On the Electoral College and Tenth Amendment

Your vote in every Presidential Election is meaningless. Wait, that is partly untrue. Your vote for a Presidential candidate actually selects a majority party with a bloc of pre-approved voters from that party who then are expected (not necessarily required) to vote for said majority party's candidate. In most states, with the exception of Maine and Nebraska, this is true. In actuality, most states simply look at who won the popular majority in their state and then all of the electoral votes from that state then go to that candidate (as described above).

From the Constitution and subsequent amendments (amendments 12 and 23), each state's total number of electors is equal to the sum of their congressional members (for the House of Representitives) and Senators (for the Senate). The minimum number of electors is 3 (two Senators and one Reprentitive), which is the case in Alaska, Montana and Vermont, and the maximum number of electors are currently in California (55), Texas (38) and New York (29). Add in the 23rd Amendment, which states the District of Columbia shall have a minimum number of electors as the least reprented state (in this case Alaska, Montana and Vermont to name a few), and now D.C. has three electoral votes.

I just threw a bunch of numbers and information your way, so let's take a breather and break that down. We know there are 538 total Electors. That comes from 435 (for equivalent House of Representitve members) plus 100 (for equivalent Senate members) plus 3 (for D.C.). We also know an absolute majority is required to win, which in this case, is 270 Electoral votes. In cases where no candidate wins the required majority, or 270 votes, other contingencies come into play and I will not go into them here.

The Electoral College was originally envisioned to keep the national government under control of a federalist system. Indeed, the Constitution has a number of built in controls whereby the national government is theoretically limited in its power. The foundation of this limitation is the Constitution and the Tenth Amendment. Historically, since the 1880s and more so since The Great Depresion, the Supreme Court has favored the expansion of power of the Federal Government (both the Legislative and Executive branch) by ruling against both individual citizen and State challenges to the increased authority of the Federal Government. Congress usually uses the Commerce Clause or Necessary & Proper Clause to do what it thinks is for the well being of the nation. The Supreme Court, in these cases, usually goes with the "almost" principle (you know, "almost" only counts in horse shoes and hand grenades ... and to cases pertaining to the Federal Government's powers where a sliver of written power is used to legislate behaviors beyond what the Constitution was intended for).

The Congress usually offers monetary compensation for States participation in proposed national standards. For a long time, 55 mph was the so-called National Speedlimit becaue the Federal Government would with-hold transportation monies (for interstate roads, aviation and rail projects) if said state did not adopt their own legislation making 55 mph the speed limit law in their boundries. Ditto with the 21 year old drinking age and .08 blood alcohol limit. Occasionally, and more often in recent history, the legislative and executive branches pass or enact national standards without significant or any monetary compensation such as immigration reform (the onus is on the states to provide welfare and health care monies to the illegal immigrant) or the national health care reform (there are no tax breaks for a majority of citizens who previously chose not to have health care because they do not have deductions exceeding the "standard" deduction already given).

Currently, it is my contention that the different branches of the Federal Government have thrown themselves out of sync with their partner branches and with the American people. In the proverbial and literal sense, one branch does not always know what the other branch is doing. Unfortunately, the average American also has blinders. With the self sustaining juggernaut the national government has become, the average American only cares about collecting their pay check, watching their TV and whipping out their credit card.

If the antiquated Electoral College is increasingly defended under Federalist principles and the Tenth Amendment is increasingly disregarded, then I propose a change to the Electoral College. In the first paragraph, I make note of Nebraska and Maine not assigning all their electoral votes to one candidate, but instead, dole them out based on the popular vote. Perhaps the voters of San Francisco, Los Angeles and San Diego shouldn't carry California. Perhaps the voters of Chicago shouldn't carry all of Illinois. Perhaps all states should assign their Electoral College votes to the top three vote recipients in the their state.

It is apparent our state governments and federal representitives do not have the ability to hold back the growing bulk of the national government. Perhaps with this electoral change our Federalist system will represent the people.