Constitution, the more votes you get in opposition to it. In other words, Senators and Representatives of a small State with three electoral votes would be more inclined to vote for a proposal which retains the present system. For example, they would say that my State which now has equal power with New York in the event the election goes to the House would have only about one-fifteenth of that power if both Houses of Congress had a voice in the matter. I think that is a question of getting enough votes to get the resolution adopted. Senator KEFAUVER. Well, the other side of the coin, of course, is that the Congressmen from the more popular States might vote against the resolution because they feel that their voice is being diminished and, furthermore, it has got to be submitted to the legislatures.

Senator ERVIN. There is another point that I think sustains my position. The legislature of a small State has the same voice in ratifying an amendment as that of the biggest State. Moreover, the Senators and Representatives of the bigger States do not lose any power they now have under the Constitution under Senate Joint Resolution 96. They just would retain their present power only.

Senator KEFAUVER. But, as a matter of fundamental justice, you have no particular philosophical objection.

Senator ERVIN. No. With me it is a question of getting votes, and I think that that is the practical thing. The fewer changes you make, the more votes you get. That is a question of policy and a practical

matter.

Senator KEFAUVER. Tell us, Senator Ervin, in your thinking you arrived at throwing the election into the House, if the amendment we have been talking about were accepted, where nobody receives as much as 40 percent of the whole number of electoral votes: How did you ever get 40 percent?

Senator ERVIN. Well, 40 percent is very substantial. You pluck it out of the air. There is no reason for you to say 40 rather than 39 or 47 or any other definite figure. The only purpose of that is to prevent the occurrence of what Senator Mundt feared, the election of a President who is in effect a member of a splinter party. Forty percent, I think, is a rather substantial percentage. That is an arbitrary figure but that is the object of it.

Senator KEFAUVER. Well, that is the same figure that has been carried in most of these resolutions.

Senator ERVIN. Yes.

Senator KEFAUVER. Does not this have something to do with it: while we have had minority Presidents, that is, where the person elected did not receive a majority of the popular vote, on 14 occasions I believe, but they have always received more than 40 percent of the popular vote except in the so-called corrupt bargain of 1824 when Adams defeated Jackson in the House.

Senator ERVIN. Oh, yes. They have always received a majority of the electoral vote in times past, except in the cases of Jefferson and Burr and the one you mentioned.

Senator KEFAUVER. Senator Ervin, this or something similar to it; what do you think the chance of passing is?

Senator ERVIN. The thing that worries me most about the chance of passage is that maybe too many cooks may spoil the broth or too many doctors may kill the patient. All of us have the same fundamental objects in view.

Senator KEFAUVER. Too many ideas floating around and too many people for their ideas?

Senator ERVIN. I do not think there are any great fundamental differences between the several resolutions which are fundamentally based on what we call the Lodge-Gossett concept. They are all based on the fundamental principle of dividing the electoral vote of each State in proportion to the popular vote.

Senator KEFAUVER. Well, there are three basic suggested reforms or changes before the committee. One is the idea you have presented here today. The other is Senator Mundt's resolution with his cosponsors. The third is Senator Mansfield's resolution and Mrs. Smith's resolution along the same line with quite a number of cosponsors, to have the election by direct popular vote. Whether the popular-vote people would vote for your resolution or whether they would vote for the Mundt resolution is a matter which we will have to see about.

Senator ERVIN. Yes.

Senator KEFAUVER. Thank you very much, Senator Ervin. It has been a very enlightening discussion.

Senator ERVIN. I have enjoyed and appreciated the opportunity to come before the committee. I want to commend the work the chairman has done over the several years to get some reform in this field.

Senator KEFAUVER. Thank you, Senator Ervin.

We are pleased to have Senator Gale W. McGee, the distinguished senior Senator from Wyoming, who is also a distinguished political scientist, having been a college professor of American history. Senator McGee has introduced Senate Joint Resolution 26, relating to the election of the President and Vice President, and is here to make a statement in support of this resolution.

STATEMENT OF SENATOR GALE W. MCGEE, A U.S. SENATOR FROM THE STATE OF WYOMING

Senator MCGEE. I want to thank the chairman and the members of this committee for their patience in indulging my brief remarks on Senate Joint Resolution 26, which has to do with the electoral college system.

Let me suggest, first, that the weighted vote as reflected in the electoral college system at the present time is proper and should be preserved. The existing system, which allows each State a number of votes for President equal to its total congressional representation, reflects a compromise-probably the basic compromise-in our constitutional system. As all students of our Government well know, the socalled great compromise at Philadelphia in 1787 sought to balance the contrasting and conflicting power positions of the large States and the small ones. It did so by representing all States equally in the Senate; thus, New York State with 12 million people has 2 Senators, as does my own State of Wyoming with only 300,000. And in the lower House of the Congress, each State's representation was to be proportioned according to population; thus, New York State would have 43 Congressmen, while my own State of Wyoming receives only its minimal guarantee of 1.

To a great extent, the Constitution drawn at Philadelphia surpassed even the expectations of the Founding Fathers themselves because of the success of this compromise. James Madison, sometimes described as the "Father of the Constitution," thought that, even with the formula arrived at, 19 out of 20 presidential elections would end up in the House of Representatives. Thomas Jefferson, who did not participate in the Constitutional Convention, on the other hand, thought that, due to the forces of change which sweep each succeeding new generation, perhaps a new constitution might be required every 20 to 40 years. The early judgments of both men were not borne out by the subsequent experiences of the new Republic, however. A part of the reason why is that the compromise tended to satisfy the expectations of young and active new States at the same time that it gratified the jealous prerogatives of the larger, old States. Within this framework, thus, a growing nation was able to expand westward from one ocean to the other, and has since multiplied the stars in the political constellation from the original 13 to the present 50.

What at the beginning of the Republic tended to balance the rivalries between large and small States has, through the years, also tended to balance the larger regional differences between East and Midwest and Far West, or South and North. It has emerged as the spine of an intricate political balance system which has held up so successfully thus far the American Federal experience.

To tamper with this one aspect of our national political balance would in my judgment, threaten the total balance in other parts of the system. The temptation would arise, in fact, to tamper with some of those other segments of our political structure.

One additional factor accounts not only for the success of the balance system but for the stability of the constitutional structure in general, and that was the emergence of the two-party system. Both Jefferson and Madison projected their earlier views in the context of a political climate devoid of parties. With the emergence of two dominant groups throughout our history, however, the operation of the electoral college system was materially affected. Whereas at the beginning the individual electors themselves, it was thought, would play a determining role in the selection of the President of the United States, the two-party system has, in fact, reduced the role of the individual electors to a mere formality.

Not only have the electors themselves lost their meaningful role in the electoral process, but their continued presence, in fact, can jeopardize or threaten the stability of our successful balance system. There is nothing under present procedures in most States that requires the individual electors to vote as the State itself votes in the popular expression of the public will. Thus, at best, the individual electors become mere rubberstamps in a nonsensical operation, or, more seriously, they acquire nuisance value by assuming their own course of action, as a few did in the most recent election. Or, worse still, with sufficient collusion they could even overthrow the intent of the popular will on a nationwide scale. Therefore, all factors considered, it would seem desirable to keep that portion of the system. which is still valid and which continues to contribute to our political stability; namely, the proportioning of representation among the States as now provided in the Constitution and at the same time elimi

nating what has become useless in the body politic-a sort of political appendix or what could, in fact, open up a dangerous possibility for political irresponsibility disruptive of the otherwise stable structure of our election system.

My proposal then, Senate Joint Resolution 26, discards that which is useless, and perhaps even dangerous, in the electoral college system, and preserves that which has contributed so much to our political stability; namely, the great compromise among the diverse States and regions of the country.

Mr. Chairman, I ask that following my remarks there be included an article by Anthony Lewis which appeared in the Reporter for December 8, 1960, and a very penetrating letter on the same question written by Mr. James Michener and carried in the Washington Post for January 12, 1961.

Again, may I thank the chairman and the members of the committee for their patience in indulging these reflections on this very important consideration.

Senator KEFAUVER. Thank you, Senator McGee, for your very fine statement. The documents which you have submitted will be included in the record at this point.

(The documents referred to follow :)

[From the Reporter, Dec. 8, 1960]

THE CASE AGAINST ELECTORAL REFORM

(By Anthony Lewis)

Of the many might-have-beens that can be constructed about the 1960 election, none is more intriguing than this: If a first-term Senator named John F. Kennedy had not, in March of 1956, led the fight against an electoral-reform proposal first made by his Senate predecessor, Henry Cabot Lodge, Jr., the proposal might have become part of the Constitution. And if it had, John F. Kennedy might well not be President-elect today.

The story offers more than a nice bit of historical irony. For the closeness of the 1960 election has brought a flurry of interest in the perennial topic of electoral reform. An urgent cry for change in our method of choosing a President has come from such interesting bedfellows as Senators Mike Mansfield, Sam J. Ervin, Karl Mundt, and Jacob K. Javits, columnist Roscoe Drummond, and the editors of the Washington Post.

The suggestion most frequently discussed is known as the Lodge-Gossett amendment because it was first sponsored by Senator Lodge and Representative Ed Gossett, a Texas Democrat. Its basic idea is that the electoral vote of each State, instead of being awarded as a bloc to the winner of the popular vote in that State, should be divided proportionally according to the popular vote.

This year, for example, Senator Kennedy won 50.1 percent of the vote in Illinois and got all of its 27 electoral votes. Under the Lodge-Gossett amendment he would have had 13.527 electoral votes from Illinois against Vice President Nixon's 13.473. (The amendment specified that the apportionment should be carried to three decimal places.)

The pros and cons of this kind of change in our Presidential electoral system can be set out most fairly and completely by referring to what was said in the two great Senate debates on the question in 1950 and 1956. The most articulate spokesmen on opposite sides-surely an accident of history, but one almost too perfect to believe were Senators Lodge and Kennedy.

LODGE'S LOGIC

Opening the debate in 1950, Senator Lodge listed what he termed the "defects, unhealthy practices and potential evils" of the unit-rule system of giving all a State's electoral votes to the popular vote victor. One was the possibility that the winner of the popular vote nationally would lose in the electoral college. A second was the thesis that the hopelessness of upsetting the majority in one

party States discouraged minority voters from bothering to turn out on election day; if they knew that every vote would count in the electoral total, it was reasoned, more would care and one-party rule would be threatened. Third was the argument that under the unit rule all votes cast for the losing candidate in a state are "wasted."

But the main attack made by Senator Lodge on the existing unit-rule system was that it "strongly tends to overemphasize the political importance of the large, politically doubtful States." The system, said Mr. Lodge, encourages the selection of Presidential nominees from the large States and encourages the candidates to do most of their campaigning there. Even more important, he said, "It not only permits but actually invites the domination of Presidential campaigns by small, organized, well-disciplined minority or pressure groups within the large so-called pivotal States."

Senator Lodge's logic was apparently persuasive. The only effective opposition during a one-sided debate in 1950 was put up by Senator Robert A. Taft, who was blunt enough to say that his Ohio would not have as much influence in a presidential election if its electoral vote were divided instead of going as a lump.

The Lodge-Gossett amendment passed the Senate by 64 to 27, more than the necessary two-thirds. The majority included most of the Senate's noted liberals-Douglas of Illinois, Humphrey of Minnesota, Kefauver of Tennessee, Lehman of New York, Morse of Oregon-as well as such right wing Democrats as McCarran of Nevada and Eastland of Mississippi. Most of the negative votes came from conservative Republicans.

But the amendment died in the House in 1950. It was held in the Rules Committee, then chaired by Adolph Sabath of Illinois, and an effort to bring it to the floor by suspending the rules failed.

As it came to the Senate floor in 1956, the electoral-reform proposal was a hybrid. Attached to the Lodge-Gossett plan, now sponsored in chief by Senator Price Daniel of Texas, was a wholly different alternative bearing the name of Mundt of South Dakota. The Mundt idea was to choose electors in each State by districts-one for each Representative and two at large for the Senators. The Lodge-Gossett approach would prevail under the combined proposal, unless any State itself chose to vote for President by districts.

The 1956 amendment had what appeared to be overwhelming support. It was introduced jointly by 54 Senators. The fact that as junior a Member as Mr. Kennedy (then in his fourth year as a Senator) was floor leader of the opposition indicates how thin the troops were on that side.

All those who think the John F. Kennedy who finished the 1960 presidential campaign was a wholly new man, one whose mind and style could not have been forecast from past performance, should read the week's debate on the DanielMundt amendment. Senator Kennedy held the floor himself for the better part of 2 days, and he was there almost continuously with questions for the other side. And through it all flashed the sharpness, the candor, the fascination with the Presidency, the love of history, the taste for quotation that characterized him as a presidential candidate.

"These are crucial times . . .," Senator Kennedy said. "Nevertheless, it is proposed to change this system-under which we have, on the whole, obtained able Presidents capable of meeting the increased demands upon our Executivefor an unknown, untried but obviously precarious system which was abandoned in this country long ago, which previous Congresses have rejected and which has been thoroughly discredited in Europe. . .

"No urgent necessity for immediate change has been proven. . . . It seems to me that Falkland's definition of conservatism is quite appropriate 'When it is not necessary to change, it is necessary not to change'."

Although he did not refer to his predecessor, Senator Kennedy in time answered each of the Lodge arguments against the existing unit-rule system. To the first, that it may give the election to a loser in the popular vote, Senator Kennedy replied by pointing out that the system had, in effect, done so only once, in the Harrison-Cleveland election of 1888. Moreover, he said, an analysis of past elections indicated that under the Lodge-Gossett arrangement two Democrats would have been elected with fewer popular votes than their opponents: Hancock over Garfield in 1880, and Bryan over McKinley in 1896 and 1900. In short, what the committee report calls the "minority President evil" occurs at a rate of once every 175 years-hardly cause for an immediate and drastic change which the proponents admit will not even do away with it.