how would having direct elections for the office of President make it harder to return to having such a government?

This last election demonstrated it.

Guy, your response does not answer any of the questions I asked Dena. Further, your response is nonsensical, as there were no direct elections for the office of President in the last election.

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I think you'll find it's a bit more complicated than that ...

It will be a sad day if we do ever vote for the President (which we are not that far from doing now). For those who don't understand why here is a good place to start.

From the site you linked:

The definition of a Republic is: a constitutionally limited government of the representative type, created by a written Constitution--adopted by the people and changeable (from its original meaning) by them only by its amendment--with its powers divided between three separate Branches: Executive, Legislative and Judicial. Here the term "the people" means, of course, the electorate.

Let's assume, for the sake of argument, that this definition of "republic" is correct. How would a constitutional amendment to replace the electoral college with direct voting in Presidential elections result in the US no longer being a republic?

The only way a Republic can work is by not concentrating all the power in one group. The original plan was to have the people elect the house, The senate was selected by the state. We wouldn't vote for a president but would instead elect a body who would select the best person for the job and the Supreme court would be filled by the president who would not select by politics but instead by ability to follow the words of the constitution.
We now select the court by politics, we elect a Senate /House and for the most part we are electing the president by popular vote. We have no longer have protection against mob rule and the proof of this is the 2008 election. For two years, much destruction was done to the country and it still continues today without anybody to stop it.
The truth is we haven't been a republic for a long time. The year 1913 started the march to a democracy but it didn't really kick in till FDR and all of his actions to try and get us out of the Great Depression but instead drove us deeper into the Depression.
The short answer is we haven't been a Republic for a long time so it would make little difference but it makes it harder to return to being a Republic.
P.S. Look at the Constitutional amendments passed in 1913. The were designed to destroy the Republic by giving the progressive party the money and power required for big government.

How do you square "little difference" with "sad day"? How did the amendments passed in 1913 (giving Congress the power to levy and income tax, and normalizing the election of Senators, I say normalizing, as it was a fairly widespread practice prior to 1913, source) result in the United States no longer having "a constitutionally limited government of the representative type"? Assuming you can show this, how would having direct elections for the office of President make it harder to return to having such a government?

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I think you'll find it's a bit more complicated than that ...

...FDR and all of his actions to try and get us out of the Great Depression but instead drove us deeper into the Depression.

Hrmmmm. and Who got us out of that recession then?

Tojo.

That is one answer and the other one is the Truman Tax Cuts. WWI was a very controlled economy and we would have crashed again had the Republicans not forced Truman to pass lower tax rates. A good book on this time period is New Deal or Raw Deal

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...FDR and all of his actions to try and get us out of the Great Depression but instead drove us deeper into the Depression.

Hrmmmm. and Who got us out of that recession then?

Tojo.

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...FDR and all of his actions to try and get us out of the Great Depression but instead drove us deeper into the Depression.

Hrmmmm. and Who got us out of that recession then?

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#resist

It will be a sad day if we do ever vote for the President (which we are not that far from doing now). For those who don't understand why here is a good place to start.

From the site you linked:

The definition of a Republic is: a constitutionally limited government of the representative type, created by a written Constitution--adopted by the people and changeable (from its original meaning) by them only by its amendment--with its powers divided between three separate Branches: Executive, Legislative and Judicial. Here the term "the people" means, of course, the electorate.

Let's assume, for the sake of argument, that this definition of "republic" is correct. How would a constitutional amendment to replace the electoral college with direct voting in Presidential elections result in the US no longer being a republic?

The only way a Republic can work is by not concentrating all the power in one group. The original plan was to have the people elect the house, The senate was selected by the state. We wouldn't vote for a president but would instead elect a body who would select the best person for the job and the Supreme court would be filled by the president who would not select by politics but instead by ability to follow the words of the constitution.
We now select the court by politics, we elect a Senate /House and for the most part we are electing the president by popular vote. We have no longer have protection against mob rule and the proof of this is the 2008 election. For two years, much destruction was done to the country and it still continues today without anybody to stop it.
The truth is we haven't been a republic for a long time. The year 1913 started the march to a democracy but it didn't really kick in till FDR and all of his actions to try and get us out of the Great Depression but instead drove us deeper into the Depression.
The short answer is we haven't been a Republic for a long time so it would make little difference but it makes it harder to return to being a Republic.
P.S. Look at the Constitutional amendments passed in 1913. The were designed to destroy the Republic by giving the progressive party the money and power required for big government.

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It will be a sad day if we do ever vote for the President (which we are not that far from doing now). For those who don't understand why here is a good place to start.

From the site you linked:

The definition of a Republic is: a constitutionally limited government of the representative type, created by a written Constitution--adopted by the people and changeable (from its original meaning) by them only by its amendment--with its powers divided between three separate Branches: Executive, Legislative and Judicial. Here the term "the people" means, of course, the electorate.

Let's assume, for the sake of argument, that this definition of "republic" is correct. How would a constitutional amendment to replace the electoral college with direct voting in Presidential elections result in the US no longer being a republic?

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I think you'll find it's a bit more complicated than that ...

don't talk about the distinction between a democracy and a republic.

That is the one thing I wanted to see asked in the debates but I don't think Obama or Romney could have handled the question and I don't think any of the moderators if they understood the question wanted to damage Obama with it.

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It will be a sad day if we do ever vote for the President (which we are not that far from doing now). For those who don't understand why here is a good place to start.

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I vote no of the above!

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i really think they need to end the ability of voters to undo legislation. That defeats the purpose of elections and actually having representatives do their(our) work for us. If a legislator can't do his job they should stop doing in and allow direct voting on how the yahoos want their state run since they clearly don't like anything produced

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In a rich man's house there is no place to spit but his face.
Diogenes Of Sinope

Thats how Cali operates

Everywhere there are propositions ...

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Thats how Cali operates

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In a rich man's house there is no place to spit but his face.
Diogenes Of Sinope

Come on, get with the spirit of democracy. Every registered voter should have an office and staff in Washington DC. Each of them should draw a paycheck from the treasury.

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I think we can go with fewer representatives that 6k+. We live in a highly advanced communication age. I doubt it would be necessary to split districts so small that every small town has its own representative.

I'd think somewhere in the middle would work better. The one problem is the size of Congress. There just isn't room to seat 3-6000 people in the House. Let alone the office space needed for all those folks.

One nice would be reduced paychecks for reps. Less people represented should mean less money spent on each congressman

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In a rich man's house there is no place to spit but his face.
Diogenes Of Sinope

Skil, I really like that solution. It would make the electoral college an accurate reflection of the popular vote, and not allow for unfair advantage to any population big or small. It would however have to be updated regularly to reflect changes in population. Perhaps use Census info for it, and update once per decade. Too bad we can't write a cron script for the government.

On the face of it I cant see any objection to it. But I admit that I'm not that well versed in USA politics so there is probably an angle that I haven't thought of.

Since the election process is part of our Constitution we'd have to go through a constitiution amendment to change the process.
Another biproduct of this is, of course, have a better representation of a population. Some states get under represented while others are overly represented
Also note that by changing to what I describe we'd have diffent numbers of congressmen every 10 years. It wouldn't be a set number. We currently already use the census numbers to adjust how many electoral votes each state has already.

Or, we could just do something a bit easier. Remember, the original bill of rights had 12 articles, not 10. Article 3 through 12 got ratified and became Amendments 1 through 10. Article 2 finally got ratified in 1992, becoming the 27th amendment.

Now all we need is article 1 to get Ratified.

Article the first
After the first enumeration required by the first article of the Constitution, there shall be one Representative for every thirty thousand, until the number shall amount to one hundred, after which the proportion shall be so regulated by Congress, that there shall be not less than one hundred Representatives, nor less than one Representative for every forty thousand persons, until the number of Representatives shall amount to two hundred; after which the proportion shall be so regulated by Congress, that there shall not be less than two hundred Representatives, nor more than one Representative for every fifty thousand persons.

Yep, 1 Representative per every 50,000 people. That would be currently... hmm.. about 6,300 or so Representatives in the House. Not 435. Even North Dakota would have 14 Representatives instead of the ONE they currently have. California would have 747 instead of the 53 they currently have. The effect of the 2 electors representing the 'senate seats' of each state would be GREATLY diminished.

Besides, the increased number of members of the House would make it easier for more than 2 parties to gain seats. And that is, after all, one of the reasons why the two major parties (Democrats and Republicans) decided in 1911 to fix (with rare exceptions) the number of House members at 435. Fewer election races... easier to control and monopolize...


So, how about it? Should we ratify the LAST one of the original bill of rights left unratified?

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https://youtu.be/iY57ErBkFFE

#Texit

Don't blame me, I voted for Johnson(L) in 2016.

Truth is dangerous... especially when it challenges those in power.

I always assumed the Republic was a simplification of the latin res publica meaning the public thing.
Therefore a democratic state which elects its leader.

Wouldn't a more accurate reflection of the popular vote be a pure democracy? If we want a more accurate reflection of the popular vote, why don't we just move to a pure democracy?

What do you mean by "pure democracy"? The Athenian model with a modern version of citizenship?

To skildude, what do you mean by "republic"? According to Madison it seems to be what most people would nowadays consider representative democracy. Before Madison, Machiavelli defined republic as nation where head of state was not a monarch, the same definition appears to be the widely accepted to this day (which might explain why there are British republicans, when Britain already has a functioning representative democracy).

Having done a little more research on the subject of the electoral college, it seems that its raison d'être may not have been to ensure low population states had additional input into the outcome of the Presidential election (this appears to be a side effect of it's primary purpose). Instead, the electoral college is hangover from the 3/5s compromise, a compromise reached in order to give a greater share of delegates (and representatives) to the south, than would have been the case if the basis were only full citizens.

As the Republican party was founded to end slavery, it would seem that the same party should be in opposition to the result of the compromise, and be actively campaigning for the removal of the electoral college. Who knows, with that as an objective, the party may pick up support from a wider section of society ...

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I think you'll find it's a bit more complicated than that ...