Readers write: Letters to the editor, Nov. 27, 2016

We have constitutional Electoral College alternatives

Ed Panschar and Jim Lieb (Letters, Nov. 24) seem to believe that they're defending the Electoral College as designed in the Constitution, but actually they're just defending how various state legislatures have currently chosen to select their presidential electors.

Most states — but not all — currently award electors by winner-take-all (within each state) but that is not a constitutional feature. Electors were originally assumed to exercise their independent judgment in selecting the best candidates for president and vice president.

State legislatures have the constitutional power to determine how their electors are selected, and they could (for example) instead award electors proportionally to the vote in their state — in which case (in the present case) Hillary Clinton would win.

Then again, state legislatures could agree to award their electors to the national popular-vote winner — and then again (in the present case), Hillary Clinton would win.

Both of these alternatives are completely constitutional. And Trump has said that he supports them, because he said he would have campaigned differently and still won. (Nothing is beyond The Donald.) So it's not a partisan issue — and many people, including me, have been advocating for it, year in and year out, for decades.

Finally, while it's true that the Senate gives extra weight to small-population states — not necessarily to rural states; witness Delaware, Rhode Island, Hawaii, Connecticut, Maryland (all below mean size and all reliably Democratic states) and Tennessee, Indiana, Arizona, Georgia and Texas, among others (which are reliably Republican but under represented in the Senate) — the primary original impact of the Electoral College was to pick up the added weight in the House of Representatives given to Southern slave-holding states, which were allowed to count their slaves (at 3/5 weight), though of course the slaves couldn't vote. We don't need that anymore.

— Rick Wicks
Anchorage

Trump Tonic, anyone?

Well, the slick snake-oil businessman came to town, hawked his Trump Tonic and sold the whole load. Another "successful deal" for him! When the euphoric effects of the alcoholic main ingredient wear off, will there be any cures for our maladies? Don't expect that from "snake oil." He won't be able to skip town for four years.

Let's hope that his consignment to the White House will be a correctional sentence.

— Jon Sharpe
Anchorage

Trump’s more wingy-dingy proposals don’t stand a chance

Donald Trump will be president. So let me indulge in a bit of what my fellow Trump opponents will regard as heresy: That is probably a good thing.

Why?

First of all, if Hillary Clinton had been elected, she would have had a miserable presidency. With Republican majorities in both the House and Senate, she would have accomplished nothing. Her presidency would have been four years of frustration and harassment.

Second, none of Trump's more wingy-dingy proposals stands a chance of adoption. There will be no wall built along the Mexican border. There will be no deporting of 11 million illegal immigrants. There will be no ban on Muslims entering the country. I could add to the list but you get the picture.

Who will shoot down those proposals? Congressional Republicans.

Why? Because no Republican in the Senate or House owes Donald Trump a thing. None of them rode into office on Trump's coattails; he had no coattails.

Republicans lost two seats in the Senate and six in the House, and virtually all of the Republicans who were elected polled better than Trump. So no Republican in Congress will support a Trump proposal out of gratitude to him or to help him keep a campaign promise. They will support his proposals only if they see benefit to themselves.

Few congressional Republicans will benefit from Trump's more nutty proposals. Those proposals appealed primarily to relatively uneducated white males over the age of 50. While that demographic bloc was important to Trump's 2016 election, it does not represent America's future. America's future lies in young, educated voters, prominently including women and minorities, most of whom reject Trump's isolationism and xenophobia. Congressional Republicans know that and will act accordingly.

So that leaves Trump's promises to create middle-class jobs and find a health care plan better than "Obamacare." Those will be tough nuts to crack, but if Trump can pull it off, power to him.

— Dale Gerboth
Anchorage

The views expressed here are the writers' own and are not necessarily endorsed by Alaska Dispatch News, which welcomes a broad range of viewpoints. To submit a letter under 200 words for consideration, email letters@alaskadispatch.com, or click here to submit via any web browser. Submitting a letter to the editor constitutes granting permission for it to be edited for clarity, accuracy and brevity. Send longer works of opinion to commentary@alaskadispatch.com.