The momentum seemed to be there.
After Donald Trump easily defeated Hillary Clinton in Texas, two of the state’s 38 Electoral College members cast ballots for someone other than the Republican nominee — a less-than-flattering moment for a state with a strong GOP tradition. In the days — even hours — after the Electoral College meeting in December, some of the state’s top Republicans rallied around proposals to “bind” presidential electors to the result of the statewide popular vote.
“This charade is over,” tweeted Gov. Greg Abbott shortly after the meeting ended. “A bill is filed to make these commitments binding. I look forward to signing it & ending this circus.”
Yet no such legislation made it to Abbott’s desk over the course of the legislative session that ended in May. Instead, lawmakers are now seeking to study the issue during the interim, an anticlimactic end to a session that began with major-league support for the cause.
“We were kind of stuck,” said Eric Opiela, the former general counsel for the Texas GOP — which ended up opposing the way one of several filed bills dealt with “faithless electors.”
The debate appeared to boil down to whether such electors should be fined after going rogue or be immediately disqualified if they submit a ballot for someone other than the winner of the statewide popular vote.
See here for the whole saga. The rest of the article tells the story of the bills that failed, which is what it is. The Electoral College is a dumb anachronism, but I say we should either honor the original intent and let the electors make their own choices, or get rid of it altogether and go with a popular vote. I don’t see us getting the latter any time soon, so at least we made it through this session without making what we do have worse.
The Electoral College was genius. It was the only way they could unite the States and Form a country.
Key word there is was. There is no law saying you have to Keep all such compromises in perpetuity long after the purposes for them no longer exist. I’m not actually a supporter of going to a pure popular vote, but I seriously doubt the country would come apart if we did.