James Madison most certainly never called the Electoral College “evil.” You’d think otherwise, however, from following CNN this week.
“Getting rid of the electoral college: Radical left-wing fantasy or as American as apple pie?” anchor John Avlon asked Thursday. “Is this just a case of Dems trying to change the rules because they’ve won the popular vote but lost the presidency twice so far this century? Is this an insult to the Founding Fathers, and could it actually even happen?”
A growing number of Democrats, including 2020 presidential hopefuls Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., and South Bend Mayor Pete Buttigieg, are clamoring to abolish the Electoral College, a position that just so happens to coincide largely with their losing the White House in 2016 to President Trump. Other potential Democratic presidential candidates, including Sen. Kamala Harris, D-Calif., and former Rep. Beto O’Rourke, D-Texas, have also flirted with the idea.
“Well, it turns out: This isn’t such a new idea,” Avlon continued Thursday. “It was the subject of intense debate among the founders. The biggest controversy was the winner-take-all structure. James Madison? Not a fan. He even called it, ‘evil at its maximum.’”
Later, CNN’s social media team published a tweet that read: “The Electoral College has been debated since the days of James Madison, who called it ‘evil.’”
The Electoral College has been debated since the days of James Madison, who called it “evil.”
So could it actually be abolished? @JohnAvlon explores that in today’s #RealityCheck. https://t.co/lCGCfDTMSL pic.twitter.com/Z1Tct6bMQL
— CNN (@CNN) March 20, 2019
At best, this is mere sloppiness. At worst, it’s an active attempt to mislead viewers into thinking one of the founders would’ve supported Democrats’ call to do away with the Electoral College.
The record of what Madison actually said is far different from what the tweet would have us believe. The short version is that Madison was referring to the eventual certification by the House and that he used the word “evil” to mean “harm.” To be even more specific, Madison was talking about “elections thrown to the House which awards 2 votes to states of every size. (This is the contingency for when a vote ISN’T decided by the EC),” as the Daily Signal’s Jarrett Stepman explains.
Here’s the longer Madison quote, which comes from a letter dated Aug. 23, 1832 [emphasis added]:
Humorously enough, the same letter sees Madison endorsing an amendment by which the Electoral College would be preserved but relegated to districts rather than entire states. As libertarian author David Harsanyi notes, “Of all the founders, in fact, Madison, who wanted to create more voters in the Electoral College, made the most impassioned arguments against direct democracy in Federalist #10.”
We’re a long, long way from that tweet claiming Madison called the Electoral College “evil.”
And here I was thinking CNN winning an award for its Parkland gun control show trial was the most embarrassing story this week associated with the “Facts First” network.
