Bloodless Coup

The Effort to Destroy the Electoral College That Almost Worked

Last fall Harvard history professor Alexander Keyssar wrote this fascinating account of the attempt after the three-way presidential race in 1968 to replace the Electoral College with a direct national election. It came close to succeeding. President Nixon was on board and the move had broad support from much of the Congress and throughout the country. What killed it? The filibuster and old segregationist lions like Jim Eastland (D-MS) and Strom Thurmond (R-SC). So, in a way, you could say that these men were why George Bush became president of the United States.

As an ardent foe of the Electoral College (I was an opponent before 2000, much like I was an opponent of the Independent Counsel law before the Monica Lewinsky imbroglio) I'd love to see this pursued again.

One particularly interesting part of this series of events involves how Senator Birch Bayh (D-IN) was able to get this to a vote on the Senate floor, given the opposition of the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee. Byah threatened to hold up a Supreme Court nominee (Harold Carswell) if Eastland wouldn't schedule hearings on this proposed reform. There might not be any lessons in this for what Harry Reid and company can get out of the Alito nomination - but then again, maybe there are.