Here we go:
Michigan would divide its electoral college votes in presidential elections rather than award them all to a single candidate under legislation being introduced Thursday in the state House.
Sponsoring Rep. Pete Lund, R-Shelby Township, says the bill would make Michigan more important in presidential elections, but Democrats argue it would only benefit Republicans, who haven’t won a presidential election in Michigan since 1988.
Lund says this would make candidates pay attention to the Mitten state. Yeah, right. Details below the curlique.
Republicans have saved the stinkiest of their shit sandwiches for the lame duck in recent cycles. Everyone is tired of politics after the election, and ready to think about Christmas, so not nearly as much attention gets paid. Last time it was making Michigan a Right-to-Work state, which produced a lot of negative energy on our side (I was there in Lansing as a Marshal for the big rally, at which our recently-defeated Governor candidate Mark Schauer got pepper-sprayed. All kinds of fun) but which ultimately changed nothing.
So, the proposal as it stands now is not the Congressional District idea, which would be even worse, actually. Under that idea, Michigan's 16 Electoral Votes would have split 9-7 for Romney, even though Obama won the state. So not only would Republicans get to benefit from a gerrymandered Congressional delegation, but they would get a bonus carry-over gerrymander to the Presidential election.
Rather, Lund's proposal is to award 9 of 16 EVs to the winner, then an extra 1 EV for each 1.5% above 50% the winner achieves. Under this formula, Obama would have taken 12 EVs from Michigan rather than the full 16.
I can actually see some merit to moving in this direction, but only as long as Texas does the same thing. If all the Blue states do this, all you are doing is adding a nationwide gerrymander to make sure a Democrat never wins the Presidency again.
Which, of course, is the point.
Of course, the ultimate goal should be to do away with the Electoral College and have a popular vote election for President, like every other democracy that has a President (neglecting Parliamentary systems). But we have been talking about that approximately forever.
If Democratic voters showed up consistently, we would not even be having this conversation. We would have a Democratic Governor and legislature. But the cumulative effects of 2010 and 2014 have put us here.
And once those every-four-years voters figure out that the meaning of their Presidential vote has been snatched away from them? Maybe they will stop showing up then too.
New MDP Party Chair Lon Johnson made a central goal of his chairmanship to attract the 900,000 Michigan Democratic drop-off voters back to the polls in Mid-term elections. He promoted a new app to apply for an absentee ballot on your smart phone. It didn't work. Making voting easier is not the solution, because the difficulty of voting is not the problem.
In another week, folks will be standing for hours in the cold overnight to get the best Black Friday deals. What could make them so excited over participating in our civic life together?
If we can't answer that, we are in permanent thrall to our Republican overlords.