Hillary Clinton’s ‘Abomination’

Secretary Clinton’s declaration in a new Netflix documentary series that “the Electoral College is an abomination” is shocking in respect of the Framer’s design. It is all the more startling coming from a distinguished woman who has held high office and aspired to the highest one of all — and who herself has been repeatedly sworn to “support and defend the Constitution of the United States, against all enemies, foreign and domestic.”Last we checked, that includes the Electoral College. The Netflix show on which Secretary Clinton appeared, “The American Experiment,” takes as its subject “how the ideals of America’s founders gave rise to a nation.” Much to Ms. Clinton’s chagrin is that one component of that experiment is the Electoral College. Mrs. Clinton garnered three million more votes than Candidate Trump in 2016 but failed to win the presidency.Winning the popular vote in an election Mrs. Clinton lost gives her an almost unique standing for her gripes. The outcome, though, is perfectly congruent with Article II Section 1 of the parchment, which assigns the power to pick presidents to the Electoral College. Mrs. Clinton’s opposition to the scheme pits her against Alexander Hamilton, who writes in 68 Federalist in respect of the electors that “if the manner of it be not perfect, it is at least excellent.”Hamilton, who favored a strong central government, reasons that the “process of election affords a moral certainty, that the office of President will never fall to the lot of any man who is not in an eminent degree endowed with the requisite qualifications. Talents for low intrigue, and the little arts of popularity, may alone suffice to elevate a man to the first honors in a single State; but it will require other talents” to secure the post he calls “Chief Magistrate.”The desire to abolish the Electoral College hardly makes Mrs. Clinton unique in her party. In the wake of Mr. Trump’s more recent victory in 2024, Senators Brian Schatz, Richard Durbin, and Peter Welch unveiled a constitutional amendment to achieve that end. Mr. Schatz declared that “In an election, the person who gets the most votes should win” and that the “Electoral College is outdated and it’s undemocratic. It’s time to end it.”Last month Vice President Harris, who lost the popular vote to Mr. Trump as well as that in the Electoral College, proposed a “no bad ideas brainstorm” for her party with an agenda to include “what we need to do and think about doing around the Electoral College.” Last week an Economist/YouGov poll found that some 56 percent of Americans support moving to a popular vote standard, hardly enough to get a constitutional amendment off the ground.We’ve noted that the “Democrats’ attempt to evade the Electoral College is getting new momentum” in the form of a “National Popular Vote Interstate Compact,” that would pledge a state’s electors to the winner of the national popular vote, no matter how its citizens voted. Electors of, say, New York and California could have gone in 2024 to Mr. Trump. So far states carrying 222 electoral votes have joined. Only 48 more votes are needed. The scheme, we reckoned, is best understood as a “de facto end-run around the Constitution,” though its backers insist that it works with the Constitution as written. Mrs. Clinton’s comments appear likely to further energize efforts to undermine the constitutional design. In that sense they are of a piece with Democrats’ persistent attacks on the Supreme Court, another brainchild of the Framers that has earned the Democrats ire.The thing about the Electoral College is that it involves the one remaining part of the Constitution that the Constitution itself protects from amendment. That is in Article V, which ordains “that no State, without its Consent, shall be deprived of its equal Suffrage in the Senate.” That protects the original compact betwixt the states and the federal government. It demands not only humility and fidelity but also an acknowledgment of the plainness of its meaning.

Hillary Clinton’s ‘Abomination’

More from the New York Sun

Army Veteran Cait Conley Wins Democratic Primary To Take on Vulnerable Congressman Mike Lawler

Senate Republicans Brace for What Could Be Tense Meeting With Trump

California Deputies Use Drone To Disarm Suspect in ‘Nationwide First’

Mamdani Emerges as Kingmaker, Propelling Democratic Socialists to Congressional Primary Victories

Political Revolution Could Be Brewing as Americans — and Britons — Feel Unrepresented by Their Elected Legislators

Democrats, in Thrall to Teachers Unions, Escalate Opposition to School Choice

Low-Tech Longevity Investments Could Unlock $5.8 Trillion in Healthcare Savings, Report Finds

The Hemingway Shelf Rises