The Nation writer John Nichols recently argued that the Jan. 6 House committee missed a golden opportunity to call for abolishing the Electoral College.
Why did it pass on the chance to support a radical change to the Constitution? Nichols noted that Liz Cheney “had no interest in doing so.” The outgoing Wyoming representative is one of only two nominal Republicans serving on the committee.
Of course, the committee has zero power to discard the Electoral College, but Nichols insisted that it should have made the point anyway.
He said the panel “needed to call for Congress and the states to do away with the Electoral College.” His reasoning? Future elections should be decided by the popular will of the people and the established procedure could lead to “incitement toward violence.”
Violence from whom? The Jan. 6 incident at the Capitol pales in comparison to the deadly terror unleashed on American cities by the 2020 rioters. Yet the public was repeatedly treated to descriptions of “mostly peaceful” protests.
Radical Democrat Rep. Jamie Raskin tried to falsely label the Electoral College as a "danger to democracy" akin to Putin's invasion of Ukraine. pic.twitter.com/arpHR1bDa9
— MRCTV (@mrctv) December 29, 2022
The Nation’s writing echoed the sentiments of Jan. 6 committee member Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD).
The lawmaker recently told CBS’s “Face the Nation” that the Electoral College is “a danger, not just to democracy, but to the American people.” He said the product of the Constitution’s framers is fraught with “so many curving byways and nooks and crannies” that it is a threat.
This, of course, means it’s a threat to Democratic victories.
Raskin and many others have expressed their support for the controversial National Popular Vote Interstate Compact. Certain states and the District of Columbia pledged to award their electoral votes to whichever candidate wins the popular vote nationwide.
This has the potential to deny the will of the state or district’s voters, but that matters not as long as Democrats get their candidates into the White House.
There is a well-established procedure for changing the Constitution, and it in no way involves the House Jan. 6 committee. If enough state governments and lawmakers decide that overhauling the U.S. system for choosing presidents is needed, it will be done.
