RNC Chair: Rig The Next Presidential Election For Republicans

[Adenoid_Hynkel]

Source: Think Progress


A little over a year ago, Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Corbett (R) proposed rigging the presidential election for Mitt Romney by allocating electoral votes based upon which candidate carried each individual congressional district, rather than upon who wins the state as a whole. Thanks in large part to Republican gerrymandering, if Corbett’s election-rigging plan had been in effect last November in the Republican-controlled states of Florida, Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Virginia and Wisconsin, Romney would have won the Electoral College despite losing the popular vote by nearly four points.

In an interview with the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel, Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus did not simply endorse this election-rigging scheme, he indicated that it should be targeted towards consistently Democratic states where it is most likely to skew the presidential election to the GOP’s benefit:

Republicans are in a unique position to make headway with such a plan nationally because Wisconsin and other key states that have gone to the Democratic presidential candidate in recent elections are currently controlled by Republicans at the state level. The change would give Republicans a chance to claim some of those states’ electoral votes.

“I think it’s something that a lot of states that have been consistently blue that are fully controlled red ought to be looking at,” Priebus said of the plan to change how electoral votes are granted.

Read more: http://thinkprogress.org/justice/2013/01/14/1443731/rnc-chair-rig-the-next-president-election-for-republicans/

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Mr. RNC P.R. B.S. claims this plan gives states "local control" but, of course, he has no interest in red states like Texas or Georgia exercising such authority.

He only wants to dictate "local" control from Wisconsin to rig the bid in Pa., Ohio, Michigan and elsewhere

[Botany]

1. They are admitting that they can't win a fair election.

"they" know the demographics are against them and that the #s will
keep getting worse and worse.

[RKP5637]

2. Only think the RNC knows ... cheating, lies, deception, bullying, graft, intimidation,

disinformation and slight of hand.

[TheDebbieDee]

3. Here'a what's really scary - these dumbphucks think that the left will just stand by and watch

them steal ANOTHER election. They have no fear or trepidation that supporters on the left will take to the streets. The repukes KNOW that they can phuck over the Dems with impunity!

[AndyTiedye]

7. They Will Move Fast When the Time Comes

They didn't do it this time because the teabaggers didn't really like Mittens that much.
They're saving this for 2016 when they can run one of their own.

They will move fast when they do, even faster than they did on the "right to work" law.

these dumbphucks think that the left will just stand by and watch them steal ANOTHER election. They have no fear or trepidation that supporters on the left will take to the streets.

Why should they? People have been taking to the streets. It doesn't have the kind of impact it used to, mostly due to their airtight control of the mass media. Sure, we have the Internet, but that's mostly good for talking to each other, not for reaching those who don't already agree with us. Street protests themselves often have the same problem. We protest in the city, where people are most likely to agree with us. There isn't really any good place to protest in most suburbs, they are too decentralized and there are few if any public spaces.

It doesn't seem like taking to the streets (and the Capitol building) has deterred the Wisconsin governor and legislature from doing whatever the ƒµ¢k they want.

[Nihil]

9. It's worked so well for them in the past ...

... why shouldn't it work again in the future?

Two illegal terms from George W Bush gave them the confidence to trial run
their plans last year (when they had an even worse donkey as their nominal
leader) and what has happened about it? A few squawks from the usual sources
then the birdcage settles down again for business as usual.

Is anyone really surprised that they have the confidence to broadcast their
arrogant plans? Everyone who should have been jumping on them is busy
"looking forwards not backwards" ...

[LarryNM]

4. Again, We have a Peculiar American Institution

heading the Nation to disaster.

[okaawhatever]

5. They had a plan for this with California a while back. This HAS to stop!! n/t

[ReallyIAmAnOptimist]

6. They're not just planning, they're way ahead of that...

These are wonky reads but make the point.

The bad news: http://election.princeton.edu/2012/12/30/gerrymanders-part-1-busting-the-both-sides-do-it-myth/

In other words, gerrymandering’s contribution to Pennsylvania’s partisan outcome was about five times as large as the effect of overall structural advantages.

The good news: http://www.calitics.com/diary/14774/what-california-can-teach-america-about-stopping-extremist-obstruction

In short, the steps to stopping Republican obstruction in California involved changing the rules and changing the electorate:

• Ending a supermajority procedural rule (Prop 25)
• Growing the electorate through massive organizing
• Making it easier to vote (online voter registration, easy access to vote-by-mail)
• Ending gerrymandering (Prop 11 redistricting commission)
• Naming the problem (calling out Republican obstruction)

To stop the extremists in the House GOP from destroying what remains of America's safety net and obtaining their dream of drowning government in a bathtub, a similar path must be followed nationally. David Atkins, now chair of the Ventura County Democratic Party, laid out the rules that need to be changed to stop extremist obstruction. Notice the similarities to the list that worked in California:

The only thing that allows Republicans to take their hostages in the first place is a series of arcane rules that give the minority undue influence. Among those rules are:
• Gerrymandered Congressional districts
• Dysfunctional filibuster rules
• Disproportionate Senate representation
• Corrupt lobbying laws
• Campaign finance laws that give outsized political influence to a few billionaires
• Archaic electoral college rules
• Discriminatory workday elections

[defacto7]

8. Good comment....

nt

[modrepub]

10. In PA

if this were to happen the results would have been ass backwards. PA's 20 electoral votes, that all went to Obama since he won the popular vote by 300k, would have gone 13 Romney, 7 Obama. Republican congressional candidates win 13 of 18 seats with under 50% of the total votes cast for congressional candidates. I'm not sure the state republican party would go that far since it would draw attention to how crappily this state is gerrymandered. Most state representatives supported the new districts because it made them "more safe".

[Faryn Balyncd]

11. Maybe the GOP should be renamed the Gerrymandercans...& admit they can never win except by cheating

[DinahMoeHum]

12. Remember, Corbett is also in deeeeeeeeep shit over Penn State/Sandusky.

Just sayin'.

[Turbineguy]

13. Didn't

Hitler win by doing something similar?

[Hawaii Hiker]

14. Democrats REALLY, REALLY need to make sure these schemes never see the light of day

If demcorats can win back governorships next year in PA, OH, FL, WI that will go long way in ensuring these BS schemes don't take place...

Can't overemphasize this enough, if electoral votes are split in BLUE states only, and no red ones, it will be next to impossible for ANY Democrat to win in 2016 and beyond.....Let's use a football analogy - the Browns, Chiefs, Raiders, etc are bad teams, but if the NFL said these teams get 25 points to start the game, well then they'd probably all go 16-0.....If you hand a republcian 30-50 electoral votes in states they are sure to lose, it will be too much for the Democratic candiate to overcome...

[WCGreen]

20. Nah, the Browns still couldn't win anything...

[illegaloperation]

21. Specifically MI, PA, WI

We need to concentrate on governor seats in Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, and Michigan.

These are primary targets for the GOP in the vote splitting scheme because they voted Democratic in the last six presidential elections.

The margins in Ohio, Virginia, and Florida are closer so the GOP aren't as willing to split the votes of those states.

[bucolic_frolic]

15. This Plan Would Make Gerrymandering

the dominant political power in America.

Rewarding cheaters, what else could you expect from the GOP?

[dmosh42]

16. They already control the House majority without the popular vote!

[caseymoz]

17. We gotta get rid of this electoral college bullshit.

It's arbitrary and it warps the way campaigns are held. You talk about fostering cynicism and looking for ways to rig the game.

Unfortunately, since Republicans own so many state legislatures, I could really see this being a threat.

The GOP certainly feels entitled.

[BlueNoteSpecial]

18. They keep on blabbing, while We keep on grabbing. Thanks once again, eLePhAnT BoY!

[Blue Owl]

19. LANCE 4 PRESIDENT

Cheatstrong, GOP, Cheatstrong...

[Cha]

23. Or they could run

Gringrich.. does anyone think he and Calista are gearing up for 2016? lol

[Cha]

22. They tried to do it this time..

as with most things.. it was a big fail.

How obnoxious can one man be? Except the one they ran as a candidate this time?

It would never cross that asshole's mind to put energy into thinking of better IDEAS to run on the Next Time

[freedom fighter jh]

24. The Math

Besides gerrymandering, which this article points out, there are a couple of other reasons why this scheme would work in Republicans' favor.

1) Republicans would try to set it up in states that would otherwise go Democratic in national elections. This gives some votes that would otherwise be Democratic to Republicans. Republicans may be able to do this because some of those states -- I'm thinking of Virginia -- have Republican state governments but voted Democratic in the last national election and are likely to do so in the next one. Thus the emphasis on swing states.

2) Republicans tend to predominate in states with small populations, Democrats in states with big populations. (Of course there are exceptions, like small, Democratic-leaning Vermont and large, Republican-leaning Texas.) The scheme that Preibus is talking about, I think, is what Maine and Nebraska are doing already: Each district goes with the majority of voters who live there, AND THE STATE'S TWO ADDITIONAL ELECTORAL VOTES GO WITH THE MAJORITY. So Wyoming, with a population of 576,412, gets three electoral votes (192,137 voters per electoral vote), with one of those votes representing the (presumably Republican) majority in Wyoming's one electoral district and each of the other two representing the majority in the state (which, in the case of a small state like Wyoming, is of course the same as in the one electoral district); while California, with a population of 38,041,430, gets fifty-three electoral votes (717,763 voters per electoral vote), with fifty-one of those votes each representing the majority in its electoral district and two representing the presumably Democratic state majority. In other words, in each state the two "extra" electoral votes give two extra electoral votes to the majority in that state. The Republican states are greater in number and lower in population (on average), so they get more of those extra electoral votes.

A fairer scheme would be to divide all electoral votes equally among a state's population. I believe (not sure) the U.S. Constitution allows each state to break up its electoral votes any way it wants, so that change would not require a Constitutional amendment. But it would still give more votes to the less populous states, because those states have more electors per person. The fairest scheme would be one person one vote all across the country, with no Electoral College.

[The Time is Now]

25. Rachel Maddow had a good piece on this last night

[link:http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/26315908/vp/50477422#50477422 |

Pretty terrifying, I thought. I think this will require very powerful efforts to stop. Rather than waiting until just before the 2016 election, they might try to slip these laws in now when the level of national attention is low.

[randr]

26. Too bad we can't tar and feather people these days.