Amending the Constitution.

One of the first announcements made by Sen.-elect Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.) shortly after winning the seat of retiring Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan was that the electoral college had to go.

During her postelection victory tour through New York, Clinton said, "We are a very different country than we were 200 years ago.... I believe strongly that, in a democracy, we should respect the will of the people.... That means it's time to do away with the electoral college and move to the popular election of our presidents."

The Times Union of Albany, New York, in an interview with Clinton, asked her to comment further on the electoral college, specifically on whether she would propose the same constitutional amendment to abolish the college that Rep. Mike McNulty (D-N.Y.) plans to introduce in the House.

She told the newspaper, "I will support ending the electoral college.... Mike's got a bill, other people have bills; there will be a lot more, I think, after this election."

In the 106th Congress, there were several proposals to abolish the college. Rep. James Leach (R-Iowa) was the sponsor of H.R.J. Res. 113, which had no cosponsors; Sen. Richard Durbin (D-Ill.) proposed S.J. Res. 56, which had one cosponsor; and Rep. Ray LaHood (R-Ill.) proposed H.R.J. Res. 23, which had two cosponsors.

LaHood has attempted for the last two Congresses to terminate the electoral college, as have many other lawmakers before him. According to Senate Historian Richard Baker, there have been more proposals to amend the Constitution to abolish the electoral college than for any other issue. Baker recently told the Christian Science Monitor that "of some 11,000 constitutional amendments proposed over the past 200 years, this is the most frequent."

On three occasions between 1949 and 1955, the Senate Judiciary Committee favorably reported a resolution to amend the Constitution relating to the college. A prominent cosponsor of one of those resolutions--S.J. Res. 31, proposed in 1955--was Sen. Albert Gore Sr. (D-Tenn.), father of Vice President Al Gore. The report that was published by the Judiciary Committee on the resolution included an entire section called "Principal Evils of the Present System."

In an indictment of sorts that listed three "principal counts," the report enumerated the electoral college evils as follows:

   the evils arising from the retention of the office of presidential elector,
   the method of selecting a president when no candidate commands a majority
   of electoral votes, [and] the defects and dangers which derive from the
   so-called unit-rule method of crediting all of a state's electoral votes to
   the plurality candidate.

When the resolution reached the Senate floor on March 27, 1956, Gore voted in favor of the amendment to change the electoral college system, while George W. Bush's grandfather, Sen. Prescott Bush (R-Conn.), voted against it.

Following the key vote, the proposal's sponsor, Sen. Price Daniel (D-Tex.), said,

   [A]lthough two-thirds of the members of the Senate might favor electoral
   reform, we do not have before the Senate a draft which can be agreed upon
   by two-thirds of the senators. In order that the work which has been done
   on this matter last year and during this year will not go for naught, but
   that we may give it further consideration, and possibly come out with a
   draft which can meet the approval of two-thirds of the members of the
   Senate, I move ... to recommit the joint resolution to the Committee on the
   Judiciary.

As we all know, the electoral college system remains intact to this day.

Article V of the U.S. Constitution delineates the two methods available for proposing and ratifying amendments. One requires a two-thirds vote of each house of Congress in order to pass a proposed amendment. That proposed amendment is then sent to the 50 states, where legislatures of three-quarters of the states must ratify it before it is adopted as part of the Constitution.

The second method requires two-thirds of the states to call for a "convention for proposing amendments." For any amendment proposed by a convention to be ratified, three-quarters of the states must approve it. There have been only 17 constitutional amendments since the original 10--the Bill of Rights--were ratified in 1791.

Proposed constitutional amendments to prohibit flag burning and permit school prayer are perennial favorites. Other frequent favorites include amendments pertaining to taxes, term limits, a balanced budget, the line-item veto, and even the designation of English as the official language of the United States.

Recent amendments

In the 106th Congress, many of the proposed amendments dealt with taxes, including various amendments repealing the federal income tax, prohibiting retroactive taxation, requiring progressive taxation, prohibiting the courts from instructing states or political subdivisions to levy or increase taxes, and requiring a two-thirds majority vote to increase taxes. And, yes, we still have the federal income tax, but it is likely that someone will make another attempt in the 107th Congress to repeal the 16th Amendment.

But even more likely, especially on the heels of an almost-unimaginable election aftermath, is that the issue of eliminating the electoral college will remain on the front burner, although imminent change is unlikely.

Time for change?

There have been more proposals to amend the Constitution to abolish the electoral college than for any other issue.

Kristin Loiacono is media relations coordinator for ATLA.