WI: Bayh-Celler becomes the 26th Amendment

[Deleted member 139407]

Before the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact, before the Every Vote Counts Amendment, and before the all too infamous 2001 Presidential election, there was the Bayh-Celler Amendment of 1969. The Bayh-Celler Amendment was probably the closest point in US history where the Electoral College could have been disbanded. Named after Senator Birch Bayh of Indiana (Dem) and New York Congressman Emmanuel Celler (Dem), the amendment was first proposed due to concerns of voter disparity between the Electoral College and the popular vote after the 1968 Presidential Election. It detailed that the Electoral College would be disbanded in favour of a two-round presidential system similar to the French presidential system still used to this day. However, there is one key difference: the criteria for advancing to a second round. In France, a second round is called if no candidate receives an absolute majority (over 50%). In Bayh-Celler, if no ticket met a threshold of 40% in the first round, then a second round between the top two tickets would occur.

Now, as for the scenario, let's say that Bayh-Celler is ratified in time for the 1976 Presidential election. Nixon still gets caught with a smoking gun in his hands. He resigns. Ford is President and, in the midst of all this social and political upheaval, the way the United States does elections has changed drastically. If the Bayh-Celler Amendment had passed through Congress and been ratified by the states, what do you think would be some of the immediate changes (if any) for '76? What do you think would the country look like today?

 

[Mark E.]

Carter won the popular vote in 1976. Not until 2000 would a popular vote amendment have changed anything.

 

[David Floyd]

Carter won the popular vote in 1976. Not until 2000 would a popular vote amendment have changed anything.

Sure it would, it would have changed how campaigns are run. With the Electoral College, why should a Democrat waste resources in California or New York, or a Republican in Louisiana or Mississippi or Idaho?

With the winner determined by NPV, you would see a much greater emphasis on GOTV even in areas where one candidate already has a strong majority.

This would change the entire calculus.

 

[Reyne]

If politics were the same and the timeline remained politically the same, the Democrats would probably have an easy strangehold of power due to their tight control and support in the big cities of America.

People living in american rural areas would just be ignored really so you'd probably have a less developed and even more unhappy american interior.

 

[David Floyd]

If politics were the same and the timeline remained politically the same, the Democrats would probably have an easy strangehold of power due to their tight control and support in the big cities of America.

People living in american rural areas would just be ignored really so you'd probably have a less developed and even more unhappy american interior.

No, because you'd still have 2 Senators for each State, regardless of population. Would rural areas have proportionately less influence? Sure, which only makes sense now that the US is a majority urban nation. Would their influence be zero, or negligible? Absolutely not.

 

[Colonel Zoidberg]

If politics were the same and the timeline remained politically the same, the Democrats would probably have an easy strangehold of power due to their tight control and support in the big cities of America.

People living in american rural areas would just be ignored really so you'd probably have a less developed and even more unhappy american interior.

The urban/rural divide is a much more recent phenomenon than one likes to think. And it also doesn’t change the fact that there would be swing areas - instead of purple states, the biggest swing areas would be mid-sized cities.

 

[Grey Wolf]

Puerto Rico would be much more likely to become a state, DC also. They wouldn't be viewed as "Democrat additions" to the electoral college.

 

[marktaha]

I don't see the logic of 40% rather than the French system.

 

[Deleted member 139407]

I don't see the logic of 40% rather than the French system.

I couldn't find much on this, but I'm going to assume that it was a compromise to prevent the possibility of every single election post-ratification from being two rounds.

 

[Colonel Zoidberg]

I couldn't find much on this, but I'm going to assume that it was a compromise to prevent the possibility of every single election post-ratification from being two rounds.

Probably. Strange that, in a culture where a contest going into overtime is dramatic and fun, we can’t get more elections that do the same.

 

[Mark E.]

With the winner determined by NPV, you would see a much greater emphasis on GOTV even in areas where one candidate already has a strong majority.

That rationale would have held up between 1970 and 1976. Many Democrats could not support their own candidate (McGovern) in 1972. Two years later, many Republicans could not support Nixon. In 1976, the Religious Right had not yet emerged. Many fundamentalists voted for Carter (Baptist) because Ford (Episcopal) was of a faith uncomfortably close to Catholic. It was a melting pot year when an NPV amendment could have become law.

I don't see the logic of 40% rather than the French system.

I can. Americans just aren't conditioned for run-offs or ranked-choice on the presidential level. A 40% plurality would be better accepted. In such a system, votes for a Ralph Nader or Ross Perot are simply ignored. Given the way many people don't vote, a run-off would see more people not voting if their candidate was disqualified.

 

[SlideAway]

I don't see the logic of 40% rather than the French system.

I think it was just literally to avoid excessive runoffs, or runoffs where both candidates finished with something like 48-49% of the vote.

I do wonder whether the prospect of a 40% runoff might have shifted the results in 1992. Most likely not, but *maybe* Perot gets a larger share and keeps both Bush and Clinton under 40%, creating a Bush-Clinton runoff. (And maybe there'd be a small chance of a Clinton-Perot runoff.)

 

[Sabin]

Sure it would, it would have changed how campaigns are run. With the Electoral College, why should a Democrat waste resources in California or New York, or a Republican in Louisiana or Mississippi or Idaho?

With the winner determined by NPV, you would see a much greater emphasis on GOTV even in areas where one candidate already has a strong majority.

This would change the entire calculus.

Totally agree. And probably for the better all the way around.

Here’s a thought: it’s hard to imagine Jimmy Carter running a much different campaign, but does Ford? Does this new calculus make Ford a stronger GOP convention candidate, strengthening Ford’s case of being the only candidate that can win the general? Is he able to keep Rockefeller on the ticket?

 

[marktaha]

I couldn't find much on this, but I'm going to assume that it was a compromise to prevent the possibility of every single election post-ratification from being two rounds.

What would be wrong with that?

 

[Mikestone8]

What would be wrong with that?

Do we know why it failed in the Senate? Would retaining the 50% threshold be likely to save it?

 

[Deleted member 139407]

What would be wrong with that?

It's not that there isn't anything wrong with that. In this timeline, I would be pushing to abolish that 40% clause. However, I think it's as @Mark E. and @SlideAway have said in that a) it was proposed to avoid constant runoffs and b) Americans aren't accustomed to runoff style voting. The current systems in Georgia, Maine, and Alaska (and any advancement in ranked-choice voting for that matter) are all fairly recent. Plus, I imagine it would also save money/resources from having to have a runoff election in December (assuming that Election Day is still the "the Tuesday next after the first Monday in the month of November" post-ratification).

Do we know why it failed in the Senate? Would retaining the 59% threshold be likely to save it?

I believed it failed in the Senate because Strom Thurmond and a cabal of conservative (both Democratic and Republican) Senators got scared and sank the bill via filibuster. If, say, there were more liberal officials in the Senate, at the very least, it would've gotten a vote.

 

[Drunkrobot]

Third parties may see this as opening a way to mainstream their policies via the Presidency. They don't have to worry so much about splitting the vote, now all they have to do is draw people away from the established parties, or get votes from people who aren't served by the big two, and get into 2nd place, and just be the more palatable option for the supports of the 3rd place winner.

A third-party president may get quite a few other members of their party also elected on their coattails, and if they're judged to have done well as President they may be able to use the Bully Pulpit to further establish their party platform, but chances are that the majority of Congress would still be either Democratic or Republication, with just a small base in the legislature for them to push their policies. A consequence therefore may be the earlier proliferation of executive orders, should the two big parties decide to attempt to stonewall this upstart. By doing so, they run the risk of suffering the same fate as that of the 80th Congress, which Truman succeeded in painting as willfully ineffectual and blocking necessary bills for the sake of sabotaging the President's platform and election hopes.

Even if they can't seriously hope to reach the second round, a strong enough performance can put them in a position to bargain between the top two for their voter's support, unless they or one of the top two is generally considered repugnant by everyone else. Grabbing these concessions could help to build up more parties in the US, both in terms of infrastructure and of public image.

 

[marktaha]

Third parties may see this as opening a way to mainstream their policies via the Presidency. They don't have to worry so much about splitting the vote, now all they have to do is draw people away from the established parties, or get votes from people who aren't served by the big two, and get into 2nd place, and just be the more palatable option for the supports of the 3rd place winner.

A third-party president may get quite a few other members of their party also elected on their coattails, and if they're judged to have done well as President they may be able to use the Bully Pulpit to further establish their party platform, but chances are that the majority of Congress would still be either Democratic or Republication, with just a small base in the legislature for them to push their policies. A consequence therefore may be the earlier proliferation of executive orders, should the two big parties decide to attempt to stonewall this upstart. By doing so, they run the risk of suffering the same fate as that of the 80th Congress, which Truman succeeded in painting as willfully ineffectual and blocking necessary bills for the sake of sabotaging the President's platform and election hopes.

Even if they can't seriously hope to reach the second round, a strong enough performance can put them in a position to bargain between the top two for their voter's support, unless they or one of the top two is generally considered repugnant by everyone else. Grabbing these concessions could help to build up more parties in the US, both in terms of infrastructure and of public image.

A good thing in my view. I believe in both runoff elections and making it a lot easier for candidates to stand.

 

[Deleted member 139407]

Totally agree. And probably for the better all the way around.

Here’s a thought: it’s hard to imagine Jimmy Carter running a much different campaign, but does Ford? Does this new calculus make Ford a stronger GOP convention candidate, strengthening Ford’s case of being the only candidate that can win the general? Is he able to keep Rockefeller on the ticket?

It's quite possible, but also keep in mind the timeline of OTL. Rockefeller had nixed on being re-nominated in November of '75. Depending or not Bayh-Celler gets ratified before or after Ford starts that conversation with Rockefeller, it could determine whether or not Rockefeller stays on. This is also assuming that there aren't any butterflies as to who Ford picks as his VP; given that Rockefeller is THE liberal Republican, it may be a safe bet to have him as Governor to influence the passage of Bayh-Celler if it hadn't been passed already. Also, I'm not sure that Carter would run a totally similar campaign to as OTL. Could he be persuaded to nominate Frank Church to VP?

Third parties may see this as opening a way to mainstream their policies via the Presidency. They don't have to worry so much about splitting the vote, now all they have to do is draw people away from the established parties, or get votes from people who aren't served by the big two, and get into 2nd place, and just be the more palatable option for the supports of the 3rd place winner.

A third-party president may get quite a few other members of their party also elected on their coattails, and if they're judged to have done well as President they may be able to use the Bully Pulpit to further establish their party platform, but chances are that the majority of Congress would still be either Democratic or Republication, with just a small base in the legislature for them to push their policies. A consequence therefore may be the earlier proliferation of executive orders, should the two big parties decide to attempt to stonewall this upstart. By doing so, they run the risk of suffering the same fate as that of the 80th Congress, which Truman succeeded in painting as willfully ineffectual and blocking necessary bills for the sake of sabotaging the President's platform and election hopes.

Even if they can't seriously hope to reach the second round, a strong enough performance can put them in a position to bargain between the top two for their voter's support, unless they or one of the top two is generally considered repugnant by everyone else. Grabbing these concessions could help to build up more parties in the US, both in terms of infrastructure and of public image.

I definitely had third parties in mind when asking this question/pondering this scenario. By the '76 election, the Libertarian Party jumped from nearly 3,000 votes to 172,557 in 1976, Eugene McCarthy would notably run an independent campaign garnering 0.91% of the vote, and numerous parties were sputtering out/shifting into other ones (notably the American Independent Party, and Benjamin Spock's People's Party). Depending on how this new system amplifies third parties, we could see straight-up different third parties and OTL third parties that are unrecognizable as to what they represent/how we see them.

 

[brunosouzzxx]

One question: Would this amendment ensue an unified electoral authority somewhere in the future? If not, how would having 50 simultaneous elections influence the elections in this TL, in terms of fraud, voter suppression, velocity of apuration, etc?