|
|
|
CONCURRENT RESOLUTION
|
|
WHEREAS, In a democratic election, the candidate who receives |
|
the most votes should win; and |
|
WHEREAS, That elementary principle has been undermined in the |
|
United States, where in two out of the last five elections, the |
|
Electoral College has awarded the presidency to the candidate who |
|
was rejected by the majority of voters; in the most recent |
|
presidential election, the winning candidate received nearly 3 |
|
million fewer votes than the losing candidate, who won a wider |
|
margin of the popular vote than 10 past presidents; and |
|
WHEREAS, Candidates with the least votes also won the |
|
presidential election three times in the 19th century, and such a |
|
result is likely to happen again in the near future, thanks to an |
|
antiquated mechanism that subverts the will of the people; a |
|
vestige of the days when only white male landowners had a voice in |
|
political life, the Electoral College was written into the |
|
U.S. Constitution in the course of heated negotiations between more |
|
heavily populated northern states and more rural southern states; |
|
designed to protect the power of the elite and the influence of |
|
slave states, the college is a complicated system under which |
|
citizens mark their ballots for presidential candidates, but in |
|
reality, their votes are cast for a slate of electors in their |
|
respective states, who are actually entrusted with the task of |
|
choosing the president; and |
|
WHEREAS, Because the college allocates electors based on each |
|
state's representation in Congress, it distorts the outcome of |
|
presidential campaigns; residents of smaller states have a larger |
|
voice in the results, and today, Wyoming voters exert almost four |
|
times as much influence as do California voters; moreover, 48 |
|
states and the District of Columbia award electoral votes on a |
|
winner-take-all basis, so that it makes no difference whether a |
|
candidate wins a state by a vast or minuscule margin; it is |
|
technically possible for a candidate to gain the presidency with |
|
only about 23 percent of the national popular vote; moreover, tens |
|
of millions of voters are effectively disenfranchised in states |
|
with a heavy partisan lean, and turnout can be depressed among |
|
citizens who believe that their vote is wasted; and |
|
WHEREAS, From its inception, the Electoral College has been a |
|
source of contention, and over the past two centuries, legislators |
|
have proposed more than 700 constitutional amendments to reform or |
|
eliminate it; public support for the system has waxed and waned, but |
|
for decades, the majority of Americans have expressed opposition to |
|
it; and |
|
WHEREAS, The Electoral College is a discredited 18th-century |
|
relic that violates the principle of one person, one vote; the |
|
nation's highest office should be awarded on the same basis as every |
|
other elected position in our democracy; now, therefore, be it |
|
RESOLVED, That the 86th Legislature of the State of Texas |
|
hereby respectfully urge the United States Congress to pass a |
|
constitutional amendment abolishing the Electoral College and |
|
creating a system for the direct election of presidents by popular |
|
vote; and, be it further |
|
RESOLVED, That the Texas secretary of state forward official |
|
copies of this resolution to the president of the United States, to |
|
the president of the Senate and the speaker of the House of |
|
Representatives of the United States Congress, and to all the |
|
members of the Texas delegation to Congress with the request that |
|
this resolution be entered in the Congressional Record as a |
|
memorial to the Congress of the United States of America. |