In today’s political landscape of cutthroat elections, the Electoral College can cause quite a stir. However, the era that nearly dissolved it was as tumultuous as any time in modern American history.
1968 was a year of global revolution. Protests rippled through the country following the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. The Vietnam War was still raging, and so were Americans. Student protests emerged across the globe: Tokyo, Berlin, and even Yugoslavia. The United States was the epicenter, so all eyes were on it going into the first election year since civil rights, one amid war and undeniably in a period of global political unrest.
The 1968 Democratic National Convention in Chicago quickly turned into a bloody affair. Just weeks before the convention was set to announce the democratic nominee, Robert F. Kennedy, running on tolerance and the civil rights legacy of his late brother, was shot and killed in Los Angeles. The seminal choice of the nominee was meant to unite and rally the party for the upcoming election, but war and assassinations would make unity an impossibility in Chicago.
Violence quickly broke out between police and protestors, not only in the immediate area of the DNC but spread across the entire city.
In the convention, the Democratic Party chose Hubert Humphrey to lead the ticket. As Vice President under Lyndon B. Johnson, he has to find a path to win over a fragmented Democratic Party and the wider country grappling with social unrest.
The Republicans find their political niche, calling themselves a party of “law-and-order” to combat the era's tensions. Richard Nixon gives stump speeches about a crumbling American social order.
“As we look at America, we see cities enveloped in smoke and flame. We hear sirens in the night. We see Americans dying on distant battlefields abroad. We see Americans hating each other, fighting each other, killing each other at home.”
Richard Nixon, 1968
He beats a young Ronald Reagan and a member of the Rockefeller family to win the nomination for the Republicans, and this is where most election stories would end. One party wins in November, and the election stories conclude as dichotomous camps reconcile with the result. But this race had a third entrant: George Wallace—the segregationist Governor of Alabama.
Many Americans feared that new ideas were dangerous at that time. They were weary of protests and civil unrest. That was Nixon’s platform and the wider one of the RNC. However, some Americans sought to vote against the newly established civil rights and integration precedent.
George Wallace became the champion for resegregation and the restoration of Jim Crow. To these ends, he was qualified, having overseen “Bloody Sunday” at Selma as Governor of Alabama and fighting to maintain segregation to the bitter end.
The issues on every side of this election were myriad, and a reaction to the fresh reforms from Lyndon B. Johnson was enough to have Wallace win the Deep South. The final electoral college count was 301-191-46. Nixon was victorious, but serious questions had been raised.
Humphrey was less than a million votes away from Nixon, but his hopes were dashed by Wallace's strong performance in the Deep South. There were concerns that fringe candidates could again sabotage any serious campaign and forever alter the fragile balance of power. Wallace himself could run again and attempt another disruption on his fading platform.
From this uncertainty, the Bayh-Celler Amendment emerged out of Congress in 1969 to address the systemic issues of the electoral college and its weakness to powerful third-party candidates. The new electoral system would be decided by a margin of at least 40% and hit a runoff election if no pair of candidates hit that threshold. This proposal went on to pass 339 to 70 in the House.
New York Times, October 1, 1969
The momentum is building; even the sitting president throws his weight behind the proposal. Ratification by 38 states and approval from the Senate is all that stands between the end of the Electoral College.
The outlook in the Senate is grim. Senator Bayh calls for Nixon to reinforce his support for the amendment and pressure Republicans to pass it through the Senate. Nixon falls silent on the issue.
In the end, the proposal was set aside, failing to reach a 2/3rds majority, and was never discussed again.
Many Americans have come to expect crises as the only moments of opportunity for transformational reform, but throughout American history, crises have sent shockwaves through our political system but ultimately ended without major changes. The Electoral College reveals a simple truth that stands in its deference: the President who oversees its end will always have won it.
Political windows open and close on the most pervasive issues in American politics. While it may seem impossible to disintegrate the Electoral College today, there was a time when a segregationist running during wartime almost led to the end of it.
Comments