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Bokonist
Location: Location, Location, Location...
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Quote:
Amendment puts Colorado in world's eye
Proposal to divide electoral votes may put court in charge
By Jim Tankersley, Rocky Mountain News
September 22, 2004
Warnings of a catastrophic case of déjà vu for the 2004 presidential election pop up almost daily in news pages from Los Angeles to Washington, D.C., to Paris.
In them, the election ends extremely close, a lone state's electoral votes land in legal limbo, and the U.S. Supreme Court once again decides who will be president.
That lone state isn't Florida. It's Colorado.
Everyone's talking about it. Except Coloradans.
The scenario begins with Amendment 36, a proposal on the Nov. 2 ballot that would change how Colorado casts its nine electoral votes, which all currently go to whomever wins the state.
If approved, the measure would divide the electoral votes proportionally among candidates based on the popular vote - starting this year. If President Bush beats John Kerry 51 percent to 49 percent, for example, Bush would take five votes and Kerry would earn four.
If that split is enough to influence the election - it would have produced a President Al Gore in 2000 - the measure is almost guaranteed to land in court. Legal scholars have proclaimed it ripe for a constitutional challenge.
Media outlets have blared the possible implications around the nation and the globe. The New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, Los Angeles Times and the Paris daily Le Monde all have run stories. ("Les républicains du Colorado partent en guerre contre l'"amendement 36.") A Danish TV crew plans one soon.
Newsweek columnist George F. Will called the initiative "November's most portentous vote" last month.
Colorado voters have seen the issue relegated to a back burner so far, behind a tight presidential race, a hot Senate election and a couple higher-profile ballot initiatives.
More than half the respondents to a Rocky Mountain News/ News 4 poll didn't feel strongly for or against the measure.
"I just don't think most people play out the line of causality on this" in Colorado, said Ken Bickers, a political science professor at the University of Colorado. "They just haven't gotten to it yet."
When they do, supporters and opponents await with a few simple arguments.
Proponents, including Democratic state Sen. Ron Tupa, of Boulder, and the Colorado League of Women Voters, say the measure would make elections more fair, more reflective of the "one person, one vote" concept.
They hope it will spark a nationwide reform that would essentially burn down the Electoral College, state by state.
"This is something that is instinctively very popular among voters," said Rick Ridder, a Denver political consultant running the campaign to pass the measure. "Who doesn't want to make their vote count?"
Opponents - including Gov. Bill Owens, many Republicans and some Democrats - offer three types of rebuttal.
They say the measure would reduce Colorado's national influence. What candidate, they argue, would campaign here for the one or two electoral votes realistically up for grabs - and what president would keep Colorado voters in mind when considering highway funding or military base closures?
They question the motives of the measure's primary benefactor, Jorge Klor de Alva, a university president who lives in California and who supporters say simply wants to reform the Electoral College.
And opponents say this year, partisans on both sides risk giving away half the prize of the tightly fought presidential race.
"In the short term, no one really wins," said Katy Atkinson, a consultant leading the fight against the measure, "and in the long term, no one wins."
Independent analysts say the issue forces Colorado voters to think strategically: Whom do I pick for president, when do I vote for him (early, absentee or on Election Day) and how do I vote on Amendment 36 to best help my candidate?
"The logic is, every voter in Colorado should be thinking strategically, depending on his preferences," said Jack Rakove, a Stanford University history professor who has written extensively on the Electoral College and the Constitution.
"But to do that, you have to go down to the wire. You have to look at both local and national polls. That's a lot to ask most people to do."
Judges, not voters, may decide the measure's fate in the end.
Constitutional scholars say the biggest lawsuit potential lies in Article II of the U.S. Constitution, which states that "Each state shall appoint, in such manner as the legislature thereof may direct, a number of electors" for president.
The key word is "legislature." The question is whether a ballot initiative is the same as a "legislature" under the Constitution - in other words, whether voters themselves can choose how electoral votes are allocated.
Backers say they chose Colorado because state case law supports making such changes by petitioning onto the ballot. At least one local professor, Richard Collins at the Byron White Center for the Study of American Constitutional Law at the University of Colorado, agrees.
"No one would dispute that ballot initiative is part of the legislative process of our state," he said.
Bickers, the Colorado political science professor, calls the constitutional issue "a pathway to the federal courts system" - and perhaps to the kind of Florida-2000-esque scenario that has the national media abuzz.
"Whatever the outcome," he said, "it puts Colorado squarely in the middle of a huge political fight."
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more power to 'em! It is time that everyone's vote is counted...how could this possibly be a bad thing?!
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"Beware of the man who works hard to learn something, learns it, and finds himself no wiser than before.
He is full of murderous resentment of people who are ignorant without having come by their ignorance the hard way."
-Kurt Vonnegut
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