Getting rid of the Electoral College in 1969

Hierophant

Does anyone know how this could have succeeded? Heard about it in political chat, and that about 80% of the House was in favor.

Was Nixon in favor of it?
 

Porthos

The First (and Last) Serious Challenge to the Electoral College System
Adrienne Crezo

No election cycle would be complete without a debate over whether the Electoral College should be abolished. (These are just from the past week.) But have we ever come close to actually replacing the system that everyone loves to hate?

Almost, once. It all started when Nixon was elected.

The 1968 presidential election season was messy and contentious. The Vietnam War, widespread race riots, the assassination of Robert Kennedy, and lame duck LBJ’s rapidly dissolving popularity created a perfect political storm for a third-party candidate. In 1968, that candidate was former Alabama Governor George Wallace, who ran on the American Independent Party ticket against Democrat Republican Richard Nixon and Democrat Hubert Humphrey.

Wallace’s pro-segregation platform was popular in the South, and when the ballots were counted, he’d snagged 46 of the available 538 electoral votes. Though Nixon garnered 301 electoral votes and Humphrey went home with 191, the two were separated by less than 1% of the national total – just 511,944 votes. The disparity between the popular and electoral votes lead New York State Representative Emanuel Celler to introduce House Joint Resolution 681, a proposed Amendment to abolish the Electoral College and replace it with a system that required a president-vice president pair of candidates to win 40% or more of the national vote. In the event of a tie, or if no pair reached 40%, a runoff election would be held between the two tickets with the highest number of votes.

Proponents argued that this system was friendlier to third parties, less complicated, and would never result in contingent elections by the Senate and House for President and Vice President (which is a possibility with the Electoral College).

The Amendment was passed easily by the House Judiciary Committee in April 1969. By September of the same year, Celler’s Amendment passed with strong bipartisan support in the House of Representatives.

President Nixon endorsed the proposal and urged the Senate to pass its version, now called the Bayh-Celler Amendment after it was sponsored by Senator Birch Bayh of Indiana. A Senate Judiciary Committee approved the proposal with a vote of 11-6 in August 1970.

But things looked grim for the Bayh-Celler Amendment as the proposal prepared to move to the Senate floor. The measure was expected to fall short of the 67 votes needed to pass, so Bayh called Nixon for backup. While he never withdrew his support, the President didn’t call for any more favors regarding the Amendment. On September 17, 1970, the Bayh-Celler Amendment was met with a hearty filibuster from both parties, mostly from Southern states.

Senators from Mississippi, Arkansas, North Carolina, Nebraska, Hawaii and South Carolina argued that they would lose influence in the national election, and even though the Electoral College is complicated and has some potentially messy loopholes, it had served the country well and there was no real reason to change it.

It was the beginning of the end for the best attempt in history to abolish the Electoral College. Eventually, the Senate voted to lay the Amendment aside to attend to other business. It officially died with the close of the 91st Congress on January 3, 1971.
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So, yes Nixon did support it (though his support isn't constitutionally necessary). But he didn't do much to get it passed in the Senate.

It ended up 13 votes short:

On August 14, 1970, the Senate Judiciary Committee sent its report advocating passage of the proposal to the full Senate. The Judiciary Committee had approved the proposal by a vote of 11 to 6. The six members who opposed the plan, Democratic Senators James Eastland of Mississippi, John Little McClellan of Arkansas and Sam Ervin of North Carolina along with Republican Senators Roman Hruska of Nebraska, Hiram Fong of Hawaii and Strom Thurmond of South Carolina, all argued that although the present system had potential loopholes, it had worked well throughout the years. Senator Bayh indicated that supporters of the measure were about a dozen votes shy from the 67 needed for the proposal to pass the full Senate. He called upon President Nixon to attempt to persuade undecided Republican Senators to support the proposal.[27] However, Nixon, while not reneging on his previous endorsement, chose not to make any further personal appeals to back the proposal.[28]

Open debate on the proposal in the Senate commenced on September 8, 1970[29] and was quickly subjected to a filibuster. The lead objectors to the proposal were mostly Southern Senators and conservatives from small states, both Democrats and Republicans, who argued abolishing the Electoral College would reduce their states' political influence.[28] On September 17, 1970, a motion for cloture, which would have ended the filibuster, received 54 votes to 36 for cloture,[28] failing to receive the then required two-thirds majority of Senators voting.[30] A second motion for cloture on September 29, 1970 also failed, by 53 to 34. Thereafter, the Senate Majority Leader, Mike Mansfield of Montana, moved to lay the proposal aside so that the Senate could attend to other business.[31] However, the proposal was never considered again and died when the 91st Congress ended on January 3, 1971.
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This was when the filibuster was 2/3rds, BTW.
 

Hierophant

So it seems like the filibuster margin would have to be lowered just for this too have had a shot back then. Thank you Porthos
 

Emperor Julian

Perhaps having Nixon win the electoral college but lose the popular vote could be enough to cause a swing. If not, have Nixon lose enough and Humphrey and Wallace gain enough to have a hung electoral college that then produces a deadlocked house like in Fear Loathing and Gumbo.
 

Maniakes

Justin Green said:
So it seems like the filibuster margin would have to be lowered just for this too have had a shot back then. Thank you Porthos
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Doesn't help much. Constitutional amendments need a 2/3 majority for final passage (plus ratification by 3/4 of the states, and since the opposition was mainly sectional, the same states who Senators voted against cloture would probably also vote againt ratification). I wonder why they bothered filibustering at all, rather than just voting against it.
 

Paul V McNutt

Banned
If this amendment passes I don't think history changes until the 2000 election. I see the same lineup of presidents and nominees. So it is still Bush vs Gore. The Florida recount is a minor news story.
 

freivolk

Paul V McNutt said:
If this amendment passes I don't think history changes until the 2000 election. I see the same lineup of presidents and nominees. So it is still Bush vs Gore. The Florida recount is a minor news story.
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I think the change would start earlier. It would give 3-party-candidates at least the chance to force the big 2 in a runoff election. Somebody like Ross Perot might even get the second spot and then would have a chance in the Runoff-election. And an election like 2000 would run different, bcause nobody would use Karl Roves "just get 270 electoral votes and shit on the rest"-strategy.
 

The Red

Paul V McNutt said:
If this amendment passes I don't think history changes until the 2000 election. I see the same lineup of presidents and nominees. So it is still Bush vs Gore. The Florida recount is a minor news story.
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Even then the outcome would have been the same, as Bush got more than 40% of the vote. This amendment would have been lip service, whilst admittedly I'm ignoring butterflies (I'm sceptical as to how third-parties will suddenly be emboldened by the fact the only need to get a third of the vote and hope the duopoly largely break even) this doesn't force a run-off in any election before or after the amendment would have been enacted.
 

Mikestone8

The Red said:
Even then the outcome would have been the same, as Bush got more than 40% of the vote. This amendment would have been lip service, whilst admittedly I'm ignoring butterflies (I'm sceptical as to how third-parties will suddenly be emboldened by the fact the only need to get a third of the vote and hope the duopoly largely break even) this doesn't force a run-off in any election before or after the amendment would have been enacted.
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But Bush was not the highest-placed candidate. Gore was.
 

Dayton Kitchens

Banned
Mikestone8 said:
But Bush was not the highest-placed candidate. Gore was.
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1-2% of the popular vote is never counted in American general elections.

With the electoral college gone this would definitely not happen anymore.

It is well within the realm of possibility that Bush in 2000 would ultimately win a nationwide popular vote count.
 
Plumber

Plumber

Thande said:
Thanks for the info, Porthos. Odd that they chose 40% rather than 50% as the cutoff...
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This was just after 1968, where Nixon and Humphrey got around 43% and 42% to Wallace's 14%. And Nixon and Kennedy both got 49% in 1960.

Dayton Kitchens said:
1-2% of the popular vote is never counted in American general elections.

With the electoral college gone this would definitely not happen anymore.

It is well within the realm of possibility that Bush in 2000 would ultimately win a nationwide popular vote count.
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Er, the 2000 popular vote margin above a national recount.
 

freivolk

Plumber said:
This was just after 1968, where Nixon and Humphrey got around 43% and 42% to Wallace's 14%. And Nixon and Kennedy both got 49% in 1960.


Er, the 2000 popular vote margin above a national recount.
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Without the Electoral College nobody would adope Karl Roves "get 270 electoral votes and s**t on the rest"-strategy. This was it what costed Bush the popular vote.
 

Paul V McNutt

Banned
IIRC correctly, the amendment called for a runoff if the winner won with less than 40% of the vote. With all the help this amendment would give third parties, we might have had a less 40% victory sometime 1972 -2012.
Why don't we speculate on the possibility of a strong third party in those elections.
 

Pesterfield

I think to get rid of the college you'd need a good scandal.

1. A candidate bribes enough electors for the win.
2. A state government chooses electors with orders to vote for our party no matter what.

How electors are chosen is left up to the states, so I'm really surprised number two hasn't actually happened. Of course it would need to be a swing state to really matter.

Did any have fully Republican/Democratic governments at the time that could have tried that?
 
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