THE ANCHORAGE DAILY PLANET
From the land of dumb ideas come a really dumb idea.
Frothing House Democrats stung by 2016’s presidential defeat and yearning to turn this nation into a pure democracy – something loathed and feared by the country’s Founders – have introduced legislation to kill off the Electoral College.
Nancy Pelosi had hardly stumbled through her speaker acceptance speech when Rep. Steve Cohen, D-Tenn., jumped up to offer a bill that would be a first step toward sinking this country into tyranny.
The Electoral College, ensconced in the U.S. Constitution, primarily was meant to protect the political minority’s rights and it hands states the power to elect presidents. Nowadays, it means protecting most of the nation’s states – including Alaska – from the hysterical excesses and whims of a few states with huge populations clustered in cities.
If the Electoral College were eliminated by eventual ratification of a constitutional amendment, as would be required, voters in Alaska and other states with small populations could just stay home on election day. The Founders designed the college to force presidential candidates to appeal to a wider swath of states to reach the magic 270 votes needed to win.
