Peculiar institution
Page 4 of 4 -- But the momentum for reform was about to slow. The Senate Judiciary Committee was chaired by James Eastland of Mississippi and counted Strom Thurmond among its members. Both men were die-hard segregationists who had voted against every civil-rights and voting-rights measure that had come before them. Neither wanted to have presidents elected by a national, popular vote.
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Eastland used his prerogatives as chair (and Thurmond's threat to filibuster the committee) to keep electoral reform on the back burner. Early in 1970, however, Birch Bayh -- an able young senator from Indiana who chaired the subcommittee on constitutional amendments and favored direct elections -- engaged in an adroit procedural maneuver to force the Judiciary committee to address the issue. When President Nixon nominated conservative Southerner G. Harrold Carswell to the Supreme Court (after the Senate had rejected the equally conservative but ethically challenged Clement Haynsworth of South Carolina), Bayh threatened to hold up the Judiciary committee's consideration until Eastland set a date for hearings on the Electoral College.
Eastland and Thurmond relented, and the bill, after passing the committee by a vote of 11 to 6, reached the Senate floor in early September 1970 -- nearly a year after the momentum for reform had crested. Senators Bayh, Baker, and others spoke eloquently about the shortcomings of the Electoral College and the virtues of popular election. But they were greeted by a prolonged filibuster led by Sam Ervin of North Carolina, another opponent of civil rights and the Voting Rights Act. For several weeks, Ervin, Thurmond, and their allies took the floor to criticize the measure, arguing that it would undercut states' rights, harm the small states, destroy the two-party system, and encourage splinter parties, fraud, and intrusive national voting requirements. They also stalled relentlessly, even reading into the record the name of every prime minister of France since 1800, as evidence that direct elections produced instability.
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The critical votes came on Sept. 17 and 29, on proposals to invoke cloture (end debate) and bring the direct-election amendment to a vote. The first cloture vote failed by six votes and the second by five. On Oct. 5, the issue was shelved indefinitely.
So what was it that tripped up a reform whose time seemed to have come? The votes on the cloture motions tell a key part of the tale. More than two-thirds of all Democrats supported cloture, presumably favoring the direct-election amendment. The Republicans were evenly divided, as were Senators from the 26 smallest states.
The critical cleavage was regional: Only six southern senators voted to end debate, while 20 did not. Sixty percent of all of the "no" votes came from the South. What defeated the drive for direct elections was not the opposition of the small states -- although that did play a minor role in the debates and the Senate vote. The key instead was the resistance to change from a region whose politics had long been shaped by racial exclusion.
The political landscape was indeed shifting, and after the Voting Rights Act of 1965 the Electoral College could never serve the white South as it had in the past. But in 1969 no one knew how it would all turn out, or how George Wallace might fare in 1972. Savvy old-timers like Ervin and Thurmond were preserving the familiar, protecting states' rights wherever they could, resisting further intrusions by the federal government. Direct elections were one more threat to the old order, and this was a battle that the South could -- and did -- win.
The outcome of that battle ultimately led to George Bush winning the White House in 2000. It could also determine the victor in this year's tight race. If a candidate once again wins the Electoral College but loses the popular vote, pressure for change will certainly mount, and there is no telling how different political interests might line up.
Alexander Keyssar is professor of history and social policy at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government. He is currently writing a history of American political rules and institutions. 
