October 17, 2004 Archives

Every time I see George Bush or John Kerry on TV, I have an incredible urge to do one thing... jump up and down and say, “Over here - it's Connecticut! Remember us?”

It doesn't seem like they do. Hey, I'd like to forget my college years too, but there's something bigger going on here and we're lessened by it.

Connecticut no longer matters.

Sure, after the election when the Electoral College meets, they'll tally our seven votes. But right now, both Bush and Kerry assume we're voting Democrat and we're too committed to change. Why spend political capitol when there's nothing to gain?

I suppose we win by not being bombarded with ads for the presidential candidates. My folks in Florida tell me you can't watch TV for more than a few minutes without seeing one of them sticking their tongue out at the other... or the moral equivalent. It's been going on for months there. They're sick of it.

Where we lose is in what we're not getting. When President Bush or Senator Kerry speak in Ohio, Michigan, Florida, or one of the other states still in play, they're talking to that state's concerns. No one is making promises to Connecticut. Heck, no one is talking to Connecticut!

Hey! We're nice people.

Of course the problem is voters don't directly elect our president. We elect a slate of electors and they do the real voting. The candidate who wins a simple majority of any state's votes gets all its electors.

Unfortunately, with more sophisticated polling techniques, Connecticut's results are already conceded. Having a few percent of the voters shift either way would mean absolutely nothing.

We're not alone. Most of the states are out of play. Not only are we invisible on the national political map, so are New York, Texas and California. Those three are fully one quarter of our national population!

I think it's safe to say our founding fathers never imagined the system could, or would, be gamed like this. No one could have seen the ability to accurately break a national election into fifty one (Washington, DC gets 3 electors too) separate contests.

This problem actually predates the Constitution. Why would small states join this new nation only to be powerless? They wouldn't – that's the simple answer. So, the Great Compromise was born.

If you were hoping to add insult to this injury, here goes: It is also called the Connecticut Compromise¹! So I won't cry, I'll use the more common name.

The Great Compromise set up our system of allocating congressmen by population, but giving each state two senators regardless of population. In presidential elections we get one vote in the Electoral College for each congressman and senator. That's seven for Connecticut, fifty five for California, three for Montana.

One man, one vote is not a concept that applies to our presidential elections. Your vote for Kerry or Bush counts about one third as much as a vote from someone in Wyoming... and there are 28 states that have it worse than us.

Don't expect any of this to change. It is built into the Constitution. Any fix would require small states to give up the extra pull they already have. There will be no Connecticut Compromise II.

¹ - The convention was deadlocked and appeared ready to fall apart when Roger Sherman (of New Haven, CT) proposed a compromise. Sherman’s proposal has come to be known as the Great Compromise. It called for a Congress with two houses (also known as "bicameralism") – the Senate and the House of Representatives. The Senate would give equal representation to all of the states. Each state would have two senators that would be chosen by the state legislature. This part of the plan satisfied the small states. The House of Representatives would base representation on a state’s population (one representative for every 30,000 people in the state) and members would be elected by all of the voters in the state. This element satisfied the more populous large states. Delegates at the Constitutional Convention narrowly approved Sherman’s compromise on July 16, 1787. Courtesy PBS

Years ago, on the TV show Hee Haw, there was a song - sung every week.

That being said, there are reports from China today that part of a satellite entered the atmosphere and crashed into a building, destroying an apartment. Like the recent US Genesis probe, this was designed to be recovered... just not from someone's apartment.

I'm only mentioning it because of this quote from the BBC:

If this is supposed to be your omen of good luck, this might be a verrrrry long year.

Blogger's note: Someone pointed me to the Chinese coverage of this story from the People's Daily. Which part of the story is missing?