House Democrats Re-Introduce Bill to Abolish the Electoral College

“If everybody’s vote counts and counts equally, candidates would go to every state.”

WASHINGTON, D.C. (Texas Insider Report) — House Democrats officially relaunched their push to abolish the Electoral College last week. The member leading the charge, Rep. Steve Cohen (D-TN,) argues that Congress should never have a chance to decide who the next president is – but even his caucus’s control of the House, Senate and White House probably won’t be enough to push the effort forward.

Cohen is Chairman of Judiciary Subcommittee on the Constitution, Civil Rights & Civil Liberties, he sits on the House Transportation Committee, and was a leader in the House effort, according to his Twitter page, to #ImpeachTrump.

“It’s even more important now,” Cohen argued, saying the deadly riot at the U.S. Capitol on Wednesday, Jan. 6th strengthened his resolve to replace the Electoral College with a “Popular Vote System,” better known as "the West & East Coasts & Chicago in the middle get to elect our Presidents" scheme.

“We’ve never seen a case more descriptive and more scary than this one where the politicians tried to control the election of the president over the will of the people,” Cohen said last week.

“The bottom line is that the Electoral College, as we’ve seen this week, allows the House of Representatives and the Senate to possibly get involved in how the election is determined,” Cohen said. “That should never be the case.”

Cohen reintroduced his constitutional amendment on Monday, January 11th to repeal the current system.

“If everybody’s vote counts and counts equally, candidates would go to every state,” he said.

“I think their votes count now,” said John Malcolm, the vice president of the Heritage Foundation’s Institute for Constitutional Government, who points out that abolishing the Electoral College would give more power to larger, more liberal cities.

“You would end up having a lot of states who have very important interests that are involved in elections, their voices would be completely marginalized if not ignored completely,” he said.

Malcolm said Cohen’s proposal would also not limit controversy and potential civil unrest.

“That might take the target off of the backs of some Congress members, but it would put it on the backs of a lot of local elected officials and American citizens,” he said.

Amending the Constitution isn’t easy. Cohen’s proposal needs support from two-thirds of both houses of Congress and three-quarters of the states.

Another effort to change the Electoral College, the National Popular Vote Movement, is gaining more momentum. States can sign a compact to guarantee the presidency to the candidate who receives the most popular votes.

The states’ electoral votes have to add up to the 270 threshold to enact the agreement… and so far 15 states and the District of Columbia have signed on, leaving an additional 74 votes before it can take effect.
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