-I had written the following post in a different thread about how it might be difficult to pull off in my home state of PA-

"This is in my home state of Pennsylvania so it does affect me directly.Although anything is possible,I have a feeling that the window for this kind of change has probably closed in my state of PA.Prior to the last election the GOP controlled the State Senate 30-20.In the November 2012 election,the democrats picked up Senate seats in Erie,Harrisburg and Pittsburgh and the Senate is now 27-23 in favor of the GOP.In the State House of Representatives there was again a gain by the Democrats but not as large as the Senate (went from 112-91 to 110-93 in favor of GOP). This kind of tight margins make it hard for the change in law to happen easily. It will only serve to increase Democratic turnout in a non-presidential year putting a lot of GOP held seats in play. The margin in PA in the Presidential election was 5 points (52-47) and a GOP candidate with moderate appeal can still hope to win the state. President Bush got 48.5 % of the vote in 2004 and with more effort could have carried the state. Not all Democratic candidates of the future are going to be able to match President Obama's appeal.

This Bill is co-sponsored by Rep.Godshall and Rep.Seth Grove (he had introduced a similar Bill in 2009 also). The Bill is now in the State Government Committee where only one of the co-sponsors is a member (Rep.Barrar). Assuming that all the Democrats in the House unite against this-it will need 102 out of 110 House republicans to vote for this and will be a tough number to muster. The task in the Senate is much more difficult for the Republicans as the margins are very tight. The Republicans will need 26 out of 27 Senators to vote for this (By PA law-the Bill should have a clear majority for final passage and the Lt.Gov cannot cast a tie-breaking vote for final passage of a Bill). The last similar Bill introduced by Sen.Pilleggi (R-Chester) failed to make it out of committee. He has floated an alternate idea of proportional distribution but has not given any details about this and has only said he plans to introduce a Bill later.

Gov.Corbett is struggling at this time with ratings in the high 30s and although he has hedged his views on this before I am not so sure he is going to put his re-election at risk.In 2010 he won with 54% of the vote where the turnout was a hair under 4 million votes compared to almost 5.7 million votes in the 2012 presidential election. It is not in his interest to drive up Democratic voter turnout on this issue.He is trailing in polls against most Democrats polled including Kane,Sestak etc.

I did not mean this post to imply that we should drop our guard and become complacent but only to highlight that though it is possible it is far from a smooth-sailing slam-dunk. My feeling on these type of Bills in all these states is that there is 1 or 2 driven legislators who keep introducing these Bills in every session but generally fail to attract sufficient traction amongst the larger caucus.
It is not in the interests of a majority of these republican legislators to attract more attention to their districts and make re-election difficult.Also the beneficiary of this rule change is some yet unknown Presidential candidate who might still go on to lose the General election "

As a long term PA resident I follow local politics closely and these are my feelings on this subject

[okaawhatever]

4. I'm concerned. I don't think this will be done in the open, i'd watch for

some of that, right before everyone goes home for x-mas or some crap like that. I guarantee you ALEC has the bills pre-written and in every legislators in box. We need to hear from the DNC on this issue.

[Initech]

5. If you can't beat 'em steal 'em.

[KittyWampus]

7. the diabolical nature of this is it doesn't involve stealing. it's political hardball.

But not illegal.

Redistricting is the least sexy topic in politics so it gets very little play here on DU.

But it's where elections are won/lost. Legally.

[librechik]

9. oh, Pshaw--just because they openly admitted it doesn't mean they would actually do it

Clearly the Repubs are too nice and patriotic to ever do anything that would give them an unfair advantage! Why, you must just be a paranoid conspiracy theorist and are giving DU a bad name by posting this drivel!

[RainDog]

10. Republicans: electoral rapists n/t

if you don't give consent to allow them to fuck you over, it's rape.