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Let’s end the splitting of Electoral Votes in Nebraska!

Why don't we make the true voice of the state heard?

By: drohan00 (Diary)  |  November 10th, 2008 at 01:42 PM  | 

RESIZE: AAA

The biggest humbling for me this election is the loss of the Omaha based second district to the Democrats. The first time Nebraska has supported a Democrat since the Johnson/Goldwater landslide election of 1964. It is horrendous that the Nebraska Republican Party sat helplessly on its laurels, allowing the Democrats to win in what used to be solidly Republican territory. Frankly, the impetus is now there for the titularly non-partisan legislature (but with a majority of Republicans) to change, once and for all, the foolish practice of splitting the Nebraska Electoral votes.


When they passed the split electoral college system, the proponents claimed that there would be more activity by candidates in Nebraska. Candidates for national office, we were told, would campaign in Nebraska, in an effort to gain an electoral vote. If that were the case, and Nebraskans had the opportunity to have their issues handled by a candidate from either party, one might be inclined to keep the system as it is. However, Omaha did not see either one of the major candidates in the Election. Similarly, only the Democrats gained, by being able to target one of our two urban centers. Frankly, Nebraskas were not heard in this election, only the foolish people conned to vote against their interests by the Obama camp. Sure the Democrats were able to spend money on paid staff for Nebraska, but we never saw hide nor hare of the candidate himself. When he destroys the American Agriculture economy, I will wonder whether those duped by the Democrats will see the light?

We need to end that process by which we split our electoral votes. Indeed, we should take Nebraska back to the time when a Democrat would have to win the votes of a majority of all Nebraskans in order to win any support from us in the Electoral College. If the Democrats want to win in our state, they should have to travel the breadth and depth of our state. They don’t want to do that though. The Democratic Party plan is one of balkanization where the needs of Omaha are separated from the needs of the State as a whole. Only the Republican Party is representative of the State. Clearly the only 93 county party in our state is the GOP. We should not have our selection for president watered down by a few thousand Omaha radicals and their dupes at the polls. Nebraska needs to return integrity to our electoral process. That means the Democrats should have to persuade a majority of ALL Nebraskans to support them, not just an agitated liberal rump in Omaha.

I give Obama credit, he turned a number of red states blue. However he won a majority of the vote in those states. Indiana, Virginia, North Carolina, and Colorado were won fair and square. The Republican Party needs to regroup in these states. But Nebraska is uniformly a Republican State at the macro level. Nothing is more macro than the race for the Whitehouse. Nebraska Republicans in the legislature need to see to it that the laws are changed. Then, when 2012 comes around our state is firmly and always in the Republican column. No registered Republican lawmaker in our state is worthy of the affiliation if he or she cannot return Nebraska back to the regular method of selecting presidential electors. If the Democrats want to win a Nebraska electoral vote, they should have to do so by convincing people all across the state, not just a tiny sliver of it.

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COMMENTS

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  • Gandalf

    What we need to do is replicate Nebraska and Maine’s policy into certain other states: Colorado, California, Virginia, Florida, New York, Texas, Illinois, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Michigan, North Carolina, New Jersey, etc. These states, except Colorado, bear a significantly high representation in the elctoral college. Plus several of them are almost always evenly split (CA, CO, VA, FL, PA, OH).

    Personally, I think it should be the bigger and/or swing states that adopt this policy. If Nebraska and Maine want to have it in their own States, so be it, but its not a bad policy just because the Republican Party didn’t gain from it this year. I would hesitantly support a Constitutional Amendment requiring this system everywhere, but would much rather each of the States choose to do it themselves.

    Question for you: Would you support a repeal of the exact same law in Maine if McCain had won 270-268 including Maine 01 (as seemed a possibility for a few days)? Your honest answer to that question will tell you if what you’re saying is based on principle or simply emotional outrage.

    We absolutly MUST, for the sake of our country, stop forming these types of policy decisions based on how they will affect our party’s chances in elections. If it’s a good idea, it’s a good idea, if it’s a bad idea, it’s a bad idea, regardless of who benefits.

  • sergee3

    Agree, because as a strict construction Conservative, I support each state’s right to allocate the election of Electoral College electors as it so chooses. Therefore, I support your right to argue and defend a desired position for your state to take. If anyone feels that his/her state should do EV’s in a particular way, I think it is a good part of our Federalist system and encourage you to lobby your state assemblies to this extent.

    Disagree, because I do not support gerrymandering in this way just to get the GOP more EV’s; the institution of 3 EV’s for Washington, DC was done like this I find it appalling. It’s like FDR adding two Supreme Court seats just so that he could get a majority vote with his appointees.

    All that said, I do support a winner-take-all system in general for each state, even though I more greatly support each state’s right to self-determine, and I am totally opposed to a national popular vote. I do not like that DC gets any EC votes.

  • izoneguy

    n/t

    • drohan00

      that all states adhered to this position. Really, I don’t see what is gained by the Republicans splitting one of our electoral votes, when the Dems would never allow for that to happen in one of their states. I would support this plan if other states, and not just Maine, were made to do it.

      As a Nebraska Republican, I think we shouldn’t bring a knife to a gunfight. We should not denude our state by letting the Democrats gain by appealing to just Omaha, and not the state as a whole. I do agree that the State GOP should be horrified that a number of Republican voters cast ballots for Obama, but that said, we should not just give ev’s over to the Democrats.

      If the Republican Party in Nebraska is unwilling to bring the state back into the national mainstream, which is also to our advantage, then there is little we expect from Republican governments. Use the government for partisan advantage? Yes! by all means. If you think that the Democrats are going to be nice and easy over the next four years, you are naive. This is no different than Ken Blackwell enforcing election laws in Ohio in 2004. The states have the right to do what they want in regard to elections. The vast majority of Nebraskans want their votes to be registered as Republican. The Republican party rules the state, therefore it should see to it that the Democrats have to appeal to more than their base of support in Omaha.

      • sergee3

        What would go next after the Electoral College? I’d rather not get an answer, as anything that is under state or local control would instantly be subjuct to to coming under Liberal big-government.

    • izoneguy

      n/t

      • Menlo

        Disagree, because I do not support gerrymandering in this way just to get the GOP more EV’s; the institution of 3 EV’s for Washington, DC was done like this I find it appalling. It’s like FDR adding two Supreme Court seats just so that he could get a majority vote with his appointees.

        Where Democrats do it, Republicans should follow. It becomes essential for survival.

        • Menlo

          Doesn’t Nebraska have a nonpartisan legislature?

          • sergee3

            Really??

            Like big government is essential to our survivial? Or like taxes? Or like other Liberal positions?

            We don’t have to do anything just because the Dems do it. If that were the case, we would not have a RedState.com, we would not have two political parties, we would not have debate or free thought.

            Let’s stop being followers and start being leaders.

          • Menlo

            Anything local IS subject to federal control. There is nothing that the federal government has not justified turning federal.

            What’s sad is that most people seem to support it. Polling generally shows overwhelming preference having any major issue addressed at the federal rather than state level.

          • Menlo

            I’m talking about tactics and taking over the government. We can’t survive if they overpower Republicans through the addition of more of themselves.

          • sergee3

            By using these particular tactics, we would be expanding the government.

          • Gandalf

            We should respond by playing dirty and telling the voters exactly what’s going on. If the Republican Party had stood against gerymandering from the beginning, introduced bills against it, etc., then we wouldn’t be in the rediculous situation we’re in now. As it is, we’re on target to get bitten hard because of gerymandering in 2012 when Democrats control a majority of state governments.

            Personally, I see gerymandering and the re-structuring (not elimination) of the Electoral College according to districts (as opposed to winner-takes all via states) as two of the foundational elements to Contract with America II. Another would necessarily be term limits while another would introduce 200-500 more seats in the House of Representatives.

          • drohan00

            But somewhere between 30 and 33 of them are registered Republicans. That means with a GOP Governor, we can do what we please.

            The Democrats are the ones who passed the law in the first place, when Ben Nelson was our Gov. So it has bore fruit for the Democrats. Now we need to quash it.

          • Menlo

            I don’t see where the expansion is.

          • sergee3

            Rather, by stocking the government with more GOP’ers.

          • Menlo

            “Stocking up” where? It’s a matter of shifting votes around, much like redistricting in Congress.

          • drohan00

            But we need to have things in the Second Contract that we can enact. Nearly all of the things you mention require a constitutional majority… We don’t have that, and won’t get it.

            I think we need to adopt a closer line to Newt. Repeat over and over again, “Real Change means Real Change!”

            Then we can outline the proposals of our platform that people trust the Republican Party to understand. Some of those old saws from 1994 might work, like term limits and the balanced budget amendment. As long as people don’t realize that we screwed it up over the 12 years we were there. 9/11 excepted, I don’t know the people are willing to believe the Republicans when we say we want to balance the budget. Republicans are the party that passed the prescription drug plan to medicare. Republicans are the party that created whole new departments of the federal government in the wake of 9/11, when the status quo managed better would have done a better job.

            We need to understand that there is real anger out there against the GOP. We need to forward the conservative point of view. We need to redeem the Republican Brand. And we cannot count on the feckless group of Republicans to redeem it either. Let’s get to work. 1965 was worse, remember then we only had 34 Senators, and half of them were liberals. So it’s not as bad as it could be or probably should be. Part of that move back to power would be to reclaim all of Nebraska’s electoral votes in 2012. One action by the Republican Legislature of a Republican State could affect that change.

          • mbecker908

            Said the man as he was whistling in the wind.

          • kyle8

            along with the ninth.

          • sergee3

            Dems having more of themselves; and the implication above was that the GOP should follow suit in order to keep up.

          • SteveLA

            mbecker

            I agree 1000 percent. Especially the part that says that the Federal government should be our nanny, or our national moral compass.

          • DRP

            That’s probably because they tend to be like the Federal Government, but even more corrupt. Which is really saying something, given how petty the Fed corruption can be.

            I agree that the EC should probably be abolished, but to do so would require a constitutional amendment which will never, ever pass (too many swing states to get the 3/4ths for verification). A more promising way to defeat the EC is the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact, or the Amar plan, where you get at least 270 EV’s worth of states to agree to cast their EVs for the winner of the popular vote, thus subverting the current system.

          • sergee3

            I hate that “pact” or whatever the heck they call it.

            We are one of four states that has passed it; if I recall properly, Hawaii passed it only after overturning the governor’s second veto.

            Illinois may never go red again, but dammit this is my state and I hate the concept that its voters could be so disenfranchised. If Illinois goes 70-30 for someone but the nation goes 50-49 the other way, then every single Illinoisan loses his/her say. The pact plan sounds like a decent idea for some reasons (though I personally disagree anyway with them), but it really gets you when your state is one of the ones involved and you start to feel your rights slip away…

          • Menlo

            That was regarding the judiciary. In that case, Republicans should take away the illegitimately added Democrats. Where Democrats can add, Republicans can subtract.

          • DRP

            It doesn’t go into effect until they get 270, right? At which point it’s really not disenfranchising Illinois.

            And I dunno, ditching the EC is always something that’s made sense to me. It’s sucked living in Connecticut, New York and then Michigan knowing that no matter what I do with my vote it means precisely nothing. I sympathize with Texas Democrats and California Republicans who don’t really matter in the scheme of things to the nation… and I’m tired of having the election decided by people who happen to live in Ohio, Florida and Pennsylvania. The rest of the country should matter too.