Electoral vote won’t be divided

BOISE – House Minority Leader Wendy Jaquet’s proposal to split Idaho’s electoral votes was defeated resoundingly Friday in a House committee.

Jaquet had proposed replacing Idaho’s winner-take-all system with one in which two presidential candidates could conceivably split the state’s four electoral votes.

Just one lawmaker showed support for the bill, despite testimony from David Adler, a constitutional scholar at Idaho State University, and Marty Durand, a lawyer for the American Civil Liberties Union of Idaho, that the Electoral College disenfranchises many Idahoans.

“This is an issue of fairness and political equality,” said Adler, who told the House State Affairs Committee many of the Founding Fathers wanted a system that divided votes by district rather than the current winner-take-all system.

Durand called the electoral system an “undemocratic institution.”

But their testimony couldn’t dissuade the committee from voting 16-1 to kill Jaquet’s measure. Democrat Anne Pasley-Stuart of Boise was the only legislator to dissent.

Adler gave a detailed presentation on the historical precedent for making the change, saying it was only contentious party politics that created the Electoral College.

If implemented across the country, the district plan “would help my Republican friends in California just as much as it would help my Democratic friends in Idaho,” Adler said.

Jaquet’s bill mirrored similar plans adopted by Maine and Nebraska. Like Idaho, Maine has four electoral votes, but it had 13 visits from President Bush during the last election; Idaho had none.

Under the Ketchum Democrat’s proposal, two of Idaho’s votes would be decided by the statewide outcome and two would be determined by each congressional district. Conceivably, the electoral votes could split, which would bring more candidates to the state, the proponents of the bill said.

“We wonder what it would be like to have an appearance from a presidential candidate,” Adler said. “We listen to them in other states talk about those states’ issues. We don’t get to have them talk about our issues because they don’t come here.”

But Rep. Mary Lou Shepherd, D-Wallace, said the timing of the bill wasn’t right.

“It looks like sour grapes to bring it up right after we lost” the presidential election, she said. “I would vote for it in one or two years from now.”

Rep. Phil Hart, R-Athol, said he wasn’t in favor of the bill because the Electoral College is “one way we remain a republic.”

Rep. Janet Miller, R-Boise, said the topic isn’t that important because Idaho hasn’t had a swing district since at least 1966.

That’s true, Adler admitted, but, “We still shouldn’t ignore the principle of political equality.”

Other legislators argued the bill isn’t needed because Idaho had one of the highest voter turnouts in the country in last year’s election.

Besides, Rep. Steve Smylie, R-Boise, said, “Idaho was spared a political ad every three minutes on TV. That’s not the kind of attention we want.”