You said the electoral college system was "designed to protect slavery," which is demonstrably false just from looking at how states voted on the various plans. States voted on the various plans without any relationship to the percentage of the population enslaved. South Carolina and Virginia, the two states with the largest slave populations, agreed on little.
If you are saying the effect of this was pro-slavery, it depends:
1) I don't see how the indirect process entailed by the electoral college matters at all.
2) Including Senate seats in apportioning electoral votes has only mattered in a few elections. If electoral votes were apportioned simply by seats in the House:
1796 Jefferson defeats Adams
1876 Samuel Tilden defeats Rutherford Hayes
1916 Charles Hughes defeats Woodrow Wilson
2000 Gore defeats Bush
Jefferson defeating Adams a term earlier is probably a pretty significant change, but its hard to construe that as something which would have weakened the slave power.
3) I think its fostering an anachronism to ignore the original purpose of the 3/5ths clause as resolving taxation issues, but it would certainly make a difference if slaves were treated as property and not counted for apportionment purposes. But that would be accepting the pro-slavery argument and creating a federal right of property in slaves that the Founders rejected. What is your preferred number for how slaves are counted?
I do not understand what connection you think there is between slavery and how Presidents are elected. We have various plans, speeches and voting patterns from the Convention that repeatedly show large vs. small state disputes.
The 3/5ths clause originally derived from the American Revolution, when the colonies agreed to provide requisitions to the Continental Army in proportion to their population, with slaves counting as three-fifths of a person. The treatment of slaves for taxing purposes continued as a hotly debated issue under the Articles of Confederation, with large slave-holding states arguing that slaves are property that should be exempt from a head count and the others arguing that they are fully persons. Required unanimity was not reached, but most states agreed with a three-fifths compromise, with New York and New Hampshire rejecting it in preference for a full head count.
The 3/5ths formula was introduced at the Constitutional Convention by Morris of Pennsylvania with the proviso that the federal formula would be applied to be both direct taxation and allocating popular votes to the states. Proved fairly uncontroversial given what had already been argued. People who had argued that slaves are people, not property, were not persuasively going to argue in another context that they are property, not people. The Constitution does not recognize a federal property right in slavery.
In any event, the 3/5ths clause is history and doesn't have anything to do with electoral college reform.
There is nothing about the electoral college system that was designed to protect slavery. In particular, it was the small states that consistently sought greater representation of state interests, as opposed to popular voting. The small states, Delaware, New Jersey, Connecticut, and Maryland, were concerned with state equality. The large states, Virginia, Pennsylvania and Massachusetts supported popular sovereignty. They did not vote on the basis of degree of slaveholding because the Constitution did not authorize the national government to impede slavery within states that authorize it.
Also this: "President Obama has also deported more immigrants per year than any president ever, and has also deported a higher percentage of residents arrived illegally than any post-war President. The first rises in deportation appear to have begun under Clinton (Democrat), hit record levels under Bush II (Republican), and deportation has soared to truly unmatched levels under Obama (Democrat). It has also declined under President Obama, but we’ll see how things progress." Lyman Stone
"Well, it was designed to protect slavery, and until the election of 1860 it fulfilled its mission quite well."
No, it was not. That's a vile interpretation perpetrated by Justice Taney and his ilk. Slavery was accommodated in its then-present status and limited, with the expectation that it would die out.
My comment about the ACA is purely on the politics. Expanding coverage for the few, while increasing the costs for those w/ coverage, could not be the part of building a multistate coalition because the ratio of helps versus hurts skews very differently btw/ the South and the North.
Have I mentioned recently that in key states like Iowa and Wisconsin, the percentage w/ health insurance coverage was statistically the same as Massachusetts before the ACA?
While it advantages prior users, in water-restricted areas there would be little or no development if the town/mine/farm could not rely upon the existing water sources. Who would invest in any of those if some joker with hundreds of rain barrels moved upstream? Hate those guys.
I think water rights laws change naturally around the 100th meridian in the U.S., as a matter of common law. One of the benefits of the common law was that it always contained a vehicle for an alternate rule for different circumstances.
For example, English common law imposed a duty on the owners of livestock to "fence in" their animals, who could be liable to pay for destruction of crops. American courts did not think this rule well-adapted to a frontier people, and opted for a "fence out" rule which imposed the duty on the owner of crops to erect fences. Adopting "fence out" as American common law, as opposed to "fence in," mainly kept the previous rule, but shifted the burden.
Water rights in the Western states starts with the same assumption of the right to use water on one's own property, but includes the right to exclude subsequent, interfering uses. I would consider prior-appropriation water rights as a common-law rule adopted to areas with water limitations.
As I read that wikipedia entry, burning a 3 by 5 piece of cloth or nylon is most likely already a crime (breach of peace, disorderly conduct, open burning, public nuisance, etc.), though not a federal crime and not a felony.
OTOH, OMB defines metropolitan areas based upon economic integration and commuter ties, but includes rural areas within metropolitan counties. In places like Indianapolis, where there are really no natural constraints to sprawl (no deserts, mountains, or water restraints, both too little or too much), the central city can sprawl almost indefinitely along interstates and arterial roads.
The Index of Relative Rurality (figure one) is based on four factors: population, population density, extent of urbanized area and distance to the nearest metro area. I pointed to figure three earlier, which is a smoothing of this analysis based upon proximity to urban centers.
But back to the article, Indiana's population is between 27.6% rural (Census), 20 percent rural (OMB MSAs), or 5 percent (OMB statistical areas), and when the article asks rural Indiana Republicans to understand and act upon their interconnection with Indianapolis, he's mostly talking about suburbanites, that is where the numbers are.
"We show that isolated capital cities are robustly associated with greater levels of corruption across US states. In particular, this is the case when we use the variation induced by the exogenous location of a state’s centroid to instrument for the concentration of population around the capital city. We then show that different mechanisms for holding state politicians accountable are also affected by the spatial distribution of population: newspapers provide greater coverage of state politics when their audiences are more concentrated around the capital, and voter turnout in state elections is greater in places that are closer to the capital. Consistent with lower accountability, there is also evidence that there is more money in state-level political campaigns in those states with isolated capitals. We find that the role of media accountability helps explain the connection between isolated capitals and
corruption. In addition, we provide some evidence that this pattern is also associated with lower levels of public good spending and outcomes."
Yeah, there are different measures. Indiana is less rural than Illinois in the sense that Illinois has more stark population contrasts between Chicago and the downstate large-scale farming and national forests. Figure 3 provides a good image.
Most of this doesn't really have much to do with Indiana or what the piece is concerned about. Again, most of the manufacturing jobs in Indiana are outside of Indianapolis. Per capita, Indiana has the most manufacturing jobs and highest manufacturing income in the country, and it is a growth area.
But manufacturing growth does not need to be in a major city, it just needs to be close enough to a population to supply the labor pool. The average manufacturing company has about 40 employees. Transportation improvements mean employees can be drawn from farther away. I remember reading that the Nissan plant just outside of Jackson, MS had employees from every (or nearly every) county in Mississippi at one time. The average manufacturer would not need to draw from as far; they just need to plop down on the edge of a metro where regulation is lower, taxes are lower and access to major highways is convenient. Poor people in the central city cannot apply for that $15 per hour starting salary that only requires a high school degree because they don't have reliable transportation.
That's what the piece is about, the metro is wealthy, but the central city is hurting.
Indiana is not a particularly rural state and certainly not on the Great Plains, it is sprawly and full of small towns. About half of its counties are in a metropolitan statistical area, and a further quarter are in micro-statistical areas. When he is talking about "rural," he is almost certainly talking about cities under 50,000 where the manufacturing jobs tend to be, and areas that were farmland within living memory, but are now box stores and Applebee's within an hour's drive of a metro city-center.
The problem he is describing is that a lot of older large cities are hollowing out, either they have population declines or the middle class is leaving, either to surrounding suburbs or exurbs or to places like North Carolina and Texas. Richard Florida-style investment in cafes and art districts and downtown spaces have not helped. If anything, the jobs that are created by cafes, restaurants, hotels, sports arenas and museums don't tend to pay well. Indianapolis has a nice downtown to visit, just outside the city center its impoverished.
There's a study that finds a correlation btw/ states w/ capitols outside the state's largest metropolitan area and state corruption. How this appears to operate is that in places like Illinois and Louisiana, the media pays less attention and gives less importance to state politics, so state government quality suffers. In the case of New Jersey, it's a little less obvious, but the point remains that the state has its Phili directed region and its NYC directed region, w/ Trenton straddling the line.
To clarify, there have been three statewide elections since the 2011 law. The plaintiffs sued in 2015, and are requesting that the legislature redraw the districts and if they don't act quickly enough, the courts should draw new districts. Given that the court is seeking more briefing on remedies, as well as probable further appeals, this case is essentially floating towards irrelevancy with the 2020 census.
"The Republican party had pored over election returns for six years, and it knew what it had to do to win. It had a regional strategy to win the election by playing the electoral college numbers game. It did so splendidly. . . . And the Republicans -- not just the party bosses, but the rank and file -- had been studying this one hard since 1856, and they knew how many votes they needed to swing in three crucial Northern border states that cared little for abolitionists."
Former Congressman Aaron Schock has just been indicted for selling Washington tours; I guess the difference is whether the money goes to a foundation, a campaign or one's own pocket?
Meanwhile, in Illinois another year without a budget is coming to a close. We need more frequent elections, perhaps called immediately after each budget impasse.
*Comment archive for non-registered commenters assembled by email address as provided.
On “A National Popular Vote Amendment”
You said the electoral college system was "designed to protect slavery," which is demonstrably false just from looking at how states voted on the various plans. States voted on the various plans without any relationship to the percentage of the population enslaved. South Carolina and Virginia, the two states with the largest slave populations, agreed on little.
If you are saying the effect of this was pro-slavery, it depends:
1) I don't see how the indirect process entailed by the electoral college matters at all.
2) Including Senate seats in apportioning electoral votes has only mattered in a few elections. If electoral votes were apportioned simply by seats in the House:
1796 Jefferson defeats Adams
1876 Samuel Tilden defeats Rutherford Hayes
1916 Charles Hughes defeats Woodrow Wilson
2000 Gore defeats Bush
Recalculating the Electoral College
Jefferson defeating Adams a term earlier is probably a pretty significant change, but its hard to construe that as something which would have weakened the slave power.
3) I think its fostering an anachronism to ignore the original purpose of the 3/5ths clause as resolving taxation issues, but it would certainly make a difference if slaves were treated as property and not counted for apportionment purposes. But that would be accepting the pro-slavery argument and creating a federal right of property in slaves that the Founders rejected. What is your preferred number for how slaves are counted?
"
I do not understand what connection you think there is between slavery and how Presidents are elected. We have various plans, speeches and voting patterns from the Convention that repeatedly show large vs. small state disputes.
The 3/5ths clause originally derived from the American Revolution, when the colonies agreed to provide requisitions to the Continental Army in proportion to their population, with slaves counting as three-fifths of a person. The treatment of slaves for taxing purposes continued as a hotly debated issue under the Articles of Confederation, with large slave-holding states arguing that slaves are property that should be exempt from a head count and the others arguing that they are fully persons. Required unanimity was not reached, but most states agreed with a three-fifths compromise, with New York and New Hampshire rejecting it in preference for a full head count.
The 3/5ths formula was introduced at the Constitutional Convention by Morris of Pennsylvania with the proviso that the federal formula would be applied to be both direct taxation and allocating popular votes to the states. Proved fairly uncontroversial given what had already been argued. People who had argued that slaves are people, not property, were not persuasively going to argue in another context that they are property, not people. The Constitution does not recognize a federal property right in slavery.
In any event, the 3/5ths clause is history and doesn't have anything to do with electoral college reform.
"
There is nothing about the electoral college system that was designed to protect slavery. In particular, it was the small states that consistently sought greater representation of state interests, as opposed to popular voting. The small states, Delaware, New Jersey, Connecticut, and Maryland, were concerned with state equality. The large states, Virginia, Pennsylvania and Massachusetts supported popular sovereignty. They did not vote on the basis of degree of slaveholding because the Constitution did not authorize the national government to impede slavery within states that authorize it.
On “Morning Ed: Politics {2016.11.29.T}”
Also this: "President Obama has also deported more immigrants per year than any president ever, and has also deported a higher percentage of residents arrived illegally than any post-war President. The first rises in deportation appear to have begun under Clinton (Democrat), hit record levels under Bush II (Republican), and deportation has soared to truly unmatched levels under Obama (Democrat). It has also declined under President Obama, but we’ll see how things progress." Lyman Stone
On “A National Popular Vote Amendment”
"Well, it was designed to protect slavery, and until the election of 1860 it fulfilled its mission quite well."
No, it was not. That's a vile interpretation perpetrated by Justice Taney and his ilk. Slavery was accommodated in its then-present status and limited, with the expectation that it would die out.
On “Morning Ed: Planet Earth {2016.11.30.W}”
My comment about the ACA is purely on the politics. Expanding coverage for the few, while increasing the costs for those w/ coverage, could not be the part of building a multistate coalition because the ratio of helps versus hurts skews very differently btw/ the South and the North.
"
Have I mentioned recently that in key states like Iowa and Wisconsin, the percentage w/ health insurance coverage was statistically the same as Massachusetts before the ACA?
"
While it advantages prior users, in water-restricted areas there would be little or no development if the town/mine/farm could not rely upon the existing water sources. Who would invest in any of those if some joker with hundreds of rain barrels moved upstream? Hate those guys.
"
I think water rights laws change naturally around the 100th meridian in the U.S., as a matter of common law. One of the benefits of the common law was that it always contained a vehicle for an alternate rule for different circumstances.
For example, English common law imposed a duty on the owners of livestock to "fence in" their animals, who could be liable to pay for destruction of crops. American courts did not think this rule well-adapted to a frontier people, and opted for a "fence out" rule which imposed the duty on the owner of crops to erect fences. Adopting "fence out" as American common law, as opposed to "fence in," mainly kept the previous rule, but shifted the burden.
Water rights in the Western states starts with the same assumption of the right to use water on one's own property, but includes the right to exclude subsequent, interfering uses. I would consider prior-appropriation water rights as a common-law rule adopted to areas with water limitations.
On “Morning Ed: Politics {2016.11.29.T}”
As I read that wikipedia entry, burning a 3 by 5 piece of cloth or nylon is most likely already a crime (breach of peace, disorderly conduct, open burning, public nuisance, etc.), though not a federal crime and not a felony.
"
This is still Obama's America, damn it. Light 'em if you got 'em.
On “Morning Ed: United States {2016.11.23.W}”
Yeah, I mistyped Census.
The problem with the Census definition is that it classifies quite a bit of suburban area as rural. This is particularly a problem w/ Indiana as it is sprawly.
OTOH, OMB defines metropolitan areas based upon economic integration and commuter ties, but includes rural areas within metropolitan counties. In places like Indianapolis, where there are really no natural constraints to sprawl (no deserts, mountains, or water restraints, both too little or too much), the central city can sprawl almost indefinitely along interstates and arterial roads.
The Index of Relative Rurality (figure one) is based on four factors: population, population density, extent of urbanized area and distance to the nearest metro area. I pointed to figure three earlier, which is a smoothing of this analysis based upon proximity to urban centers.
But back to the article, Indiana's population is between 27.6% rural (Census), 20 percent rural (OMB MSAs), or 5 percent (OMB statistical areas), and when the article asks rural Indiana Republicans to understand and act upon their interconnection with Indianapolis, he's mostly talking about suburbanites, that is where the numbers are.
"
Unfortunately, the map is old (2000) and I couldn't locate a newer one, but it does reflect how Indiana looks, which is sprawly.
I think Orange County is getting described as pure suburb, whereas El Centro is an independent metro. That's a US Census distinction.
"
"We show that isolated capital cities are robustly associated with greater levels of corruption across US states. In particular, this is the case when we use the variation induced by the exogenous location of a state’s centroid to instrument for the concentration of population around the capital city. We then show that different mechanisms for holding state politicians accountable are also affected by the spatial distribution of population: newspapers provide greater coverage of state politics when their audiences are more concentrated around the capital, and voter turnout in state elections is greater in places that are closer to the capital. Consistent with lower accountability, there is also evidence that there is more money in state-level political campaigns in those states with isolated capitals. We find that the role of media accountability helps explain the connection between isolated capitals and
corruption. In addition, we provide some evidence that this pattern is also associated with lower levels of public good spending and outcomes."
Isolated Capital Cities, Accountability and Corruption: Evidence from US States
That link goes to an NPR article, but if you google "Isolated Captal CIties" you should find a lot of working papers on the topic.
"
Yeah, there are different measures. Indiana is less rural than Illinois in the sense that Illinois has more stark population contrasts between Chicago and the downstate large-scale farming and national forests. Figure 3 provides a good image.
"
Most of this doesn't really have much to do with Indiana or what the piece is concerned about. Again, most of the manufacturing jobs in Indiana are outside of Indianapolis. Per capita, Indiana has the most manufacturing jobs and highest manufacturing income in the country, and it is a growth area.
But manufacturing growth does not need to be in a major city, it just needs to be close enough to a population to supply the labor pool. The average manufacturing company has about 40 employees. Transportation improvements mean employees can be drawn from farther away. I remember reading that the Nissan plant just outside of Jackson, MS had employees from every (or nearly every) county in Mississippi at one time. The average manufacturer would not need to draw from as far; they just need to plop down on the edge of a metro where regulation is lower, taxes are lower and access to major highways is convenient. Poor people in the central city cannot apply for that $15 per hour starting salary that only requires a high school degree because they don't have reliable transportation.
That's what the piece is about, the metro is wealthy, but the central city is hurting.
"
What's depressing is that if the media coverage is the prime determiner, the shrinking state-focused media might mean poorer governance for everyone.
"
Indiana is not a particularly rural state and certainly not on the Great Plains, it is sprawly and full of small towns. About half of its counties are in a metropolitan statistical area, and a further quarter are in micro-statistical areas. When he is talking about "rural," he is almost certainly talking about cities under 50,000 where the manufacturing jobs tend to be, and areas that were farmland within living memory, but are now box stores and Applebee's within an hour's drive of a metro city-center.
The problem he is describing is that a lot of older large cities are hollowing out, either they have population declines or the middle class is leaving, either to surrounding suburbs or exurbs or to places like North Carolina and Texas. Richard Florida-style investment in cafes and art districts and downtown spaces have not helped. If anything, the jobs that are created by cafes, restaurants, hotels, sports arenas and museums don't tend to pay well. Indianapolis has a nice downtown to visit, just outside the city center its impoverished.
"
There's a study that finds a correlation btw/ states w/ capitols outside the state's largest metropolitan area and state corruption. How this appears to operate is that in places like Illinois and Louisiana, the media pays less attention and gives less importance to state politics, so state government quality suffers. In the case of New Jersey, it's a little less obvious, but the point remains that the state has its Phili directed region and its NYC directed region, w/ Trenton straddling the line.
On “Morning Ed: Politics {2016.11.22.T}”
To clarify, there have been three statewide elections since the 2011 law. The plaintiffs sued in 2015, and are requesting that the legislature redraw the districts and if they don't act quickly enough, the courts should draw new districts. Given that the court is seeking more briefing on remedies, as well as probable further appeals, this case is essentially floating towards irrelevancy with the 2020 census.
"
"state house district maps drawn in 2001 by Wisconsin's Republican controlled legislature"
Timely.
Edit: Looks like a typo; the paper meant 2011, but still . . .
"
"The Republican party had pored over election returns for six years, and it knew what it had to do to win. It had a regional strategy to win the election by playing the electoral college numbers game. It did so splendidly. . . . And the Republicans -- not just the party bosses, but the rank and file -- had been studying this one hard since 1856, and they knew how many votes they needed to swing in three crucial Northern border states that cared little for abolitionists."
How 39% of the popular vote created an electoral college lock
On “Obama Is Warning America About Trump’s Presidency. Are You Listening? | New Republic”
I almost posted a link to some pictures of it; so I will: Downton Abbey Office
"
Former Congressman Aaron Schock has just been indicted for selling Washington tours; I guess the difference is whether the money goes to a foundation, a campaign or one's own pocket?
On “Morning Ed: Labor {2016.11.21.M}”
Meanwhile, in Illinois another year without a budget is coming to a close. We need more frequent elections, perhaps called immediately after each budget impasse.
*Comment archive for non-registered commenters assembled by email address as provided.