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This is interesting. Apparently, California is moving toward joining the National Popular Vote project.

I’ve been aware of this project for some years now, and looking forward to a success which has seemed, to me, almost inevitable if perpetually too distant to get really excited about.

The very brief outline is this: America’s president is currently selected by an Electoral College, seen by all right-thinking people as a worse-than-useless distortion of our democratic process. It has proven, however, incapable of provoking the kind of sustained, mass movement which is necessary to clear the enormous hurdles placed before would-be amendments to the Constitution. Five or six years ago, however, some game-theory type dreamed up a truly viral idea for circumventing this obstacle: state legislatures can individually pass a guarantee to award their electoral votes to the winner of the popular vote, which guarantee only takes effect once the same guarantee has been passed by enough other states to ensure the winner of the popular vote is elected president.

The more I think on this concept, really, the more fiendishly-brilliant it seems. One could arguably describe it as easier done than said in America’s political context: it has too many moving parts for the talking heads to discuss voluntarily, and yet left more-or-less alone it seems to be actually working. Slowly, but steadily, and that’s why I’ve been confident that at some point the project would/will succeed: it can work on an incremental-progress basis.

Political fortunes need only align once in any given state to pass the necessary legislation, after which it seems unlikely to be overturned even when the perfect alignment ends (given that for the time being the legislation has no effect or cost). And so even if it takes years for such an alignment to occur in another state, nothing is really lost by the delay. Unlike most reform projects, this one seems like it can only move forward, not backward.

At least, for now; at some point there will certainly be a backlash by reactionary elements. There always is. But for the time being, as-noted the “wonkishness” of this project seems to confer upon it a sort of stealth capability; the national media aren’t going to pay any attention to this until it’s right at the treshhold of completion.

Which is a rather delightful irony to say the least, given said national media’s pathalogical obsession with presidential politics. Possibly even more delightful if the delay in recognition should mean that it comes too late for opposition to do anything.

Will it? I don’t know. I am near-positive that when the National Popular Vote story does finally “break,” the reaction will be an absolute fucking five-alarm shit storm of Affordable Care Act magnitude. Having fought over the Electoral College more than once, after all, my impression is that its defenders’ lack of valid arguments is more than made up for by their indignant ferocity.

We will see all Hell break loose if and when this project forces itself on the national consciousness. That said, for all my natural caution and pessimism, I’m really not sure how much reactionaries will be able to actually do, for all that they will rage and fulminate. The proponents of the Electoral College generally, after all, thunder about the need to protect the interest of “the small states,” but small states have been among the most eager adoptees of NPV legislation.

Confronted with this, I expect that reactionaries will turn an even deeper crimson and explode with fire-and-brimstone oratory about the sanctity of the Constitution, naturally. The Chronicle editorial includes a waffly-unease version of this objection: “Still, there is something unsettling about Americans making a pact to effectively bypass a system that remains etched in the U.S. Constitution.”

How did I put it the other day, though? Ah, yes. “Get over it, Nellie.” Let’s get real: American government and politics are riddled with Constitutional fudges and/or “unsettling” aspects. This would hardly be the worst example of the former and would alleviate the much-more unsettling disgrace of the farcical Electoral College, itself.

And if bypassing the Constitution is, in some cases, Constitutional, the resultant paradox may be unsettling but the paradox is there, in the Constitution, whether or not we’re able to comfortably ignore it. Reality involves unsettling paradoxes; deal with it.

The NPV, in the meantime, sure seems like it should be perfectly constitutional. Congressmen and Senators and Scalia will probably all grumble extensively, all for the same reason (someone else is exercising power to shape the rules without involving them) but I’m really not sure what there is they could do about it.

It’s right there in Article II Section 1: “Each State shall appoint, in such Manner as the Legislature thereof may direct, a Number of Electors…” Granted, America has moved whole armies through even less “wiggle room” than can be found here. But it isn’t going to be easy for opponents, and if as seems likely to be the case they don’t even start preparing their opposition until presented with a virtual fait accompli… I can’t help thinking that this whole crazy idea just may actually work.

I’m still not sure, of course. I mean, Wisconsin Democrats thought that trying to block a piece of legislation by preventing a quorum would work, too, and seemed to be right until suddenly they weren’t. And the Chronicle item poses another argument against the “interstate compact” method: “… imagine the outrage if voters in a state that overwhelmingly went for one candidate see their electors cast their votes for someone else in a tight race.”

But I still think that it probably will work. The only way I can see people really getting mad enough to dismantle the NPV, after all, is in a scenario where the Electoral College would elect a different candidate than the popular vote; otherwise who’s really going to give a fuck that their state’s electors voted differently than the majority of the voters, if it wouldn’t actually alter the outcome of the election? There will probably be some attempts to gin up an issue over such an event, but I just don’t see it getting very far. It isn’t like even the reddest or bluest states actually produce 90-10 results after all.

And to be honest, it isn’t like it’s going to be that big a deal at the end of the day. The winner of the popular vote is already the winner of the vast majority of elections, after all. I still think it’s worth retiring the Electoral College by any means available, but not because I expect some sort of revolution in American democracy to follow.

Going back to the Chronicle one more time, their editorial starts out with a common (if, in this case, condescendingly-phrased) criticism of the Electoral College, that it reduces campaigns to “the candidates’ visits, the TV spots, the policy pledges that pander to provincial obsessions in Ohio, Pennsylvania or Florida.” Eh, yes and no. Yes, American presidential elections are a ridiculous circus, but no, I don’t think very much of that can really be blamed on the Electoral College. American politics in general is a ridiculous circus, and will presumably remain that way even if we enact the NPV.

So it goes. I still want the Electoral College put down, because like monarchy it’s simply an insult to the ideal of reasoned democratic government, however far we may remain from actually achieving that ideal. I also want this because, I’ll be honest, I would like to win, for once.

One time I would like to see a national reform in which I can wholeheartedly believe with no reservations actually succeed, right in the face of blustering and intemperate reactionary outrage. And I recognize that in the real world, that’s just not likely to happen very often. In the real world, most victories are going to be things like the Obama presidency, the ACA and gay rights: the kind of compromise, work-in-progress “sorta” victories to which we are accustomed.

And I’m old enough and mature enough to recognize this, but that doesn’t mean I’m happy about it or that I don’t wish for something better, at least once, even if it would be a very small and mostly symbolic victory. Just as with bigger, more substantive but more compromised victories, after all, one may as well enjoy what one can, as, when and where one finds it.