Word: reforms
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 2000-2000
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...look more like the Democratic Party. But how hard was that? He wouldn't have been able to make the Republicans look like the Democrats if the Democrats had not already spent most of the past decade making themselves look like the Republicans--embracing capital punishment, unrestricted trade, welfare reform and the need to abolish the deficit. You call this a two-party system? I demand a recount...
...most other issues, achieving bipartisan compromise would require that Gore abandon key campaign promises. Take his plan for a prescription-drug benefit under Medicare, an issue he would probably press early. Candidate Gore called for a universal entitlement; President Gore could never get that passed. As for campaign-finance reform, money for school construction, class-size reduction, universal preschool or tax-free retirement savings accounts, Republicans would gleefully stuff them all. Would Gore even try? "Everything would have to be rethought," the adviser says...
This is why we can expect pressure for reform--specifically a renewed demand to abandon the Electoral College in favor of direct, popular-vote election of the President, which would require a constitutional amendment. This is what got attention but then failed on Capitol Hill after George Wallace's third-party strength in 1968 almost blocked an Electoral College majority...
This option has obvious weaknesses. The Democrats, especially because of Gore's likely popular-vote victory, are the party ideologically most disposed toward reform. However, conservatives, almost by nature, cling to old institutions and cherish constitutional artifacts. Many Republicans also believe that their party has an advantage in the Electoral College because it overrepresents the small, rural and G.O.P.-inclined jurisdictions. This isn't true anymore--now that Republican presidential support is overconcentrated in the South--but it used to be in the 1970s and '80s, and old beliefs die hard. Republicans are likely to beat back any constitutional amendment...
...lieu of a constitutional amendment, congressional legislation may be able to do the job. Article II of the Constitution says that "Congress may determine the time of choosing the Electors and the day on which they shall give their votes." Proponents of reform say that Congress could pass a law requiring that electors be chosen on Election Day and also give their votes on Election Day. That would leave the states with no avenue but to consider each individual voter to be a fraction of an elector...