Monday, April 9, 1979 Dole, Hon. Robert, a U.S. Senator from the State of Kansas... Response to questions subsequently submitted by Senator Hatch Chart utilizing the election returns from the 1976 Presidential race........ Trends relevant to the social and economic outlook for the American Letter to Sen. Bayh from National Council of Jewish Women in regard to H. J. Res. 223, proposing an amendment to the Constitution of the United Testimony 149 Statement of the American Farm Bureau Federation Stennis, Hon. John C.: Prepared statement Thurmond, Hon. Strom: Report of the Library of Congress, Congressional Page 412 83 37. "Don't Fool With the Electoral College," Newsweek, April 4, 1977. 231 “The Popular Election of Future Presidents," by Alexander M. Bickel "Operating on the Electoral College, A Scalpel and Not an Amputation," by DIRECT POPULAR ELECTION OF THE PRESIDENT AND VICE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES TUESDAY, MARCH 27, 1979 U.S. SENATE, SUBCOMMITTEE ON THE CONSTITUTION OF THE COMMITTEE ON THE JUDICIARY, Washington, D.C. The subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 2:08 p.m., in room 235, Russell Senate Office Building, Senator Birch Bayh (chairman of the subcommittee) presiding. Present: Senators Bayh, Hatch, Thurmond, and Simpson. Staff present: David Boise, chief counsel, Committee on the Judiciary; Nels Ackerson, chief counsel and executive director, Subcommittee on the Constitution; Mary K. Jolly, staff director; Marcia Atcheson, counsel; Linda Rogers-Kingsbury, chief clerk; Tom Parry, minority chief counsel; Stephen Markman, minority counsel; Jim Lockemy, counsel for Senator Thurmond; and Charles Wood, counsel for Senator Simpson. Senator BAYH. The subcommittee will come to order. OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. BIRCH BAYH, A U.S. SENATOR FROM THE STATE OF INDIANA, CHAIRMAN, SUBCOMMITTEE ON THE CONSTITUTION Today we begin the first of 4 days of hearings on Senate Joint Resolution 28, a proposed constitutional amendment to abolish the electoral college and establish direct election of the President and Vice President. I must admit to a certain sense of having been here before. Today's will be the 44th day of hearings we have had on this proposal since I began chairing this subcommittee back in 1966. In the ensuing years there have been some 180 witnesses who have delivered over 3,730 pages of testimony. Some of the witnesses who will appear before us in the coming days have been here before, some maybe even twice before. I might add that the hearing record shows that this amendment has received four times more consideration and study than any other amendment in over 25 years. For example, the amendment abolishing the poll tax, the most completely studied and considered amendment of the period, received only 11 days of hearings with 25 witnesses testifying. With this history behind us, I initially opposed the idea of more hearings because I felt that there simply was no need for them. In recent years, we have had witnesses quoting each other and even themselves. In the interests of perfect fairness, however, I finally (1) consented to the opposition's demands for these additional days, so that the new Members of the Senate would have full opportunity and time to consider the matter. It should be pointed out, however, that four new Senators quickly decided to become cosponsors of this amendment and that others, while not cosponsoring are supporters, and have become some of its strongest boosters. They come from large States and small States, urban and rural, and they have come to the conclusion that direct election is in the best interests of our country. In any case, on March 15, I finally agreed with the opposition to let Senate Joint Resolution 28 be referred to committee until April 10, so that we could once more air differing views on this measure through the hearings process. Again, in an effort to be more than fair, we have allowed the opponents of Senate Joint Resolution 28 to have more witnesses than the proponents. Therefore, I would like to point out to those of you attending these hearings for the first time that you will not hear for instance, from the organizations who have for many years and still do support direct election, groups such as the ABA, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the AFL-CIO, UAW, Common Cause, the League of Women Voters, as well as the American Federation of Teachers, the National Federation of Independent Business, the ACLU, and the ADA. I should add that this organizational support reflects what the people in this country think. Polls taken over the last 12 years consistly show that a very large majority of Americans support direct popular election. The average approval has stayed at around 75 percent over this period of time. In any case, these organizations in favor of direct election are on the record, and should not be ignored simply because in the interests of time we felt we should not ask them to testify once again. Before we begin, I would like to give notice that there is one kind of argument made on this topic with which I must confess I have become increasingly impatient, and that is, who is advantaged and who is disadvantaged under the electoral college. Everybody admits that the electoral college sets up a system that favors some people on the basis of where they happen to live. There seems to be a lot of disagreement, however, as to who these people are. There are those people who have come here and said they're for the electoral college because they are advantaged by it. What seems to get lost in these discussions is that if somebody is advantaged, somebody else is disadvantaged. If the electoral college favors the large urban States, it simply does not favor the smaller, less populated States. If it favors the small States, it just does not advantage the large States. If it favors the cities, it doesn't favor the farmers. It just can't do it because somebody has to lose. Therefore, if we have a group who testifies that my people are advantaged by the electoral college because they live in the urban areas of the large electoral vote States, someone from a small, rural State has every right to up and say, if that's so, then the electoral college works against me, and vice versa. The winning principle behind direct election, of course, is that we can forget these inconsistent claims and selfish interests and say, all our votes count the same. Well, let's get started. I give fair warning that unless someone does a superhuman job of persuading, I am going to remain convinced the direct election should replace our present system, be |