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Show f & 5WIiYWSWtflB1W r w rw 'L- & r rr f V Mkm "y 1 " yfor lit M 1 111 j J - F. '.;,s? ' e r'Jsr' jj. ibJJ J f.J1 i. f, kt.--- I 5 Jk da jtw , wto- ,? V $. A y u z . wv. ; V ' v g ; avl C l A y s j r":i y 5 1 7 A funny thing I;;v ;v Jr A X v4 Sr '"J If i! J 1 r'- iV , v tsy a tr i y...i., - 5 '$ i ).li.--M2- w. 'Se " could happen on the way to the White House - 876, Samuel Tllden, left, won by 260,000 votes, but was shy one Electoral College vote. Rutherford Hayes was chosen. In B Richard L Strout 1 3?v Sfrrai Jf c.W.WH4fi Christian Science Monitor News Service v i ' 'a v '? 4 SjkVieve V v -- s . - s i . Before going into this V r t n year's election, consider these facts: x The Democrats put up Samuel Tllden, reform governor of New York, in 1876 against A & Rutherford B Hayes, and he won by 260,000 f ay-- v votes But he needed 185 Electoral College J J'p votes ood had only 184 So a commission of 15 was set up which voted on straight party lines, C and Hayes became President, 8 to 7 Fortunately, the nation kept calm and avoided $ bloodshed - sft A; 4fc1 Grover Cleveland was renominated by the Democrats in 1888 and won by a popular 2 majority of 100,000 over obscure Benjamin Hamson of Indiana. But Cleveland got only 168 votes in the Electoral College while S Hamson got 277, so Harrison became President President Harry Truman m 1948 got an immense popular majority of two million votes but a shift of 30,000 votes in three states e tN? ' wtfh j Vi would have swung the Electoral College the ml iflr. other way. Governor Thomas Dewey of New 1 w?jwrtfaVaifci 'ini limttfi York would have been President; (XX) Grover Cievtand, left, got 100, majority, but had In 1960 almost 70 million voted, and Nixon and John Kennedy each received 49 1 only 168 Electoral votes in 888 to Ben Harrison's 277. percent in a virtual and extraordinary standoff There were unpledged delegates in Spy? ywwwsjsjiww Mississippi and Alabama, and a shift of only , ' 'v,.. 8 71 popular votes from Kennedy to Nixon in Illinois and Missouri would have resulted in an ktr Electoral College deadlock In such a deadlock it is a (ruess who would have won Jt In 1968 Rickard Nixon was elected FKS - ,, A . tf President, but a shift of only 42,000 popular votes in three slates would have denied any candidate an electoral majority The independent candidate. George Wallace, with 46 electoral votes, would have held the balance of y w ! power to make such bargain as he coukl JPW between Nixon and Humphrey If it happened, vw. t V' he told a reporter of the Richmond, Va., News , would a in he demand say Leader in May 1967, picking Supreme Court justices as the pnee of his support ia Yes, a funny thing could happen on the way to the election m 1976, and it always can happen so long as that strange Electoral College anachronism remains in the presidential system Melodramas based on Washington are popular thse days so let us compose our own script and use real names to make it more htelike (though you can substitute any names vou want on the Republican and Democratic sides In short, let's reminisce about the future A shift of only 30,000 votes in three states would have swung So. now it is a snowy eve on the first Harry Truman's 1 948 victory over to Thomas Dewey, left. Tuesday after the first Monday of November 1976 Nov. 2. to be exact and the whole nation is sitting on edge to hear the results of an extraordinary contest. team on It is between the y team on one side, and the the other (yes. Senator Humphrey has consented to run again in second placet, and there i' also the surprising new third party, mad at ho;h older parties and combining the angry elements against busing, detente, the Panama Treaty . and foreign aid that were previously attracted to candidacies of Wallace and Reagan after ? Who will tver forget that night ears it has finally happened "Whether or not abolish the Electoral College has been the longtst standing debate m American political science. observes Stephen Hess in hi book The Presidential Campaign" iBrookincs i jsiT-Generally it is a contest among the TV networks as to whuh will extrapolate the result first from the early samplings CBS has said Ford on the basis uf the first I percent NBC has declared Carter on the. basis of the first 2 percent .And hesitant ABC has said it just dees rot know on the basis of the first 5 percent Vnd around 11 p m the awed natiew hears a The strange Electoral College anachronism remains, and another I niv ac forecast that there will be no Electoral College majority presidential melodrama could unfold in the November balloting. The third party is doing better than Strom Thurmonds States Rightr Party in 1948. when the i anoti' party slates up to btutv legislam.ijonty of iV eleetoia! voles over Jimmy it go 39 electoral votes, and better than tures Carter s 23S Why doesn't that elect Ford" Wallace's American Independent Party m "Alia." stutter the announcers "you have Generally the slate belonging to the party 19bS, when it got 45. not been brushing up on your Constitution whose candidate wins a plurality of votes in So on Nov . 3. 1976. the bleary-eyethe November popular election is chosen As recently ! There must be an absolute majoi shadow-jowieannouncers, hoarse, sunken-eyeAnd to show that the TV studio i not electors, they have no obligation to vote for are si ill uul!uig. TVj lock sourly at tneir partys candidate but are free io use playing hicks u& iiir loitls Clio these results on the screen: flashes the actual words of Article II. Section their own judgment Pwwdar 1, on the Electoral screen, including the ancient This Nov. 2 election has not been the real Vote capitalization. election The real election comes Monday, Party 250 S3 million Republicans (Ford! Dec 20, in the state capitals. The real electors "The Person having the greatest Number 238 million Democrats iCarterl will cast their votes and send the ballots to a f Votes shall be the if such 50 15 million Independents Number be a Majority of the whole Number of joint session of the Senate and House Jan 6, 1 1977. when they will be opened at p m The public cannot understand Why are the Electors appointed. the ordinary people, the mm in the announcers so upset President Ford has won, The controlling phrase is "if such number street, you and me, decide such an important hasn't he? be a majority." What is a majority? Each as next Here matter what the is president? an received No candidate has Not at all. state gets one elector for every senator and delegate George Mason wrote ta 1787absolute majority of the electoral vote There representative it sends to Washington, with Tt would be as natural to refer the choice has been an intrusion of that forgotten three more added for the District of Columbia a of to for chief p roiier character magistrate phenomenon, the Electoral College. That is a total of 538 (since there are 100 people, as it w ould to refer a tnal of colors senators and 433 members of the House. So a The popular vote does not decide. The the to a blind man The decide. to Electoral the College majority is 270. And Mr. Ford is lacking 20 delegates That was the thinking of the day But this is electors of a majority faceless because they faceless men decide 1976 (to go on with our scenario' and the man m have been chosen w ithout fanfare There are those deeply attached to the the street cannot understand. system, but it has its awkward aspects. For Many Americens don't know how they are he exclaims. "Maybe the "So what chosen Political parties nominate slates of example, if Ford this November gets 4,0H.(kX electors who are pledged, but not legally popular vote does not directly decide the popular votes in New York and Jimmy Carter presidency, and the Electoral College vote committed, to their partys candidates The gets 4 tVO.001. all 41 of the electoral votes go to Carter. Constitution loaves rules for choosing one of docs, but here President Ford has a clear-cWASHINGTON S. v- k y 4..A -r ut 'yr e. v - 71 jf. ' ,y ;v V' ft Ford-Richards- Carter-Humphre- 1 1 d Why-shoul- ut 1823 "1 have even considered the constitutional mode of election ultimately by the legislature voting by states as the most dangerous blot on our Constitution, and one which some unlucky chance will some day hit. Will some day hit that is Jefferson s phrase It could hit at any election But what does Jefferson mean by the words "the legislature voting by states" Let us proceed with our 1976 scenario, which presupposes for the sake of elucidation that neither candidate has an electoral majority of 270. What happens? The election goes into the House of Representatives which, says the Constitution, shall immediately choose by ballot" a president from the three highest contenders. But note that "in choosing the President, the votes shall be taken by states, the representation from each state having one vote . . Yes, one state, one vote There are 50 states, and Alaska gets one v ote and California pets one v ote ; New York, w 1U1 41 coiigresmen 39 representatives and 2 senators and 17 million people, is equal to Nevada, with three congressmen (one representative and two senators) and 300,000 people A year after the close election of 1968 the House of Representatives approved a constitutional amendment to abolish the Electoral College and substitute direct popular vote so it also would abolish the winner-take-aunit rule by which state electoral votes are presently east. There would be no more faceless electors, one-vot- e there would be one-main presidential elections for the nation The House voted ll n, 339 to 70 A handsome congressman, Republican leader Gel aid R. Fold, led the drive against "the archaic, outdated, outmoded method" that might someday deprive some future winner of a popular majority for the presidency of the victory, throw the nation into confusion, and precipitate a constitutional crisis President Nixon supported the amendment. Such strange bedfellows as the U S Chamber of Commerce and the AFL-CIsupported it, along with the League of Women Voters, the American Bar Association, and groups of other business associations Speakers in the debate pointed out other oddities For example, the House picks the president, while the Senate picks the vice president. It would be too simple to have them do it the same way: Article II, Section 1 prescribes that while the House is deciding who is president from the top three contenders. voting by states the Senate is picking the vice president from the top two contenders voting by individuals. (Theoretically the House could pick a Republican and the Senate a i.val Democrat The Constitution guarantees the nght of each elector to use his own judgment, although when one of them occasionally does in defiance of supposed alliance, he is called "faithless When the proposed 1969 House amendment came to the Senate there were strong opponents Some argued that majority rule v ould weaken small states. Others contended that minority groups in big states would lose an adv outage bv v oting as ethnic or economic O bloc After long delays a fi: buster began and a cloture vote, 53 to 34. was short of the By this time urgency necessary had ev aporated Twice in hi'ton, like a bum hit b stuu lightning the potent Eieetoial College has strut. L m 18X and m 1924. the House told the publu who was president. There have been numerous near misses Intermittently the owner of the bam has decided to put up a hghtnmg rod. but always something intervened Wien the political storm raged it was too late, skies were suiuiy, there was no need As for the scenario of this article failure to get an electoral majority of 270, it almost certainly will not happen in H76 For one thing, there is no strong third party But the danger is there, and we should certamiy do something about it. Some other time; not now. two-thir- c uiii 'te Won PO Bo low-co- It is of this system that Thomas Jefferson wrote m ft i W, A Mr-- , Do-- 125, 8 to .ra Utah Ml iO '6. Te Chrtir Soeoc f6 .srtTO iocS 200 years OQOm SJ July 7 A local authority reported that the Lancaster, Pa . toten mii tta were having difficulty in coping with British prison being sent fo the community. So many Americans had gone fo Sew Jersey due to the threat of mrosioH that the prisoners trere outnumbering their guards . rs-of-war P 't Theyre sticking by guns I am outraged and incensed over the tactics used after months of negotiation about a claim my wife sent to Bine Cross and Blue Shield, Memphis. Tens. After a while they sent me another form to fill out for more information. I finally got a notice the claim was less than the deductible. But my Insurance is tbe high option without any deductible. Will you try to get through to them? L.F., Ogden. They are sticking by their guns. Yom claim was for $86 But your wife's coulraci dues have a $100 deductible in spite of w hat you think Seems your wife works for a firm which has more than one group insurance contract with BX. One group doesn't have a deductible; hers does. To further refute you, they say that they have no record of returning your claim w i th another form asking for more informtion. If you have a rebuttal, write to William S. Boyd Jr., Director, Blue Cross Blue Shield Claims, Memphis. Too many policies Oa Memorial Day my kasbasd had a bad fall and has been in the hospital ever since. I Hied a claim with the Combined Insurance Co., of America. Chicago, bat have heard nothing. We have had w they tell ns our policies with them since 1971 policies elapsed over a year ago. How could this be? We have all our canceled checks which shew the premiums we have paid. Can you do something? Mrs. R.F.B., Park City. Seems you had policies you don't know about Either that or the communication has been poor between you and the company andor your husband When you wrote them jou mentioned two policy numbers These are no longer in force. But in another letter you mentioned two other pobey numbers These ore m force They have now sent you a claim form to complete and return to their claims Department " Darling of the lobbyist group WASHINGTON It is still common practice an Capitol Hill for the special interests to pay off ' cooperative congressmen. Tbe congressmen may to use the it simply pocket money or pay their expenses. They may show their gratitude, thereafter, by voting for tbe specif interests. If this sounds like- -' bribery, it is perfectly legal under the laws that cofu gressmen have devised to regulate their own conduct' The laws merely require that the legislators pay .. taxes on tbe money that is diverted to their personal. use. Take the case of Rem William C. Wampler, R Va., who is known among,' his mountain constituents as "the bald eagle of ta.T-- i an affectionate reference to Ins' Cumberland, hairless pate. He is known even more affectionately among the lobbyists who inhabit Capitol Hill as the 7? t. darling of the special mterests. He is partial to the coal, dairy and agribusiness interests, but he has also been a fnend to the banKTS, and tiie oil companies These mterests have returned1 his friendship by contributing heavily to his " tion campaigns 1973-718 these interests For months during contributed to a special fund that he used to purchase supplies, publish a newsletter and pay for automobile trips back and forth to his district In other words, he collected money from special mterests with his left hand to buy offic-esupplies At tiie same time, he drew money from thd " government with his right hand to pay for office supplies Some of this monev wound up instead in his oa u pocket. Thus indirectly. Wampler benefited personally from tiie contributions he received from the special interests He also voted down the line for thsS mterests. Th.s raises a sticky question: when does a contribution become a bribe? Legally , the bald eagle appears to be in the dear. Wampler told us that he had made ever conscious effort to comply w ith the law " He added, with apparent iru entv I have been just as honest as I know how to be. Now let's examine the record. In 1974, he collected $5,000 from the dairy mterests for his reeieetion campaign. The following year he voted on miee sepal ate txvasuiiia iu iiURisc pilCC supports for the dairy industry. Wampler has also collected thousands of dollars from the coal operators, both tor his election campaigns and fur his special fund At tiie same tune, he has championed tbe coal operators on Capitol Hill. Few other members of Congress have received such heavy financial support from agribusiness mterests. He has accepted money, for example, from the Committee for the Advancement of Cotton, Cotton. Warehouse Government Relations Committee, Com-.- , mittee Organized for the Trading of Cotton, and Amt ncan Textile Industry. Last year, he voted to increase govenune&U subsidies on cotton and to grant Cotton Inc. $3 million to promote cotton research. ; m ")! ieele. lie acknowledged to us that he has made $300 & his government allowance at the same time $500 on that he collected money from the special interests Jo help pay his stationery bills. He stressed that he paid laves on tiie money that wound up in Ids pocket. (c) WW Un4d Fttur SymKrts Inc. i si Stt Lxe City How many companies make Websters dictionaries? We were interested since we have bad several inquiries and complaints about some companies not filling orders. We learned from an Action Line counterpart on an eastern newspaper that there are at least four. They arc Webster Dictionary Co . 1775 Broadway, N Y . .e Webster Dictionary Co , 625 N. Michigan Ave . Chicago. HI . Webster's International Press, Inc , Box 488. Murray Hill Station, X Y., and G. & C. Memarn Co , Springfield, Mass. Seems anyone can print up a dictionary and call it Webster's Appears the last named has the best track on ol 1 Noah They say they bought the rights to the famous dictionary from Websters heirs in 1844, just a year after Ins death Mernam is now a subsidiary' of Encyclopedia Bntanmca. They have filed complaints against The Webster's Dictionary ro , with the FTC and the National Council of BBB. Two legal actions are pending, one by N Y. Consumers Affairs Bureau and the other by th district attorney's office in Orange County. Calif. Mernam does not offer cut pnee dictionaries and offers urges caution on f v ;; . i v kvZ. 5V - to LINE Be careful about dictionaries riv i I- - OUR READERS' ACTION Writ ' , -- i' S'-- v ti r a z s w ' fc T t ,t'lSi'Vsw V ' hr- A3 , M - k i '(; 7, 1976 to i vj 'Tt i , w ' t l " iiA ' 'bi ? T??" 4 J $ 1 , , DESERET NEWS, WEDNESDAY, JULY v - J , H - ..yr ly J' 'w " j f SLJSJ V |