would be ended.

So wide was the support for the package proposals that 53 Senators cosponsored it on the floor. Strongly backed by Paul Douglas of Illinois, Herbert Lehman of New York, and other Senators from Northern states, Kennedy spearheaded the counterattack against the package proposal. Did the Massachusetts Senator believe at that time that someday he might be the beneficiary, as a Presidential candidate of the winner-take-all system?

Possibly, but it is more likely that he was thinking of the forthcoming 1956 campaign, since he had some hope of being Adlai Stevenson's running mate. Certainly he could not have dreamed that the present system would save him from a razor-thin victory that might well have paralyzed our government during a critical transition period. What he did know in March 1956 was that the opposition's package proposal threatened the influence of the urban vote in the electoral college and hence the prospects of any liberal Democratic contender for the Presidency.

Kennedy and his backers routed the opposition. The bill not only failed to gain the necessary two-thirds support in the Senate but also failed to retain the support of 10 of the original sponsors-9 Republicans and 1 Democrat.

The outcome was a tribute to Kennedy's emerging skills as a political leader, but it also proved that even a package reform, attracting many Southern Democrats and Northern Republicans, could not pass the Senate. And if it had, it would probably have failed to gain two-thirds support in the House, where city Representatives could have stopped it.

The lesson is very clear: there is little hope for a major overhaul of the electoral college. The opposing groups are simply too strong. Each of them gets enough out of the present system to be willing to settle for it when the chips are down. And even if some group was outvoted in Congress, it could always thwart a constitutional amendment in over a dozen State legislatures.

Does this mean that no change is possible? Not at all. In place of a major overhaul, the machinery of the electoral college needs two simple but vital repairs if it is not to become badly jammed someday and throw our whole system of government into a crisis.

The defects in the machinery are, first, the ambiguous role of the Presidential electors themselves; and, second, the constant threat that no presidential candidate may receive a majority in the electoral college and hence the election will go into the House of Representatives.

The modern role of Presidential electors is supposed to be clear cut. Originally intended to be high-minded men who would seek the best President without a lot of politicking, they were soon converted by the political parties into rubber stamps for the winning party in each State. If the rubber stamps today were really dependable, they might serve satisfactorily as automatic registering devices. The problem is that they are not always willing to be rubber stamps.

The trouble started in 1820 when one William Plumer of New Hampshire voted in the electoral college for John Quincy Adams, even though pledged to vote for his opponent, James Monroe. Plumer's reason was an impeccably patriotic one; only George Washington, he said, "deserved a unanimous election." He got away with it-and set a precedent for future electors to ignore their pledges.

Evidently no one took advantage of the precedent for a great many years; but in 1948 one Preston Parks of Tennessee got himself chosen as candidate for elector by both the Democratic Party in the State and by the States' Rights Party. Vehemently opposed to President Harry S. Truman's civil-rights program, Parks warned that if elected he would vote for the States' Rights candidate, J. Strom Thurmond, and not for Mr. Truman. Truman defeated the Dixiecrats in the State overwhelmingly-but Parks ignored the popular mandate and voted for Thurmond as he had said he would.

Parks "revolt." Profs. Austin Ranney and Wilmoore Kendall have concluded, "did not, of course, affect the actual outcome of the electoral college's decision; had it done so, it would presumably have raised issues of an extremely dramatic character. But the next Parks' revolt might affect the outcome, and it is well for students of the American political system to keep themselves reminded that the electoral college, however innocuous in the typical election, involves areas of indeterminacy that are potential dynamite."

It is high time to get rid of this dynamite. Some progress has been made. State parties, according to a Supreme Court decision, now have the right to require electors to promise to vote for the party's nominee. But this is only a

half-step, for whole State parties-especially Southern Democratic State parties hostile to the national Democratic Party's civil-rights stand-may raise hob with the system by allowing the electors to vote against the party candidate. This problem may become acute during the 1960's as the civil-rights struggle becomes more and more heated.

The solution is simple, although it may sound rather drastic-abolish membership in the electoral college while retaining the electoral votes. In other words, merely count up each candidate's electoral votes after the election (as we do anyway) and let this stand as the result, without any electoral college formalities in the State capitals or in Washington.

Such a change should not arouse much opposition because, unlike a basic overhaul of the whole electoral college system, it would not affect the power of big groups. To be sure, some southerners hoping to exploit present ambiguities might be opposed, but they probably would not be strong enough to mobilize much opposition in Congress or even in the necessary number of State legislatures.

For the same reason, it may be possible to tackle the other urgent problem: the present requirement that if no presidential candidate gains an electoral majority, the election goes to the House. Again, the solution is simple but drastic-abolish this provision entirely and let the candidate who receives the most electoral votes, whether plurality or majority, win the election.

This change has been opposed on the grounds that it would foster third par ties, since no party would need to receive an electoral majority. On the contrary, it is the present system that encourages third parties to hope that they might hold the balance of power in the electoral college and in the House, where they could bargain for their special interests. The real protection of the twoparty system is the existence of strong executive posts, such as President and Governor, around which parties polarize and which force third parties to amalgamate with major parties in order to achieve some of their desired ends.

Nor does it do any harm for a President to enter the White House with only a plurality rather than a majority of the popular vote. This was the case with Lincoln, Wilson, and Truman, among others, and their leadership and authority to govern seemed to be unaffected by their plurality status.

To those deeply concerned about the electoral college these two changes may seem like a rather modest agenda. But unless we lower our sights, we run the risk of losing even these limited but necessary improvements in the fight that would be set off among power groups if we insisted on more sweeping changes. Moreover, this counsel for limited improvement is only for the short run; in the long run, given the right political conditions, it might be possible to abolish both the conservative bias in Congress and the liberal bias of the electoral college, with the result that President and Congress could work in closer harmony because they responded to a more nearly common alinement of the electorate. In the meantime, the job of practical improvement urgently awaits action. Americans must persuade their elected officials to press for immediate constitutional reform. Perhaps the needed changes could be combined with other essentially noncontroversial measures in one "housekeeping" amendment that would renovate other faltering parts of our constitutional system-for example, the still unmet problem of Presidential disability. In any event, limited electoral college reform may now have a better chance of adoption than ever before. In Kennedy's hairbreadth victory we have just had an alarming near-collision with the eccentricities of the system; after years of ignoring warnings, people are now somewhat aroused.

Moreover, the President-elect has long known of the need for these limited changes. In 1956, after helping to block major changes, he suggested to an opposition leader that both sides could now go ahead on the less controversial reforms. His opponent replied that he believed so strongly in basic changes in the system that he did not care to proceed on the two "minor changes."

Mr. Kennedy was a very junior Senator at the time and there was not much he could do. But as President, and with strong backing from the people, he could again take up this pressing task of electoral college reform with much better prospects for success.

(The following is excerpted from a speech delivered in the U.S. Senate on March 26, 1956, by Senator Paul H. Douglas of Illinois (vol. 102, Congressional Record, pt. 4, 84th Cong., 2d sess., pp. 5554

to 5569). These excerpts were selected by counsel, at the direction. of the chairman, as containing pertinent material not otherwise presented in the course of the hearings:)

III-2. EVILS OF THE MUNDT-COUDERT PLAN

The Mundt-Coudert plan provides that one presidential elector shall be chosen in each congressional district and the remainder in the State at large. In 1952, for example, Adlai Stevenson carried 6 congressional districts in California and, consequently, would have garnered 6 of California's 32 electoral votes; President Eisenhower won a popular plurality in the other 24 districts and, therefore, would have received 24 electoral votes plus 2 additional ones for carrying the State.

It is popularly believed that the proposal before us would abolish the electoralcollege system. Senator Mundt's plan would do nothing of the kind. Rather than abolish our 48 electoral colleges, it would create 430 more electoral colleges-1 in each congressional district. It would not abolish the winner-take-all rule. The presidential candidate with the popular plurality in a district would receive 100 percent of that district's electoral vote. The winner would take all in the congressional district. In short, the Mundt-Coudert plan would extend the evils of the Georgia county-unit system to presidential elections, the only difference being that the congressional district rather than the county would be the basic unit. In short, this proposal does not do the things it is purported to do:

First. It does not abolish our electoral colleges. It simply multiplies their number.

Second. It does not abolish the so-called winner-take-all rule. It simply transfers the application of this rule from the State to the congressional district. Third. It does nothing to correct the disparity caused by allocating electoral votes among the States on the basis of representation in the Senate and House of Representatives. Each State would continue to have a number of presidential electors equal to the whole number of Senators and Representatives to which the State is entitled. Today, the 9 States having over half of the population cast 18 of the 96 electoral votes based on senatorial seats, while the other 78 are controlled by the 39 States having less than half of the population. The proposal before us does not change this situation.

Fourth. The Mundt-Coudert plan does not correct the discrepancy between the popular and electoral vote, which is caused by the great variation in voter participation between the States, to which I have already referred. In my home State of Illinois in 1952, for example, 1 electoral vote represented 165,965 popular votes in contrast to 1 of Mississippi's which represented only 35,692 popular votes. Enforcement of the second section of the 14th amendment, not the Mundt-Coudert or Lodge-Gossett plan, is the remedy for this situation.

Fifth. The Mundt-Coudert plan would not have changed the outcome of a single election since 1916. In every case, the Mundt-Coudert plan would have given the necessary 266 electoral votes to the candidate with the popular plurality.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to have printed in the Record at this point as a part of my remarks a table headed "Comparison of the Mundt-Coudert System With the Present Electoral System in the Presidential Elections, 1916-52."

There being no objection, the table was ordered to be printed in the Record, as follows:

Comparison of the Mundt-Coudert system with the present electoral system in the presidential elections, 1916-52

1 The reason for listing some electoral votes as "uncertain" is that a tabulation of the presidential vote in these congressional districts has never been made. These "uncertain" electoral votes are almost entirely in big-city districts, where it is most difficult to tabulate the popular vote by congressional districts because the city and even some wards and precincts are divided between several congressional districts. Source: Hearings on S.J. Res. 3, 84th Cong., 2d sess., p. 339.

Mr. DOUGLAS. Having looked at the things the Mundt-Coudert plan would not do, let us now look at some of the things it would do-at some of the evils it would cause:

First. Adoption of the Mundt-Coudert plan would deprive the bulk of our people of the political education which a presidential campaign affords. Advocates of this resolution argue that its adoption would spread the campaign to every corner of the Nation. But would it? There are rarely more than 100 marginal congressional districts. This means that the presidential campaign would be confined to less than 100 districts. Do the advocates of this plan seriously contend that presidential candidates would actually campaign in the congressional districts of Alabama or Vermont?

Second. The Mundt-Coudert plan would enhance the power of the South in national politics by placing the South in a balance-of-power position. Under the present system, the 11 Southern States held a balance of power in only 2 of the past 10 elections-in 1916 and 1948. Under the Mundt plan, however, southern electoral votes would have been necessary for victory in 3, 4, or 5 of these last 10 elections-in 1916, 1944, 1948, and perhaps in 1932 and 1940 as well. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to have printed in the Record at this point as a part of my remarks a table headed "Electoral Vote Margin of Winner." There being no objection, the table was ordered to be printed in the Record, as follows:

In

1 Because the popular vote for President has not been tabulated in a number of congressional districts, the margin under the Mundt-Coudert plan can be given only in terms of a maximum and a minimum. 1944, for example, Roosevelt would have had an electoral vote margin of at least 18 and no more than 102 under the Mundt-Coudert plan.

Source: Hearings, op. cit., p. 340.

Mr. DOUGLAS. These figures explain precisely why some southerners are pushing for a change in our electoral system. In the past four Congresses, a number of southern Senators and Representatives have frankly stated that electoral change is favored in the South because it would make unnecessary the solicitation of minority votes in northern cities and, thereby, increase the voice of the South in the Democratic Party. Their views were neatly summarized in the Macon (Ga.) News-which, incidentally, is an extremely good newspaper— which spoke editorially as follows:

"Dividing a State's electoral vote on the basis of its popular vote would take from Walter White [of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People] his ability to manipulate the votes of the mere 3 million Negroes living outside the South for a boasted control of 17 States and the Presidency."

The Vernon (Tex.) Times told its readers:

"If the Republican Party succeeds in having the Gossett-Lodge resolution adopted *** that will put an end to the bipartisan contest for Negro votes in pivotal States and eliminate the so-called civil rights issue from national politics."

Now, I have a special word for the Republicans supporting this measure. A number of them are probably thinking that it would enable a Republican presidential candidate to gain some electoral votes in the South. I suggest that this measure would put the Sotuh in a position so that it could mold the Democratic Party in its own image. Naturally, we northern Democrats do not relish this prospect. But I want to tell my Republican friends that, if the South could dominate the Democratic Party, the Republican presidential candidate would lose rather than gain southern votes.

One thing is certain: Adoption of this formula would shift the balance of power within each of our political parties. In the Democratic Party, the South would have the controlling voice. I think this would likely mean at least three parties, namely, a Southern Democratic Party, a Northern Liberal Democratic Party, and a Republican Party. In the Republican Party, the conservatives would likely gain a stronger voice because of the decreased importance of the large States and big cities where liberal Republicanism is now largely found. I wish to make an exception of the Senator from North Dakota, Mr. Langer, who, on domestic matters, I believe, possesses one of the finest voting records in the Senate. However, he realizes that he has been, so to speak, a lonely figure in the past few years. Republican progressivism in the Western States, which was so strong 30 years ago, has greatly decreased. On domestic matters, the big States have a much more liberal attitude within the Republican Party than the States west of the Mississippi, or perhaps west of the Allegheny. The third party is likely to consist of liberal Democrats and Republicans in the North. This would mean a breakdown of our two-party system-two conservative parties and one liberal party. If this developed and three presidential candidates were in the race, no candidate would receive a majority of the electoral vote, and, under this proposal, the election would be thrown into the Congress, where no one party would have a majority. Imagine the strategic position of Southern Representatives in Congress trying to make deals with the two other parties. There is still another, but I think a less likely, possibility. A Democratic Party under greater southern domination would lose considerable northern support, which would probably be channeled into the third party I've already mentioned. The Republicans, however, might find it necessary and expedient to bid for this northern support, a contingency which would likely strengthen the voice of liberal forces in the Republican Party. I cannot believe that the authors of the Mundt-Coudert plan want us to adopt a system which might force a political realinement, which in turn might strengthen the liberal elements in their own party.

I suggest that adoption of this proposed constitutional amendment would promote a political realinement of some sort. I am not sure, however, that it would promote a political realinement of the sort the conservatives desire. As I shall show, I think probably it would. In any case, if political realinement is the real purpose of electoral change, let us debate the merits of a political realinement rather than sneak realinements in under the cloak of "electoral reform."