Why Electoral College Reform is a Red Herring, or, “Don’t Feel So Bad for New York and California”

Porous, Virtual Political Borders + Tsunami of Outside Money

People who decry the outsized influence wielded by sparsely-populated states in the electoral college (think, North & South Dakota, Wyoming, Montana, Idaho and Rhode Island) are missing a key point:  thanks to porous borders — and lax campaign finance laws — many of the elections in those states are dominated by outside money.

And not just outside money, but money from the biggest and wealthiest states and metropolitan areas.

The result?

Instead of 435 putatively local elections for Congress every two years (plus 33 Senate seats), we’re morphing into an increasingly federalized political system.

A system in which wealthy, populous states like California, New York, and Texas exert disproportionate influence that at least partially offsets their Electoral College disadvantage.

Coming Soon(?): 535 National Elections

The phenomenon of outside money can also be seen in sprawling, less-than-wealthy Congressional Districts like Minnesota’s Eighth.

There, despite the district’s overwhelmingly rural make-up, in 2016 the two candidates raised and spent over $17 million on TV and media advertising — money mostly raised from outside.

In a perfect world, whichever candidate for President received the most popular votes — as opposed to the most Electoral College votes — would be elected.

However, in such a perfect world, local voters would also choose their own elected officials, without any outside influence.

The bottom line?

To borrow a sports metaphor, today’s manifestly flawed political status quo suffers from a pair of roughly equal and offsetting violations.

See also, “Campaign Finance Flaw Fix: Ban Outside Money“; and “Campaign Finance Reform in One, Easy-to-Remember Syllogism (Huh?!?).”



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