This Is Why Global Warming Is Responsible For Freezing Temperatures Across The U.S.

This Is Why Global Warming Is Responsible For Freezing Temperatures Across The U.S.

This Is Why Global Warming Is Responsible For Freezing Temperatures Across The U.S.

Ethan Siegel Senior Contributor Starts With A Bang Contributor Group 

 

In January of 2014, a displaced polar vortex brought extremely cold temperatures to many parts of the United States, causing Lake Michigan near Chicago to freeze over, as shown here. The current cold snap is extremely similar in nature, and is wreaking havoc across much of the continential United States right now, in 2019.Edward Stojakovik / flickr

The country is freezing in an unprecedented fashion, and global warming is to blame. Sound crazy? The cold snap that North America is experiencing east of the rocky mountains, with temperatures at Arctic-like levels, is real, but it's only part of the story. Simultaneously, there are record warm temperatures happening in other parts of the world, from Australia to the actual Arctic.

While a small but vocal minority of people might use the faulty logic of, "it's cold where I am, therefore global warming isn't real," even schoolchildren know that weather isn't climate. But these extreme cold snaps have gotten more severe in recent years, due to a combination of global warming and a phenomenon you've likely heard of: the polar vortex. Here's the science of how it works, and why global warming is paradoxically playing a major role in today's record-low temperatures.

The difference between a strong, stable polar vortex (L) and a weak, unstable one that can cause cold snaps and extremely cold weather across the mid-latitudes (R), such as the event we're experiencing now.NOAA

When you think about the Earth, including its weather, climate, and temperature, what picture do you get in your head?
The best way to picture Earth is as a sphere rotating on its axis, but with two additional effects: the atmosphere and the oceans. As the Earth rotates on its axis, we experience warming during the day (in direct sunlight) and cooling at night (in the dark), as the Earth radiates its stored heat away into the depths of space. When our hemisphere is tilted towards the Sun, we experience summer months; when our hemisphere is tilted away from the Sun, we experience winter months.
The ocean stores tremendous amounts of heat, with ocean currents transporting that heat from one location to another. But in terms of these particular weather events we're experiencing right now, the atmosphere is the biggest factor.

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This graphic shows the global circulation of Earth's atmosphere. Included in this display are Hadley cells, Ferrell cells and polar cells, along with the six different zones in the northern and southern hemispheres displaying the prevailing winds.Wikimedia Commons user Kaidor

On any planet that rotates, you'll have an effect called the prevailing winds. As the atmosphere circulates around the world, planet Earth typically experiences three different types of winds, normally confined to three different latitude zones:

• 0° to 30°: where we get the trade winds, which blow from east to west and converge at the equator.
• 30° to 60°: which give us the westerlies, which blow from west to east, and rise up towards the Arctic (or down towards the Antarctic) circle.
• 60° to 90°: the polar cells, which are normally confined to the highest-latitude regions on Earth.

Although the latitude bands differ, this phenomenon is common to most rapidly rotating planets with atmospheres, including Venus, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn. Earth, though, is a little bit special.

The ocean temperatures are warm enough in the equatorial regions, during the right seasons, to form tropical cyclones, and are cool enough, in the winter seasons, to form extreme polar vortices.Berkeley Earth Surface Temperature (BEST) team

Because of the thinness of Earth's atmosphere, our substantial axial tilt, the behavior of cloud cover and reflectivity at the poles, and a number of other factors, our planet has an extremely large temperature difference between the equator and the poles. This temperature difference is smallest in the summer, when the polar areas experience nearly 24 hours of continuous sunlight, and largest in the winter, where it's almost always night.
As a result of these severe temperature differences, there is a persistent, large-scale, low-pressure zone that rotates in a cyclone-like fashion at each pole: from west to east. (Counterclockwise at the north pole, clockwise at the south pole.) These two zones are known as polar vortices, and they each start a few miles up in the atmosphere and extend well into the stratosphere.

The interplay between the atmosphere, clouds, moisture, land processes and the ocean all governs the evolution of Earth's equilibrium temperature. The stratosphere, in particular, is of tremendous importance for phenomena like the Arctic's polar vortex.NASA / Smithsonian Air & Space Museum

Beneath them, you'll typically find a large mass of cold, dense air surrounding each of the poles. Normally, these vortices are stable enough, as temperature and pressure differences are severe enough, to keep them in place throughout the year.
When the vortices are at their strongest, you get a single cell, and the air is extremely well-confined. When the vortices weaken, they can break up into two or more cells, and begin to migrate away from the poles. When they're extremely weak, they can fragment, and some of that low pressure, low temperature air can begin to interact with the higher pressure, higher temperature air from outside the polar regions.

Earth in 2013 (at left) with a well-defined, single-cell, strong polar vortex, along with Earth in 2014 (at right) where the polar vortex became extremely weak, and migrated over the populous land masses of the mid-latitudes.NOAA / PMEL

Although the term has been around since the 1850s, few people heard of the polar vortex until earlier this decade, when it became so weak that it migrated over the North American and Eurasian continents, causing some of the coldest winter weather we've seen in recent history.
When the vortex at the north pole becomes extremely weak, the high pressure zones found in the middle latitudes of Earth (where the westerlies are) can push towards the poles, displacing the cold air. This causes the polar vortex to move farther south. In addition, the jet stream buckles, and deviates towards more populous, southern latitudes. As the cold, dry air from the poles comes in contact with the warm, moist air of the mid-latitudes, you get a dramatic weather change that we conventionally refer to as a cold snap.

When the polar vortex around the North Pole weakens, it causes much of the cold air at high latitudes to mix with the warm air in the mid-latitudes. This pushes the jet stream south, brings cold air to highly populous areas, and creates the conditions for a cold snap.

The weather we're experiencing across much of the northern hemisphere is due to exactly this phenomenon, occurring right now.
But how is global warming to blame?
The answer is simple: because the phenomenon that causes the polar vortex to break down is known as sudden stratospheric warming, where the upper layers of the atmosphere increase in temperature by approximately 30–50 °C (54–90 °F) over the span of only a few days. The fact that there are land masses located where they are in the northern hemisphere means that as those land temperatures increase, they transport their heat to even more northern latitudes.

The polar vortex, typically, is a single-cell or double-cell region concentrated at polar latitudes. However, warming events along the land and in the sea near the poles have changed the temperature and pressure gradients in recent years, and are causing the polar vortex to destabilize. This results in the extreme weather events we're experiencing more recently.National Weather Service

The exact details of how this works are complex, but the explanation is simple: warmer land temperatures, particularly in northern North America and northern Eurasia, allow more heat to be transported into the Arctic stratosphere. A warmer Earth makes sudden stratospheric warming events more likely and more frequent. And those events destabilize the polar vortex, bring cold air down into the mid-latitudes, and cause the extreme weather we're experiencing right now.

The temperature map of Earth on the day of Sunday, January 27th. Note how the southern, Antarctic region has its cold air relatively confined, while the northern, Arctic region has colder and warmer areas in uneven, perhaps unexpected locations.CLIMATEREANALYZER.ORG

As the Earth continues to warm, there will be reduced snow cover and less sea ice in these critical regions, which alters the pressure and temperature gradients of the regions at the boundary of the polar vortex. In extreme cases, the polar vortex weakens or collapses as a result. The migration of the jet stream is one of the first signs, and it has become an all-too-frequent phenomenon in recent years.
The enormous cold snap we experienced in 2014 wasn't a one-off event. Although for many, that storm was so memorable it feels like it was only yesterday, we can absolutely expect these types of extreme weather events to become commonplace in the coming years. The climate is changing, and it's affecting our weather in a variety of ways all across the globe.

In January of 2014, the term polar vortex came into the popular lexicon with a catastrophic cold snap that affected large portions of North America, causing enormous portions of Niagara Falls to freeze over, among other things. We can expect these events to be far more frequent going forward.Michael Muraz / flickr

Perhaps paradoxically, it's a strong, extremely cold polar vortex that results in stable, warm temperatures across the more populous mid-latitudes in winter. This is one effect of climate change that's already here, and will take centuries, in the best-case scenario, to reverse. There are freezing temperatures and an extraordinary cold snap affecting huge portions of the land mass in the northern hemisphere's mid-latitudes right now, but this won't feel extraordinary for long.
As the Earth continues to warm, extreme weather events like this will become commonplace, with many climatologists predicting an unstable polar vortex bringing storms like this to us multiple times per decade. Welcome to the new normal, courtesy of global warming, where the Arctic can't even remain cold in the dead of winter.

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51112781_10161539092710515_3381063603338608640_n.jpg (JPEG Image, 734 × 875 pixels) - Scaled (84%)

Is the Polis energy plan do-able?

COVER STORY | Is the Polis energy plan do-able?

• David O. Williams Special to Colorado Politics
• Jan 29, 2019 Updated 1 hr ago

Both as a candidate and as Colorado's new governor, Jared Polis pushed the goal of producing 100 percent of Colorado's power by 2040.
That commitment, he said in his State of the State address Jan. 10, "is not just about climate change. It’s about saving money for consumers with cheaper energy, and it’s about making sure the good-paying green jobs of the future are created right here in Colorado."
A week later, Polis issued an executive order aimed at putting more electric and zero-emission vehicles on the state's roads. He created a working group involving state agencies to promote electric vehicles and called on automakers to sell more electric vehicles in the state each year.
"In the absence of national leadership, states like Colorado, along with local governments and private and public companies, are leading the way on climate," Polis said at a news conference announcing his order.
But if Polis’ order on vehicles was the low-hanging fruit of his energy agenda, one possible next step – new state caps on carbon emissions – might just be forbidden fruit, say some GOP lawmakers and even members of the conservation community.
Others see a carbon-cap law as the next logical step to combat climate change in Colorado.
“Our top priority is nationally-leading climate policy like capping carbon pollution. We just don’t have time to waste, so that's our top priority,” said Kelly Nordini, executive director of Conservation Colorado. “The state needs to put those carbon-reduction targets in law … to get in line with the science and be sure that we are doing our part to avoid the worst of the climate-change impacts.”
But Republican state Sen. Bob Rankin, who recently took over the fossil-fuel-rich Northwest Colorado seat previously held by Randy Baumgardner, warns against the economic pitfalls of moving too fast to phase out coal and natural gas.
Colorado, after all, is a state where the U.S. Energy Information Administration reports fossil fuels make up a combined 78.2 percent of the electricity mix. Wind and solar currently contribute a combined 18.28 percent of the state’s electricity.
“I believe that an overly aggressive, politically motivated and unrealistic plan for the complete phaseout of fossil fuels will be devastating to many of my constituents,” said the Carbondale Republican, who now represents coal and gas counties such as Moffat, Routt, Garfield and Rio Blanco.
“Is it possible to develop a convincing plan, with cost and time parameters, so that our hard-working miners and oil and gas industry folks could continue to have their own plans for security for their families? If the new governor wants to push this agenda, I'll be asking for a realistic road map,” Rankin added. “Let's see if such a plan is even achievable.”
'Designed to be proactive'
Democratic state Rep. Chris Hansen, whose district encompasses east Denver, referenced a recently released analysis by Vibrant Clean Energy called the “Colorado Coal Retirement Study” that concludes the state could save more than $2.5 billion through 2040 by retiring its fleet of coal-fired power plants, while simultaneously increasing electric sector jobs and eliminating 510 metric tons of emissions.
“The good news in electricity is that wind and solar are way cheaper than the alternatives right now and the price of batteries is falling dramatically, and so yeah, we can do this transition and simultaneously save ratepayers money,” Hansen said. “These transitions are going to lead to significant consumer savings over time. Our job as the legislature is to help manage that, do it in a very smart way, and that’s what I am excited about working with the governor on.”
Hansen has already submitted a bill in the state legislature called the Colorado Energy Impact Assistance Act (HB 1037) that would offer job training and financial support to communities impacted by the shutdown of local coal-fired power plants.
A similar bill passed the Democratic-controlled House last year but couldn’t get out of the Republican-controlled Senate – a chamber now controlled by Dems.
The bill would create a ratepayer-backed bonding mechanism that would allow publicly owned utilities to shut down obsolete power plants without exposing those ratepayers to what is essentially a 7 percent mortgage on those so-called “stranded assets.”
Refinancing that liability at a sub 3-percent AAA bond rate would save ratepayers money, and a portion of that money would then be dedicated to job training and alleviating the shock to communities that lose one of their biggest sources of local property taxes, Hansen said.
“The overall national trend is that we have lots of old power assets in the portfolio around the country, and historically we've done a really poor job of anticipating problems created by the transition,” Hansen said. “So this is really a bill designed to be proactive, anticipate those issues and make sure that we've got the resources available to help the workers in the towns.”
Jim Alexee, director of the Rocky Mountain Chapter of the Sierra Club, lauds Hansen’s approach and supports swift passage of the bill.
“You issue the bonds, you allow [Xcel Energy and other utilities] to make money, but you also create savings because they now pay a lower cost of debt,” Alexee said. “And with those extra savings you can actually provide financial assistance to communities that are going to be directly impacted by these coal retirements. So it's an awesome tool.”
Alexee does not think a carbon-cap bill is the way to go, and he anticipates Polis will head in a different direction now that he’s addressed the electric-vehicle piece of his agenda. (Update, Jan. 29: Alexee says the Sierra Club now believes that “capping carbon pollution is essential and must be part of a national-leading climate policy portfolio,” in addition to 100 renewables and securitization.)
“I think Gov. Polis wants to do something ambitious and bold to get to 100 percent renewable energy,” Alexee said. “He wants to do something that's going to create good-paying jobs for Coloradans. He wants to support communities that are reliant on fossil fuels to make sure that a rising tide lifts all boats, and he wants to do some forward-thinking policies on transportation.”
Democratic state Rep. Dylan Roberts, an Eagle resident whose two-country district includes coal mining and power generation in Routt County, says that in the next few weeks he’s working with other lawmakers on climate-change legislation, but he declined to offer specifics.
Roberts feels the Polis order to facilitate previous Gov. John Hickenlooper’s goal of nearly 1 million electric vehicles on Colorado’s roads by 2030 will boost the move to 100-percent renewable power.
“I am glad to see the new governor prioritize the issue of our time and generation, climate change, in his first executive order,” Roberts said. “Making electric vehicles more accessible to more Coloradans will boost the ongoing transition to cleaner fuels and more efficient vehicles. This kind of action also incentivizes the modernization of our electrical grid to accommodate the increased demand for clean energy.”
Utilities weigh in
To some degree that’s a sentiment shared by Westminster-based Tri-State Generation and Transmission Association, a member-owned utility that serves 18 of Colorado’s 22 rural electric coops and 43 coops overall in Colorado, Nebraska, Wyoming and New Mexico.
“A significant transition to electric vehicles would drive electricity sales, as each electric vehicle increases household electricity consumption by about 30 percent,” said Lee Boughey, Tri-State’s seniormanager for communications and public affairs. “Support for infrastructure upgrades in rural areas will be critical to maintain reliability and serve growing loads, in particular where expensive, high-demand, fast-charging infrastructure is needed along rural interstates and highways.”
Tri-State, which recently announced a new 100-megawatt solar project and currently generates nearly 30 percent of its power from renewables, has been somewhat overshadowed in recent weeks by big announcements and decisions from publicly-owned utilities such as Xcel and the Fort Collins-based nonprofit Platte River Power Authority (PRPA).
Minnesota-based Xcel, an eight-state utility and Colorado’s largest power supplier, in December announced a target of 100-percent carbon-free by 2050. And the PRPA board of directors subsequently set that same goal but 20 years earlier in 2030, supporting the zero-carbon goals of four of the cities it serves: Fort Collins, Loveland, Longmont and Estes Park.
Combined, Xcel (54 percent) and Platte River Power Authority (5.6 percent) account for close to 60 percent of Colorado's retail electricity sales and serve about 58 percent of the state's customers. So the majority of the state’s power providers are on a path to carbon-free electricity.
Ben Fowke, president and CEO of Xcel, speaking on a conference call with reporters in December to announce the company’s 100-percent by 2050 goal, notably did not embrace the 100-percent renewables mantra of the Polis administration, which may be why some lawmakers and conservation groups are now looking to codify “carbon-free” in Colorado law.
“There is a difference,” Fowke said. “I like to listen to science, and scientists today will tell you that on a big grid, not an individual community or home or business, 65, 70 percent renewables is probably the most we can do. Now, can technology, battery storage and other things develop that aren't around today? Of course they can, and 2050’s a long way away.
“But I think it's important we don't shut down that the real goal is 100 percent carbon-free, and so let's make sure we look at all the tools in the toolbox to get there and we'll bet on the ones that are the most pragmatic and economically viable.”
Fowke said Xcel can to get 80 percent carbon-free with existing technology but that strides will need to be made in other energy arenas in order to get to 100 percent carbon-free, including carbon capture, hydrogen, nuclear and better battery storage.
Xcel provides nuclear power in Minnesota that Fowke doesn’t want to see shut down prematurely. He noted that while nuclear is 20 percent of the nation’s power mix, it comprises 65 percent of the carbon-free energy.
Colorado no longer generates any nuclear power, and its overall aridness makes it unlikely to get back into the game after the shuttering of the St. Vrain nuclear facility in the 1980s. (Most nuclear power plants use large amounts of water to produce steam to turn power turbines and for cooling.)

So wind and solar – two fairly inconsistent power sources – remain the most viable path toward reduced carbon emissions. Hydroelectric, which accounts for just over 3.5 percent of the state’s power mix, does not count as a renewable source under the state’s own guidelines.
Since 2004, when Colorado became the first state to pass a voter-led renewable energy standard, the amount of renewables, especially wind, has steadily climbed.
'Started the ball rolling'
When single-term Colorado Gov. Bill Ritter took office in 2006 and began enacting his New Energy Economy, more than 70 percent of the state’s power came from coal, most of it mined in Wyoming. Ritter put in place policies that, according to U.S. EIA, saw electricity from renewable sources more than double between 2010 and 2016, to just under 20 percent. And coal use has dropped nearly 20 percent.
Much of that decline in coal benefited the natural gas industry, which has climbed to nearly 24 percent of the state’s power mix. Gas prices also have been low in recent years relative to coal.
But while it burns cleaner than coal in terms of overall carbon emissions (up to 50 percent cleaner by some estimates), natural gas is still a fossil fuel, with front-end methane emissions that can be up to 20 times more potent as a greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide.
Now, in the next 21 years, Polis wants to grow the share of renewables from 20 percent to 100 percent – a big leap in just a couple decades. That has some in the power sector worried.
“Reliability is our members’ foremost concern, and together we share a moral and legal obligation to keep the lights on,” Tri-State’s Boughey said. “Even as renewables grow and battery technology advances, we must recognize the need for resources, including coal and natural gas, that can be turned on or turned up when electricity demand rises or when renewables are not sufficiently available.”
Boughey added that transmission from renewable sources in remote areas of the state to where people live on the Front Range or in hard-to-reach rural areas will a big factor in how successful Polis’ agenda will be, so he’s eager to see how the governor plans to streamline the often decade-long process of approving and building new transmission lines.
One of Tri-State’s member coops, the Delta-Montrose Electric Association on the state’s Western Slope, made moves recently to sever ties with the power provider, citing higher rates and a lack of urgency by Tri-State in adding more renewable power supplies.
Other rural coops on the Western Slope, despite relatively tiny membership numbers, have been exercising outsided influence in the push to add renewables.
Holy Cross Energy in Glenwood Springs, with 60,000 members stretching from Vail to Aspen, recently inked a deal with Denver-based Guzman Energy to develop a 100-megawatt wind farm and offload its share of the Comanche 3 coal-fired power plant in Pueblo. Guzman is also working with Delta-Montrose.
Holy Cross President and CEO Bryan Hannegan says the deal will allow the coop to achieve its 70 percent renewable by 2030 goal – announced just last fall – nine years earlier in 2021. Holy Cross, which is not a Tri-State member, was singled out for its progressive policies by Xcel Energy in December.
“We like to think that we started the ball rolling, Xcel gave it a huge shove, Platte River gave it another big shove, and I think the governor has a great opportunity to give it an even bigger shove with supportive state policies and programs that will make it easier to accelerate this transition,” Hannegan said.
Whether those policies include supporting a bill to limit carbon emissions remains to be seen.
A spokeswoman for Polis did not respond to Colorado Politics’ request for comment on the possibility of carbon-cap legislation this session.
And some experts advise caution in legislating too quickly. University of Colorado professor Paul Chinowsky, who co-authored a chapter on transportation infrastructure for the rather dire Fourth National Climate Assessment that made international waves when it was released in November, urges a more measured approach.
“If you just focused on, ‘We're going to pass a law right away,’ every trade industry around is always going to go against you,” Chinowsky said. “So, let's bring back the old idea of the blue ribbon commission, and put together a top 10 list of things that people can get behind.”
Then Chinowsky suggests a realistic timeline with meaningful commitments and action items.
“Get people on board when you're going to make major change so that the first thing you do isn't angering people and motivating people to work against you,” Chinowsky said. “When you talk about an issue that's this important and has this much long-term impact, you've got to get people to coalesce together and don't divide them even further or you’re not going to get anywhere.”

The Electoral College: Misunderstood, Unappreciated

Posted on January 4, 2019 by Tara Ross

“The story of the Electoral College,” one pundit recently wrote, “is also one of slavery.”

Such a comment is just the tip of the iceberg. The Electoral College has been taking quite a beating lately. Even former President Barack Obama has jumped onto this bandwagon.

“The Electoral College is a vestige,” he told reporters late last year. “It’s a carry-over…[T]here are some structures in our political system, as envisioned by the Founders, that sometimes are going to disadvantage Democrats.”

Others are just as harsh in their assessments. The institution is blasted as a “loose cannon, a game of Russian roulette” or as an “archaic,” “quaint,” or “outdated” institution.  It’s labeled a “living symbol of America’s original sin,” and an unfair system in which “the winner doesn’t win.”

“[M]oving to a popular vote for President,” former presidential candidate Al Gore concluded, “would be one of the initiatives . . . that could bring our democracy back to life.”

Are these critics right? Should Americans ditch the system that has given the presidency to a popular vote loser twice in the past sixteen years? Americans have abolished slavery, given women the right to vote, and expanded civil rights in all sorts of ways. Isn’t an amendment to eliminate the Electoral College the next logical step?

Emphatically, no.

A little education reveals the truth: The Founders had sound, principled reasons for creating the Electoral College. They didn’t create it because some of them were slave owners, and they didn’t create it because telephones, television, and 24-hour news channels hadn’t been invented yet. Instead, they created the Electoral College because they understood the flaws of human nature – and because they understood the dynamics that had caused other, earlier governments to implode.

The Founders weren’t ones to sit around, blindly repeating the mistakes of the past. Instead, they sought to learn from history; they set out to create something better than the failed attempts at self-governance that had preceded them.

They were more than successful, creating something that surely exceeded even their wildest hopes and dreams.

 

The Founders’ Objectives

The delegates to the Constitutional Convention lived at a unique moment in time. Today, Congress is too often divided into Republican versus Democratic camps. Partisanship seems to taint every discussion! But in 1787, as George Washington and others worked together in Philadelphia, political parties didn’t exist yet. Any disagreement that existed wasn’t Republican versus Democrat or Whig versus Tory. Instead, the biggest division was to be found between large and small state delegates.

It was not, as some have recently alleged, a division between slave and non-slave states.

The division between large and small states was particularly stark when it came to the topic of presidential selection.

Many large state delegates preferred a direct popular election system. Why shouldn’t the people simply vote and choose their own president? These delegates hailed from states such as Virginia, New York, and Pennsylvania. Notably, both slave owners and slavery opponents can be found in this group. On the other hand, small state delegates were worried about the prospect of a national popular vote: Many of them wanted Congress to choose the president. A wide variety of small state delegates were worried about the dangers of a simple national popular vote.

Slavery opponent Gunning Bedford of Delaware chastised the large state delegates on this point: “I do not, gentlemen, trust you,” he blasted. “If you possess the power, the abuse of it could not be checked; and what then would prevent you from exercising it to our destruction?” Slave owner Charles Pinckney of South Carolina concurred: “An Election by the people [is] liable to the most obvious & striking objections. They will be led by a few active & designing men. The most populous States by combining in favor of the same individual will be able to carry their points.”

The small states were worried about being bullied by their larger neighbors. Slavery was not the chief concern, at least not in the context of presidential elections.

Ultimately, one shared fear allowed the two sides to come together and make important compromises: The delegates to the Constitutional Convention were students of history. They understood the imperfections of human nature and the ways in which it had doomed past democracies to failure.

Flawed human beings can’t be completely trusted, as the Founders knew. Power corrupts. Selfishness, ambition, and greed can grip even the best of people. Both government officials and voters need checks and balances on any power given to them.  Their study of history had taught these Founders that any other route is doomed to failure.

Self-Governing, Yes; Pure Democracy, No

With all this knowledge in their back pocket, the Founders could not create a pure democracy for their new country. They wanted to be self-governing, of course. They had just fought a revolution in part because they had no representation in Parliament. The principles of self-governance were very important to them. On the other hand, they knew that, as a matter of history, pure democracies have a tendency to implode.

Alexander Hamilton would refute the idea that a pure democracy is the “perfect” type of government. “Experience has proved that no position in politics is more false than this,” he wrote. “The ancient democracies, in which the people themselves deliberated, never possessed one feature of good government. Their very character was tyranny; their figure, deformity.” The nation’s second president, John Adams, would agree. “Democracy never lasts long. It soon wastes, exhausts, and murders itself. There never was a democracy yet that did not commit suicide.” Other Founders called pure democracy “the greatest of evils” or “subject to caprice and the madness of popular rage.”

In short, mob rule can be very dangerous.

In a pure democracy, 51 percent of the people can tell the other 49 percent what to do – all the time, without question. Imagine what a mob mentality can do in the wake of a terrorist event such as 9/11. A bare, emotional majority could enact any law it wanted to, regardless of its impact on the rest of the country. Religious freedoms and civil liberties could easily be infringed. Even very sizable minorities could be tyrannized.

The Founders wanted to avoid that situation at all costs.

What, then, were they to do? How could they create a Constitution that allowed the people to be self-governing, even as they erected hurdles to stop (or at least slow down) irrational, bare majorities? How could minority political interests, especially the small states, be protected from the tyranny of the majority?

In other words, what constitutional provisions would allow majorities to rule, but would also require them to take the needs of the minority into account?

The delegates to the Constitutional Convention solved the problem by creating a Constitution that combines democracy (self-governance) with federalism (states’ rights) and republicanism (deliberation and compromise). The Congress is composed of a Senate with “one state, one vote” representation, while the House relies on “one person, one vote” representation. American government is divided into three co-equal branches: executive, legislative and judicial. The Constitution provides for supermajority requirements to do things like amend the Constitution or ratify a treaty.

And, of course, our Constitution creates a unique method by which presidents are elected: the Electoral College.

All these constitutional checks and balances enable Americans to be self-governing, even as mob rule and majority tyranny are avoided.

The invention of the Internet, the airplane, or the iPhone hasn’t changed anything about this situation, whatever news media headlines might say. Humans are still fallible. Power still corrupts. Bare majority groups will still bully others, if they are given the opportunity to do so.

The checks and balances in the Constitution – including the Electoral College – are still needed to safeguard liberty in our imperfect, human world.  Moreover, our unique presidential election system also provides many benefits that no one anticipated.

Modern Benefits of the System

The Electoral College operates today as a unique blend of democracy and federalism. We have a two-phase election process in this country. Taken together, these two steps ensure that both individuals and states are taken into consideration when a president is elected.

The first step in our presidential election is an entirely democratic process. We hold 51 of these purely democratic elections, each and every presidential election year: one in each state and one in the District of Columbia. Voters who head to the polls on Election Day in November are participating in this part of the process. Their ballots decide which electors will represent their states in the second phase of the election.

In 2016, for example, most voters in Ohio cast a ballot for businessman Donald Trump. Thus, the state of Ohio appointed 18 Republicans to serve as its electors. If Hillary Clinton had won, then 18 Democrats would have been appointed instead.

While the first phase of our election is a democratic election among individual voters, the second phase is a federalist election among the states. This election is held in December. This second vote in December – not the November vote – determines the identity of our next president. The Constitution provides that the candidate who gets a majority of states’ electors (currently 270) wins the White House.

The Electoral College’s unique blend of democracy and federalism provides many benefits that sometimes get taken for granted.

First, the system encourages presidential candidates to build national coalitions of voters. Candidates can’t focus too exclusively on regional majorities or special interest groups. Polling large margins in isolated regions of the country will doom a candidacy to failure. Hillary Clinton demonstrated the truth of this statement in 2016: She won the national popular vote, but only because she’d disproportionately relied on two states: New York and California. More than 20 percent of Clinton’s 65.8 million votes came from only those two states. Once they are removed from the national total, the situation reverses itself: Trump leads Clinton by more than 3 million votes.

To be successful, a candidate must win simultaneous, concurrent majorities in many states nationwide. Such victories tend to be achieved by the candidate who does the best job of reaching out to a wide variety of voters in many different parts of the country.

The election in 2016 admittedly felt a lot more divisive than other historical examples, but it also echoes a dynamic that existed in the post-Civil War years. In the late 1800s, the country was sharply divided between North and South. Fortunately, the Electoral College was one influence that healed division and brought the country back together. Consider the fact that, given the electoral map in those days, Democrats could never win the presidency unless they won at least one state that leaned Republican. On the other hand, Republicans couldn’t afford to lose even one state if they wanted to keep the White House.

In short, both sides had incentives (whether they liked it or not) to reach a hand across the political aisle.  Those incentives ultimately brought our country to a healthier place. They can and will do the same today.

The Electoral College provides another benefit that too often goes unnoticed: It controls the effect of fraud and error on national vote totals.

In order to influence national vote totals today, you have to know when and where to steal a vote. And if one person can predict this location, then every poll watcher/lawyer in the nation can, too!  It is hard to steal votes where it matters the most. Moreover, when problems do occur, these issues can be isolated to one or a handful of states.

Now consider a world without the Electoral College: Any vote stolen in any part of the country would always affect the national tally. Dishonest people could easily steal votes in the bluest California precinct or the reddest Texas one, knowing that they would be affecting the final outcome.  Fraud would be rampant.

An American historian once said of the Founders’ views on their presidential election system: “[F]or of all things done in the convention,” Max Farrand wrote, “the members seemed to have been prouder of that than of any other, and they seemed to regard it as having solved the problem for any country of how to choose a chief magistrate.”

Any country.  Surely that would include 21st-century America.

3 Electoral College Myths

Electoral College Myth: Only Swing States Matter. Other States are Ignored.

Posted on September 12, 2012 by Tara Ross

Over the course of the next few weeks, I plan to post several myths about the Electoral College, along with the reasons that they are wrong.  I will try to do at least a few every week until the election, but if I don’t quite hit that goal, you’ll know that it has something to do with the two little kids that I have at home (both aged 5 and under). 
Myth: Most states are ignored by presidential campaigns because of the Electoral College. Only swing states matter. A direct election system would fix this.
Fact: There are two reasons why this perception is incorrect.
First, an honest assessment of American history shows that no state is permanently “safe” or “swing.” The identity of these states changes all the time. This year, we are hearing about all sorts of “new” swing states, such as Virginia, New Hampshire, and North Carolina.  Texas used to vote Democratic.  California used to vote Republican.  A whole slew of southern states voted for Bill Clinton, but would never dream of voting for Barack Obama.  Even if “only swing states matter,” these states are constantly changing.
Second, presidential elections are not only about the TV commercials and campaign visits in the final weeks and months leading into Election Day.  Presidential elections are as much about the four years of governance before the election as they are about the final commercials. How did California voters react when President Barack Obama decided not to allow construction of the Keystone Pipeline? How did Texas voters react when President George W. Bush issued his executive order prohibiting the use of federal funds for certain types of embryonic stem cell research? How many voters will not vote for Obama under any circumstance because of Obamacare? How many voters will love him forever for the same decision? Such decisions and their ramifications are part of governing, but they are also at least a part of “campaigning.” They do as much as a TV commercial (if not more) to influence voting decisions—as candidates and incumbents certainly know.
In short, “safe” states are not being ignored.  They have simply already made up their minds based upon the years of decisions that preceded the election. When a state ceases to be satisfied, it quickly lets its political party—and the world!—know. Such states either become safe for the opposite political party (as West Virginia did following the election of 2000) or they become a new swing state (as Virginia recently has).
At the end of the day, political parties and presidential candidates can’t ever ignore any state unless they want to risk losing that state’s electoral votes.

Electoral College Myth: The Founders Did Not Trust the People

Posted on September 14, 2012 by Tara Ross

Per my note on Wednesday, here is Myth #2 in my “Electoral College Myth” series.  Comments welcome!

Myth: The Founders created the Electoral College because they did not trust the people to govern themselves.

Fact: The Founders knew that the voice of the people must be reflected in the government if it was to be legitimate. At the Constitutional Convention, George Mason, delegate from Virginia, expressed this sentiment when he declared that “the genius of the people must be consulted.”  The Founders had just fought a revolution because the colonies had no representation in the British Parliament. They’d laid their lives on the line for this principle of democracy. They were not likely to give up on it so soon.

On the other hand, the delegates to the convention knew that pure democracies can be dangerous.  In a pure democracy, 51 percent of the people rule the other 49 percent. All the time. Without question. The Founders knew that, as a matter of history, pure democracies implode because, in the heat of the moment, even bare or emotional majorities can impose their will upon the rest of the people. They also knew that, even if the American colonies had been given representation in the British Parliament, Americans would have been outvoted time and again by the majority of citizens at home in England. Political minorities must be protected from tyrannical and unreasonable majorities if a country is to survive.

James Madison, delegate from Virginia, put it this way:

[In a pure democracy], [a] common passion or interest will, in almost every case, be felt by a majority of the whole; a communication and concert results from the form of government itself; and there is nothing to check the inducements to sacrifice the weaker party or an obnoxious individual. Hence it is that such democracies have ever been spectacles of turbulence and contention; have ever been found incompatible with personal security or the rights of property; and have in general been as short in their lives as they have been violent in their deaths.

The Founders wanted to create a self-governing society, but they also wanted to protect political minorities from the dangerous dynamics described by Madison. They solved their problem by drafting a Constitution that would incorporate the best elements of democracy (self-governance), republicanism (deliberation and compromise), and federalism (states are able to act on their own behalves).

America is self-governing, but our Constitution also provides political minorities with tools that protect them from the tyranny of the majority: For instance, we have a presidential veto.  We have supermajority requirements to amend the Constitution. We have a Senate with one state, one vote representation, as opposed to the House, with its one person, one vote representation.  The Electoral College is simply another of these protective devices.

The delegates to the Convention felt that they had created a presidential election system that would allow the majority to rule, even as it protected political minorities from tyrannical rule.  It is for this reason that Madison declared, “He [the President] is now to be elected by the people.” Another delegate, Alexander Hamilton, agreed that the new election system would allow the “sense of the people” to “operate in the choice of the [President].”

“The Founders did not trust the People” makes a snazzy sound bite. But the history of the Constitution and its Electoral College shows a much more nuanced picture.

Electoral College Myth: The Electoral College is Undemocratic

Posted on September 20, 2012 by Tara Ross

Myth number 3 in my series on Electoral College Myths!
Myth: The person who wins the national popular vote should win the White House. The Electoral College does not guarantee such results and is thus undemocratic.
Fact: The question is not “democracy” v. “no democracy.” The question is “democracy with federalism” (the Electoral College) v. “democracy without federalism” (a direct popular vote). Under our current system, America conducts 51 purely democratic elections each and every presidential election year—one in each state and one in D.C. This first phase of the election is what you think of as “Election Day.” These purely democratic, state-level elections determine which individuals (electors) will represent their states in a second phase of the election.  Part Two of the election occurs in December—with much less media fanfare!—and is a federalist election among the states.  There are 538 electors who participate in this election.  A majority of them (270) can elect a President.
America’s unique blend of democracy and federalism has served the country well because it encourages presidential candidates to create national coalitions. A candidate must do more than simply rack up a majority of voters in one region or among the voters of one special interest group. He must appeal to a variety of Americans before he can win 270 states’ electoral votes. A direct popular election would not create the same set of incentives. Instead, the candidate who obtains the most individual votes—even if they are obtained exclusively in one region or in a handful of urban areas—would be able to win the presidency.
America is a large and diverse country, composed of both large and small states.  It deserves a unique election process, ensuring that all voices are heard in the election of its President. The Electoral College, with its combination of democracy and federalism, has served the country well in this regard for more than 200 years.

Colorado Tries to Game Electoral College, Disenfranchise Local Voters

Colorado Tries to Game Electoral College, Disenfranchise Local Voters

By Steve Straub
January 28, 2019 at 5:49am

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Democrats hate beyond all reason to have a level playing field and to play fair but they hate President Trump even more.
Because of this the legislature in the once great state of Colorado is trying to game the electoral college in a way that would disenfranchise that state’s voters in favor of voters in New York and California, as local TV station KUSA reports:

A bill that would pledge all of Colorado’s nine electoral votes in presidential elections to the candidate who wins the national popular vote passed a state Senate committee Wednesday, sending it to the Senate floor for a vote.

Scores of professors, activists, lobbyists, and citizens filled the committee’s room, the nearby hallway, and a spillover room to hear the debate. Among them: newly elected Secretary of State Jena Griswold.

The bill is a partisan issue, some say, a rebuke of Donald Trump’s election in 2016. And many warned of unintended consequences, deepening fractures in an already-divided country.

The voters in the state of Colorado should be furious about this. Democrats are trying to make their votes meaningless in favor of California, New York, Illinois and other states.

Here’s more on this attempt to subvert the constitution and the electoral college from Colorado Politics:

The bill was proposed to Colorado’s Senate Committee on State, Veterans and Military Affairs by its chair, Sen. Mike Foote, D-Lafayette. And the committee passed it, voting along party lines after hours of testimony.

It’s part of a nationwide movement. Already 11 other states and the District of Columbia have adopted identical legislation, said Joe Miklosi, founder and CEO of Denver-based bridge consulting, who lobbies on behalf of the issue. Those states amount to 172 electoral votes of the 270 minimum to elect a president.

Colorado is one of seven other states expected to adopt the legislation this year, Miklosi said. Enough states, totaling those 270 votes at a minimum, must also pass the legislation before the agreement is activated.

Already, five presidents have won the 270 electoral votes without also winning the popular vote. Two of those presidents — Trump and George W. Bush — were elected within the last two decades.

The National Popular Vote bill would prevent such a scenario from happening again. That is, if enough other states follow suit.

The bill is about “every vote being equal and every vote mattering in every presidential election, regardless of where the voter lives. Right now, millions of voters across the country cannot say that,” Foote said.

This attempt to subvert the Constitution is all about defeating Republicans and their hatred of President Trump.
While Democrats clearly hate the President, they hate those of us who voted for him even more.
We are the real enemy in the eyes of the Democrats.

People love Medicare for All until they're told it'll raise taxes

People love Medicare for All until they're told it'll raise taxes 

People love Medicare for All until they're told it'll raise their taxes

Ricardo Alonso-zaldivar,

Associated Press

Jan. 26, 2019, 9:39 AM

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez speaks at the Women's March 2019 on January 19.

John Lamparski/Getty Images

• Support for "Medicare-for-all" plunges when people are asked if they'd pay higher taxes or put up with treatment delays to get it, a survey by the nonpartisan Kaiser Family Foundation finds.
• The poll found that Americans initially support "Medicare-for-all," 56% to 42%.
• Support increased when people learned "Medicare-for-all" would guarantee health insurance as a right (71%) and eliminate premiums and reduce out-of-pocket costs (67%).
• But if they were told that a government-run system could lead to delays in getting care or higher taxes, support plunged to 26% and 37%, respectively.

WASHINGTON (AP) — "Medicare-for-all" makes a good first impression, but support plunges when people are asked if they'd pay higher taxes or put up with treatment delays to get it.

The survey, released Wednesday by the nonpartisan Kaiser Family Foundation, comes as Democratic presidential hopefuls embrace the idea of a government-run health care system, considered outside the mainstream of their party until Vermont independent Sen. Bernie Sanders made it the cornerstone of his 2016 campaign.

Sen. Bernie Sanders

Tasos Katopodis/Getty Images

President Donald Trump is opposed, saying "Medicare-for-all" would "eviscerate" the current program for seniors.

The poll found that Americans initially support "Medicare-for-all," 56% to 42%.

However, those numbers shifted dramatically when people were asked about the potential impact, pro and con.

Support increased when people learned "Medicare-for-all" would guarantee health insurance as a right (71%) and eliminate premiums and reduce out-of-pocket costs (67%).

But if they were told that a government-run system could lead to delays in getting care or higher taxes, support plunged to 26% and 37%, respectively.

Read more:Here are some of the biggest arguments against Bernie Sanders' 'Medicare for All' plan, which is gaining popularity among Democrats

"The issue that will really be fundamental would be the tax issue," said Robert Blendon, a professor at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health who reviewed the poll. He pointed out that state single-payer efforts in Vermont and Colorado failed because of concerns about the tax increases needed to put them in place.

President Donald Trump is opposed to "Medicare-for-all," saying it would "eviscerate" the current program for seniors.

Evan Vucci/AP

There doesn't seem to be much disagreement that a single-payer system would require tax increases, since the government would take over premiums now paid by employers and individuals as it replaces the private health insurance industry. The question is how much.

Several independent studies have estimated that government spending on health care would increase dramatically, in the range of about $25 trillion to $35 trillion or more over a 10-year period. But a recent estimate from the Political Economy Research Institute at the University of Massachusetts in Amherst suggests that it could be much lower.

With significant cost savings, the government would need to raise about $1.1 trillion from new revenue sources in the first year of the new program.

House Budget Committee Chairman John Yarmuth, D-Ky., has asked the Congressional Budget Office for a comprehensive report on single-payer. The CBO is a nonpartisan outfit that analyzes the potential cost and impact of legislation.

Its estimate that millions would be made uninsured by Republican bills to repeal the Affordable Care Act was key to the survival of President Barack Obama's health care law.

Mollyann Brodie, director of the Kaiser poll, said the big swings in approval and disapproval show that the debate over "Medicare-for-all" is in its infancy. "You immediately see that opinion is not set in stone on this issue," she said.

It's a key issue for Democrats going into the 2020 presidential election, but Republicans are solidly opposed.

"Any public debate about 'Medicare-for-all' will be a divisive issue for the country at large," Brodie said.

The poll indicated widespread support for two other ideas advanced by Democrats as alternatives to a health care system fully run by the government.

The Congressional Budget Office estimated that millions would be made uninsured by Republican bills to repeal the Affordable Care Act.

Win McNamee/Getty Images

Majorities across the political spectrum backed allowing people ages 50-64 to buy into Medicare, as well as allowing people who don't have health insurance on the job to buy into their state's Medicaid program.

Separately, another private survey out Wednesday finds the uninsured rate among US adults rose to 13.7% in the last three months of 2018. The Gallup National Health and Well-Being Index found an increase of 2.8 percentage points since 2016, the year Trump was elected promising to repeal "Obamacare." That would translate to about 7 million more uninsured adults.

Government surveys have found that the uninsured rate has remained essentially stable under Trump.

The Kaiser Health Tracking Poll was conducted Jan. 9-14 and involved random calls to the cellphones and landlines of 1,190 adults. The margin of sampling error for all respondents is plus or minus 3 percentage points.

Why We Are a Republic, Not a Democracy

Why We Are a Republic, Not a Democracy

Walter Williams | January 19, 2018 | 35,988

Hillary Clinton blamed the Electoral College for her stunning defeat in the 2016 presidential election in her latest memoirs, “What Happened.”

Some have claimed that the Electoral College is one of the most dangerous institutions in American politics.

Why? They say the Electoral College system, as opposed to a simple majority vote, distorts the one-person, one-vote principle of democracy because electoral votes are not distributed according to population.

To back up their claim, they point out that the Electoral College gives, for example, Wyoming citizens disproportionate weight in a presidential election.

Put another way, Wyoming, a state with a population of about 600,000, has one member in the House of Representatives and two members in the U.S. Senate, which gives the citizens of Wyoming three electoral votes, or one electoral vote per 200,000 people.

California, our most populous state, has more than 39 million people and 55 electoral votes, or approximately one vote per 715,000 people.

Comparatively, individuals in Wyoming have nearly four times the power in the Electoral College as Californians.

Many people whine that using the Electoral College instead of the popular vote and majority rule is undemocratic. I’d say that they are absolutely right. Not deciding who will be the president by majority rule is not democracy.

But the Founding Fathers went to great lengths to ensure that we were a republic and not a democracy. In fact, the word democracy does not appear in the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, or any other of our founding documents.

How about a few quotations expressed by the Founders about democracy?

In Federalist Paper No. 10, James Madison wanted to prevent rule by majority faction, saying, “Measures are too often decided, not according to the rules of justice and the rights of the minor party, but by the superior force of an interested and overbearing majority.”

John Adams warned in a letter, “Remember democracy never lasts long. It soon wastes, exhausts, and murders itself. There never was a democracy yet, that did not commit suicide.”

Edmund Randolph said, “That in tracing these evils to their origin, every man had found it in the turbulence and follies of democracy.”

Then-Chief Justice John Marshall observed, “Between a balanced republic and a democracy, the difference is like that between order and chaos.”

The Founders expressed contempt for the tyranny of majority rule, and throughout our Constitution, they placed impediments to that tyranny. Two houses of Congress pose one obstacle to majority rule. That is, 51 senators can block the wishes of 435 representatives and 49 senators.

The president can veto the wishes of 535 members of Congress. It takes two-thirds of both houses of Congress to override a presidential veto.

To change the Constitution requires not a majority but a two-thirds vote of both houses, and if an amendment is approved, it requires ratification by three-fourths of state legislatures.

Finally, the Electoral College is yet another measure that thwarts majority rule. It makes sure that the highly populated states—today, mainly 12 on the east and west coasts, cannot run roughshod over the rest of the nation. That forces a presidential candidate to take into consideration the wishes of the other 38 states.

Those Americans obsessed with rule by popular majorities might want to get rid of the Senate, where states, regardless of population, have two senators.

Should we change representation in the House of Representatives to a system of proportional representation and eliminate the guarantee that each state gets at least one representative?

Currently, seven states with populations of 1 million or fewer have one representative, thus giving them disproportionate influence in Congress.

While we’re at it, should we make all congressional acts by majority rule? When we’re finished with establishing majority rule in Congress, should we then move to change our court system, which requires unanimity in jury decisions, to a simple majority rule?

My question is: Is it ignorance of or contempt for our Constitution that fuels the movement to abolish the Electoral College?