Electoral college changes: reforms yes, but not this way.

I'm all in favor of a review of the way that the Electoral college operates. It's an opaque system, one that most voters don't understand and doesn't match a lot of democratic ideals. It appears to some to be a hang over from a less democratic age where the voters couldn't be trusted to vote 'correctly' and had to be watched over (mind you, it also acts as part of a system of checks and balances). Just witness the confusion and frustration felt when President Bush won the election in 2000 based on a majority of the 538 electoral college votes, even though Gore won the popular vote - assuming the underlying count was correct (the actual point of contention), this outcome was never at question. Wikipedia does a good run-down, including pros and cons, here.

But what about this Republican led proposal [CNN] to change the system - for one state! This smacks of bad faith...

Essentially, whover wins the majority in that state gets the entire block of electroal college votes. California represents such a large block of votes that this can easily mean the difference between winning or losing an election. The proposal here is to 'free' California from the system

This is what upsets me about lawyers getting too involved in the political process.

If there is one thing that you learn in practice, it is the importance of advising your client - especially in the larger cases - that even though you can do something, often you should not. The point is to show some restraint and think of the future repercussions.

Quite often effective efforts to lobby and argue to overturn a law will benefit your client immediately, but in the long run will be tremendously damaging. Whether this is by way of reaction - either legal, legislative (political) or consumer based - or whether this is because your client finds the loophole used directly against them in future.

Regardless of the pros and cons of this reform, this should have been handled better...