Every four years, I feel a bit like a salmon.
I am not feeling any particular urge to spawn. Instead, I feel the urge every December to cast a ballot.
You see, I am a member of the Electoral College. Or, more accurately, I was once an elector. That peculiar American political institution was once merely an odd set of numbers to me. In 1984, that all changed.
The month was July. The place: Klamath Falls. I was attending the state convention of my party as chair of one of the subgroups of the platform committee. A political acquaintance asked me if I wanted her faction to nominate me as a presidential elector. I had not thought about running, but acquiesced. It wasn't ambassador to the Court of St. James, but I thought it might be an interesting experience.
I won. I joined six other names, and our presidential candidate received a majority of the votes cast in Oregon. In truth, my colleagues and I received the majority of the votes, because we were elected, not the candidate.
That was the first time I ever gave any serious consideration why the electoral college exists.
I knew the history. But that is not the same thing as understanding its current function. Its creation in the 1780s probably prevented the creation of the constitutional office of elected monarch. Instead, the nation chose an elected head of the republic, but one that would be chosen in a manner that retained the small state - big state compromise embodied in the makeup of the House and the Senate. The electoral college still carries those genes. Those who would alter it should think long on that pedigree.
For me, I wondered what would happen if I chose to vote for someone other than the candidate I had pledged to support -- the dilemma of the unfaithful elector. In Oregon, the answer is simple: my vote would be cast for me, and I could be cast into jail.
That did not happen. What did happen, though, is that I launched my own political career with a failed campaign for the legislature four years later, and an aborted campaign for Attorney General eight years after that.
I no longer long for political office. However, when I hear that the electoral college is meeting, I feel as if I should be there -- to, at least, audit a course.
I am not feeling any particular urge to spawn. Instead, I feel the urge every December to cast a ballot.
You see, I am a member of the Electoral College. Or, more accurately, I was once an elector. That peculiar American political institution was once merely an odd set of numbers to me. In 1984, that all changed.
The month was July. The place: Klamath Falls. I was attending the state convention of my party as chair of one of the subgroups of the platform committee. A political acquaintance asked me if I wanted her faction to nominate me as a presidential elector. I had not thought about running, but acquiesced. It wasn't ambassador to the Court of St. James, but I thought it might be an interesting experience.
I won. I joined six other names, and our presidential candidate received a majority of the votes cast in Oregon. In truth, my colleagues and I received the majority of the votes, because we were elected, not the candidate.
That was the first time I ever gave any serious consideration why the electoral college exists.
I knew the history. But that is not the same thing as understanding its current function. Its creation in the 1780s probably prevented the creation of the constitutional office of elected monarch. Instead, the nation chose an elected head of the republic, but one that would be chosen in a manner that retained the small state - big state compromise embodied in the makeup of the House and the Senate. The electoral college still carries those genes. Those who would alter it should think long on that pedigree.
For me, I wondered what would happen if I chose to vote for someone other than the candidate I had pledged to support -- the dilemma of the unfaithful elector. In Oregon, the answer is simple: my vote would be cast for me, and I could be cast into jail.
That did not happen. What did happen, though, is that I launched my own political career with a failed campaign for the legislature four years later, and an aborted campaign for Attorney General eight years after that.
I no longer long for political office. However, when I hear that the electoral college is meeting, I feel as if I should be there -- to, at least, audit a course.
