the development of the country, did not eliminate the fundamental premises upon which the electoral system rested.

These were and are:

First, the maintenance of a federal system in which the dispersal of government power preserves more effectively the liberties of the citizens.

Second, a method for selecting our national official by combinations of voters within the states so as to bring together a varied number of interests in mutual tolerance and compromise.

As the system has developed, candidates have been forced to concentrate their attention upon large, pivotal states where the bulk of our population resides and in which organized minorities exist, but not to exclude from their campaigning the peoples of other states whose support is essential for an electoral majority. The electoral system has functioned well, particularly in the past hundred years. It has helped give rise to a two-party system in which the major parties do not represent ideological purity, but compromise and give and take, and where they have strong incentive to absorb protest movements, which makes negligible political splits and offshoots in the nation.

The electoral system, rooted in federalism, is designed to represent population and states, or, to state it more correctly, population within states, not just a mere percentage of those who happen to vote on election day.

The genius of the system is that it preserves an independent union of the sovereign states and brings to bear upon the Presidency a multitude of various interests.

Change of this unique system in its entirety is not necessary, but it is wise, I believe, to amend it to pare away its outdated elements. These include the independent presidential elector and the contingent election by the House of Representatives.

I would favor adoption of a constitutional amendment which would bind each elector to vote for the candidates for President and Vice President for whom he had agreed to serve as an elector. Such an amendment would only write onto the constitution what has been traditional practice, and, at the same time eliminate the danger of a switch in his vote by an elector in a close election.

I would also favor abolishing the provision for election by the House of Representatives and the Senate should no candidate for President and no candidate for Vice President respectively receive a majority of the electoral votes. This aspect of the original system is not essential to the preservation of federalism. Some method, however, must be provided by which the election of the President and Vice President can ultimately be determined. I do not favor selection by a joint session of Congress because inherent in this scheme is dependence of the Executive upon the Legislature, a basic reason why it was discarded by the Founding Fathers. Nor do I favor some kind of a runoff procedure since this would play havoc with our election timetable and force election dates to be set even further away from inauguration day in order that the possible ramifications of contests, re-campaigning, etc., could be provided for.

I would favor an amendment to provide that in the event no candidate secured a majority of the electoral vote, the President would be elected by a plurality of the popular vote. While this would depart from the concept of federalism I suggest it because of its certainty and its ease of application. As experience has proved, it is exceedingly unlikely that it would have to be used, but it is also very likely that the candidate who receives the highest electoral vote, without a majority, will also receive the highest plurality of the popular vote.

Finally, I would favor legislative changes by which the date of the election would be moved towards the end of November, perhaps the last Tuesday of that month, and the date when the electors cast their votes to later in December. Such changes would reduce the period between the date a candidate becomes President-elect and Inauguration day, and would remove some of the uncertainty as to what might occur if the President-elect dies before taking office.

Such changes are minimal, yet significant. They eliminate obsolete provisions from our electoral system while its essence is preserved. They would thrust upon the nation the least demand for adaptation to change. Yet, because the federal system is retained in the election of the President and the Vice President, I believe that they would meet with little disapproval from the states.

Before concluding, I want to say that I feel that many of the proposals before the Subcommittee have particular merit. I am especially impressed with the proposal made by the Senator from South Dakota (Mr. Mundt) which would award electoral votes by congressional district, with two at large electoral votes for a state. I think this has validity, since it does to some degree break down the centering of the electoral process in the state, and moves us toward a freer selection of the President and Vice President.

In closing, I also want to commend the Subcommittee, and its chairman, for holding these hearings now on electoral college reform. I realize that extensive work was done on this issue in the last Congress, but now, with our narrow escape last fall, there is heightened interest. This is the time to act—and I sincerely hope that a proposal will shortly be sent to the Senate floor where we can debate it fully.

Senator BAYH. We will now recess, subject to the call of the Chair. (Whereupon, at 4:30 p.m., the committee adjourned, subject to the call of the Chair.)

ELECTING THE PRESIDENT

MONDAY, MARCH 10, 1969

U.S. SENATE,

SUBCOMMITTEE ON CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENTS
OF THE COMMITTEE ON THE JUDICIARY,

Washington, D.C.

The subcommittee met, pursuant to call, at 10:05 a.m., in room 2228, New Senate Office Building, Senator Birch Bayh, presiding. Present: Senators Bayh (presiding), and Hruska.

Also present: Larry A. Conrad, chief counsel; Clyde Flynn, minority counsel; Burnadette McGorarty, clerk, and Diane Meyer, assistant clerk.

Senator BAYH. Our subcommittee hearings will be reconvened.

Senator HRUSKA. I ask unanimous consent that a statement prepared by me be inserted in today's hearings; and immediately following it there be inserted President Nixon's February 20, 1969, message to the Congress on electoral reform.

Senator BAYH. It is so ordered.

I also ask that the statement of Senator Frank Church be included in the record as if read following the material referred to by Senator Hruska.

STATEMENT OF HON. ROMAN L. HRUSKA, A U.S. SENATOR FROM THE STATE OF NEBRASKA

Senator HRUSKA. Mr. Chairman, I have long been an advocate of reform of the electoral college. Nine years ago, I first testified before this subcommittee on the subject when it was under the chairmanship of the distinguished Senator from Tennessee, the late Estes Kefauver. I had the pleasure of serving with you, Mr. Chairman, during the subcommittee hearings on this same subject in 1966. My close association with the reform effort has taught me two things: there is near unanimity in the Congress and in the Nation that changes are needed in the electoral system; and there is serious division on how it should be changed.

The President of the United States has appraised the situation realistically. In his message to Congress, dated February 20, 1969, he voiced serious doubt as to the success of any amendment that would abolish the casting of electoral votes by States. Mr. Chairman, I agree. Such an amendment would not pass the Congress, and it certainly would not be approved by three-fourths of the States. Therefore, I applaud the President for taking a pragmatic approach and laying down guidelines for a workable solution.

Some will say that the President's recommendations represent only a half-step. My initial reply is that the choice is either to make the advance the President has recommended or to make no improvement at all.

Furthermore, I reject the idea that the President's recommendation represnts only a half-step. It is important, in our consideration of electoral reform, to maintain a sense of perspective. Forty-six times in the Nation's history the electoral system has chosen a President of the United States, and forty-six times this event was marked by an orderly transfer of executive power. This is a remarkable record which demonstrates the basic stability of our presidential election system.

There are faults in the present system, however, and the recent presidential election reminded the Nation of them. In December, despite the established custom, an elector, selected by voters favoring Richard M. Nixon, disregarded the wishes of those who chose him and cast an electoral ballot for another candidate. Under the Constitution of the United States, the Congress was powerless to do anything about it. This procedure should be corrected.

As President Nixon suggested, this can be achieved by abolishing the individual elector while still retaining the electoral vote system which allocates two votes to each State regardless of size, in addition to one electoral vote for each congressional district within that State. Although hindsight proved it exaggerated, there was considerable fear in the fall of 1968 that no candidate would receive a majority of the electoral votes. Under such a situation, there could have been an attempt to barter the Presidency, or the decision would have been made by the House of Representatives, with each State casting one vote. Either alternative was distasteful to the majority of Americans. There needs to be a better solution.

As the President's message suggested, the first step is to lower from a majority, to a plurality of 40 percent, the number of electoral votes necessary to win the Presidency. This would, in all probability, eliminate any chance that the President would not be chosen by the electoral college. The President also suggested use of a runoff election if there should be a deadlock.

Finally, there was fear last year that the electoral vote winner would not receive a plurality of the popular vote. This possibility was shattered by the 500,000 vote margin received by President Nixon. In fact, only once in history did the man who received the electoral majority not receive the popular plurality. That was in 1888 when Benjamin Harrison defeated Grover Cleveland. However, the possibility does exist under the electoral system, and the probability of electing a nonplurality President is aggravated by the present unit voting or "winner-take-all" system used in every State. A few votes in a particular State can determine how all of that State's total electoral vote will be cast. This distortion of the popular vote is unjustifiable.

President Nixon recommended a system of allocating the electoral vote of each State and the District of Columbia in a manner that more closely approximates the popular vote than does the present system. This could be done either by a proportional plan or a district plan.

Each of the major faults of the present system can be corrected by the recommendations contained in the President's message to Con