The PA State Capitol. Because all my posts
must have dome photos.
More
"constitutional hardball" from the Republicans. This time on the way Pennsylvania awards its votes in the
electoral college:
Senate Majority Leader Dominic Pileggi is trying to gather support to change the state's "winner-takes-all" approach for awarding electoral votes. Instead, he's suggesting that Pennsylvania dole them out based on which candidate wins each of the 18 congressional districts, with the final two going to the contender with the most votes statewide.
An analysis by the online news service Capitolwire noted that had the proposed distribution process been in place in Pennsylvania in 2008 before the state lost one congressional district due to a population decline in the 2010 census, Mr. Obama would have won only 11 of the state's 21 votes.
Leave it to the states! Oh, we're not winning in the states? Leave it to some smaller unit that we can win!
Can they do this? Yes they can.
But I'll tell you what's most interesting to me about this. In the U.S. Senate, currently racked by constant and near complete dysfunction, it's blasphemy to suggest that there ought to be a change of any kind in the rules that create that dysfunction. And should you suggest that those rules be changed by a majority vote of the body? Forget about it! You're practically desecrating the graves of the Founders.
As we are so often reminded, in the Senate you supposedly need 60 votes to get anything done. In a body of 100, obviously, that means a 60 percent majority. But under the rules proposed for the electoral votes in Pennsylvania, you won't even have to win a majority of the popular vote to take the majority of the electoral votes.
Can't touch the filibuster, though! It's sacrosanct! It's the intent of the Founders, who wrote absolutely nothing about it in the Constitution. But the electoral college, which they did write into the document? Pfft! Change that $#*%, and be quick about it!
Yes, there's plenty more nuance to it than just that. But the basic point here is that there's something wrong when only one team shows up for a game of hardball. When Republicans want the rules changed for their advantage, they go right to it. Democrats get all embarrassed. Even when it's perfectly clear, as it was during the Senate rules reform debate earlier this year, that there will be some occasions when the rules change might work against them.