Before retiring at the end of her term in January, Senator Barbara Boxer (D-California) is using her last few weeks to send a message to the country to consider the presidential election process.
This week Boxer introduced legislation to abolish the Electoral College and use the popular vote to determine the winner of presidential elections. Her bill is a long shot passing the GOP-controlled Senate, to say the least, but Boxer is acknowledging the fact that Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton currently leads President-elect Donald Trump by more than a million votes. Under our system, however, the winner needs at least 270 electoral votes to win; Trump won with 290 to Clinton's 232. As Boxer noted in a news release, "Donald Trump will become the fifth president in U.S. history to lose the popular vote and still win the election."
The last time was the 2000 election, when Al Gore won the popular vote and George W. Bush won the presidency after a U.S. Supreme Court decision.
"In my lifetime, I have seen two elections where the winner of the general election did not win the popular vote," Boxer said, referring to 2000. "When all the ballots are counted, Hillary Clinton will have won the popular vote by a margin that could exceed two million votes."
Boxer went on to explain the problems with the Electoral College, which she called "outdated" and an "undemocratic system that does not reflect our modern society, and it needs to be changed immediately. Every American should be guaranteed that their vote counts."
This has long been a complaint with the Electoral College, which the Founding Fathers created to prevent corruption in the presidential election process. Smaller states generally favor the system because it increases their advantage against larger states that would otherwise control presidential elections. And it happened last week – large states like California and New York voted for Clinton, but smaller states voted for Trump.
Boxer noted that Trump himself once criticized the Electoral College: "The electoral college is a disaster for a democracy," he tweeted in 2012.
During his 60 Minutes interview on Sunday, Trump said he wouldn't mind some tweaks to the process. "A simple vote," he said, and added that if "you get 100 million votes and somebody else gets 90 million votes and you win."
But two days later he changed his mind. "The Electoral College is actually genius in that it brings all states, including smaller ones, into play. Campaigning is much different," he wrote on Twitter.
Boxer's right, of course, in that the election could be decided by the popular vote. The system needs to be updated and one could argue that electors today are beholden to the parties, since they are nominated by the parties at their state conventions. While electors still can vote for whomever they want when they meet next month to ratify their votes, it's obvious that they will select along party lines. There has been some talk of so-called faithless electors who could switch their vote, and that may happen, given the polarizing nature of the election. But the numbers won't be there to alter the outcome.
Boxer knows her proposal – which is actually a constitutional amendment that would need to be ratified by three-fourths of the states within seven years after its passage in Congress – is dead on arrival. Although it's a symbolic move it focuses attention to an inequity that affects large states like California.
Boxer has always been the state's more progressive senator, and during her tenure she's been a leader on issues like the environment (Trump doesn't believe in climate change), women's rights (Trump denigrates women), and LGBT rights (Trump said same-sex marriage is "settled" but is not likely to be a champion for us). She was against the Clinton-era Defense of Marriage Act and "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" back when taking such stands was uncommon for most national Democrats. She was one of only 14 senators to vote against DOMA.
We'll miss Boxer's fiery spirit in the Senate, though we know her replacement, Senator-elect Kamala Harris, will continue to champion those causes and more. Boxer leaves a legacy as a fighter for equality. Her proposal to eliminate the Electoral College shows her commitment is undiminished even as she leaves office.