Lecture I Creation of Electoral College and Development of Nomination System Dr. Christopher Malone I.

The Presidency: From the Revolutionary War to the Constitution Before the Revolution, there was great antipathy toward the colonial governors, which operated under the authority of the British crown. Thus, in the years 1776-1780 when all the states were drafting state constitutions, the Revolutionary generation moved away from a strong executive by stripping power from governors: a. Short term of office for governors; b. Strict limits on # of terms for office; c. To be chosen by the state legislatures. II. Articles of Confederation Finished in 1777, the Articles of Confederation, the countrys first constitution, symbolized the distrust of executive authority that was circulating at the time: a. One branch of government Congress. Congress made the laws and actually had to enforce them too. No presidency; no federal judiciary. b. 13 states would be in a league of friendship whereby states had ultimate authority. States coined money and taxed one another, causing rivalries. c. The national government had not power to tax and thus could not raise an army or create national policies.

III. Summer 1787: Constitutional Convention When the Convention was called, there were several competing interests that caused disagreement amongst the delegates. In terms of the presidency, the central issues were: a. b. c. d. e. proponents of a large versus small country; homogeneous versus heterogeneous society; freedom versus property (how much representation should the people have?) national power versus states rights; The question of slavery.

IV. Plans for the Presidency

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a. Virginia Plan 1. legislative and executive separation; 2. # of executives was in dispute (possibly 3) 3. one term for 7 years no reelection; 4. Council of Revision created which executive would sit on and has veto power over the Congress. b. Wilson (Pennsylvania) Plan 1. unitary executive; 2. Council of Revision w/ veto power; 3. indirect election of executive by the people through electors; 4. 3-year terms. c. New Jersey Plan 1. independent from legislature; 2. plural executive chosen by legislature w/ reelection; 3. removed by the legislature and majority of state governors; 4. executive could appoint judges and run military operations. d. Hamilton Plan in a 5 hour speech one day at the Convention, Hamilton suggested the following in terms of the president: 1. energy in the office to move with secrecy and dispatch; 2. elected by electors; 3. vested in one person; 4. term during good behavior; 5. absolute veto over the legislature; 6. executive laws, make treaties, oversee military operations; 7. removal by trial of state judges. e. Pinckney Plan 1. Executive power vested in president; 2. 7 year term eligible for reelection; 3. required to give information to the legislature (state of the union address); 4. execute the laws of the United States; 5. nominate officers and judges of the U.S. with senate approval. V. Choices in Electing the President By September 4th, 1787, the convention had stalled on the presidency in terms of how the person should be chosen. These were the options: a. b. c. d. e. f. g. by the people at large; by state legislatures; by governors of the states; by popularly elected electors; by each freeholder (property holders) who would choose 3 candidates; by national legislature from a list of candidates from each state; by a committee of national legislatures.

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VI. The Final Product: The Creation of the Electoral College A. The Framers wanted to create a system of presidential selection that ensured three things: 1. independence from the other branches of government; 2. Independence from the "people"; and 3. An office that could unite the country. B. Key components of Electoral College (originally): 1. Presidential electors were chosen by the states in the manner designated by state legislatures. 2. They could not hold federal office at the time. 3. The number of electors from each state equaled the number of representatives plus the number of senators from each state. 4. Each elector voted for two persons, and originally he did not designate between president and vice president; an elector could not vote for two persons from his home state. 5. After the Electoral College met, the vote was sent to the Senate where the president of the senate (The vice president) would announce the winner. 6. If no one candidate received a majority, the House of Representatives would choose among the top five candidates, which each state delegation casting one vote. C. The compromise nature of the Electoral College: 1. Allowing states to choose electors favored states' rights advocates; having the House decide if there was no majority favored proponents of a strong national government. 2. The number of electors allotted to each state favored larger states; having each state cast one vote if no majority existed favored smaller states. VII. Development of the Nomination System A. Era of Nonpartisanship, 1789-1800: The first two elections were easy. George Washington was the unanimous choice. By 1796, there were two parties forming, not only in the national government, but at the state level as well. Feds and Anti-Feds. John Adams gained the most votes and T. Jefferson was second. They were political rivals, and it caused friction in the executive branch of government. Led to passage of the 12th Amendment to the Constitution. B. King Caucus, 1800-1824: By 1800, the parties in Congress were nominating candidates, and this practice became known as King Caucus. This practice lasted until around 1824. Parties in Congress would come together to place candidates on the ballot for the electors to choose. C. Nominating Conventions, 1830s-1900s: By 1828, there was only one party operating in the United States: Jackson's Democratic Party. First a minor party (Anti-Masons), and then the Anti-Jackson party (Later became known as the Whig Party) held national nominating conventions to choose candidates and issue policy statements. This is the origin of what we know now as national party platforms. By 1832, Jackson's party (Democrats) also held a convention. The delegates to these conventions were chosen by the state party leaders and hence were loyal to the party leaders wishes. State party "bosses" as they were called held much power over the selection process. The term "smoke-filled room" was coined in this period, and it described the means by which candidates were chosen by a few power brokers at

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the convention. Thus, in order to capture the nomination, a candidate had to cozy up to state party leaders not the voters. D. The Primary System, 1900s-1960s: Changes began during what is known as the Progressive Ear roughly the period in American history between 1890s-1910s. Progressive reformers at the turn of the century sought to clean up both politics and business. This is the era of the trustbusters such as Theodore Roosevelt. In politics, reformers sought to democratize it by pushing for the election of delegates to these national conventions. Why and how would this democratize the system? Voters, not party leaders, get to make the decision of who would be the party nominee. By WWI, the number of primaries reached 20. But this democratic push stalled in the middle decades of the century. By 1960, other forces began to radically change the nomination process of the presidency.

E. 1960s-present: Expansion of the Primary System The modern civil rights movement needs to be discussed in order to understand some of the changes in the nomination process. The Democratic Party, long the party of Jim Crow segregation in the period after Reconstruction (1865-1877), soon became defender of the civil rights of blacks over the middle decades of the 20th century simply because blacks moved to northern urban centers and became a loyal voting block of the Democratic Party there. However, the Democratic Party was also still the party of the segregated South. Eventually, fissures would erupt in a party whose coalition partners included northern blacks and southern whites. In a word, something had to give. 1964 Democratic Convention in Atlantic City Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party (MFDP), a multiracial organization, challenged the all white delegation from the state that had been chosen by white segregationists. After days of wrangling and turmoil, a compromise was struck whereby two delegates from the MFDP were seated at the national convention in the Mississippi delegation. It was a small gain for civil rights advocates, but soon the national arm of the Democratic Party, Democratic National Committee (DNC), was forcing state parties to stop discriminating against blacks. Hence, because of the gains in the civil rights movement, the national party began to hold leverage over the state parties- particularly the parties in the south. 1968 Democratic Convention Anti-Vietnam protests rocked the Democratic Convention that year which was held in Chicago. Civil rights were also obviously still an issue. Martin Luther King had been assassinated in April of that year; Robert Kennedy assassinated just months later the night of the California primary in June. Riots occurred in the streets outside as delegates fought it out on the inside of the convention. The DNC unseated the entire Mississippi delegation in favor of members of the MFDP. Many continued to clamor for change in the way delegates were selected, since in that year only 37% were elected by the voters in a total of 17 primaries. See page 12 of Wayne, particularly the difference between the number of delegates directly elected by voters in the years 1968-1972. McGovern-Frazier Commission immediately after the 1968 loss of Hubert Humphrey, the Democratic National Committee moved to change the rules surrounding delegate selection. The McGovern-Frazier Commission sought to create a nominating system that was open,

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timely and representative. In short, the Democratic Party moved to force the state parties to adopt one nominating process amongst all the states. It also forced the states to allow the members of its party decide who would be the delegates in primaries and caucuses, not the state bosses. The Democratic Party continued nomination reforms in 1972 with the Mikulski Commission in 1972, the Winograd Commission in 1976, and the Hunt Commission in 1980. (More will be said about these changes later in the lecture on the delegate selection process) Given the changes, this brings up a set of very interesting question: who votes in primaries and who attends caucus meetings? How do presidential candidates reach these voters? Only the most activist and ideologically minded vote in both parties the very liberal in the Democratic Party, the very conservative in the Republican Party. And so, candidates have to please these voters in the primaries before they even get to the general election.

F. Due to the changes after 1968, we have the system we have today. Let me make three generalizations about that system. 1. More candidates to choose from: the number and variety of candidates who will have a serious chance to capture a major party presidential nomination is significantly larger now. Anyone can toss their hat into the ring and if they do poorly early, they will be forced to drop out. 2. Activist Delegates: Candidates have paid staff members at the national level, but they have volunteers at the local level. The candidate relies on these volunteers to turn out his/her base. Since voter turnout is so low in primary/caucuses, turning out the faithful may mean a victory; in a winner take all system, you receive the entire state delegation at the convention. 3. Television, the press, and political technology: Competition in a plebiscite, or popular vote, is different than trying to court the favor of a few state political bosses. You need to communicate to millions of primary voters. And you need to begin much earlier than before. You must be known even if that means not much needs to be known about you. Like any product: name recognition

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