True to their trust
Let’s hear it for the Faithful Electors
IT USED to be called the problem of the Faithless Electors, those who refused to follow their pledge to cast a state’s electoral ballots in accordance with the instructions of their state legislatures and of the voters themselves. Lest we forget, We the People do not vote for president directly in this representative system of government, but for a slate of electors pledged to support the presidential candidate of our choice. But this year, our six duly elected and certified electors—one for each of the state’s four congressional seats plus two at-large—stayed true to their pledge and all went off without a hitch. Whew.
To quote one of the faithful electors, Gayla Paschalle of Little Rock, “I’m really here to exercise my civil rights. I could have stayed home. It’s a really cold morning.” But she did her duty, just like all the other electors. They’ll all do to tie to, as used to be said of units that held their place in the line of fire despite all the enemy’s best efforts to break them. Or just encourage them to desert and return home to their wives and families.
This year each elector wore his/her insignia of rank, too: a small round pin to show they were members of an elite group, the Electoral College of the United States, and not some mob intent on bending others to their personal will. Or handing off their votes to the highest bidder. All of them went by not just the letter of the law but its spirit. And all was peaceable, even friendly, as electors mingled with protesters, thanking them for being there to express their views in the most peaceable, even friendly, fashion. So do self-respecting and others-respecting citizens of a Republic show that they understand that united we stand, divided we fall. Civility was the order of the day, not ordering others about under the guise of telling them to follow their own conscience.
One of this state’s electors, Keith Gibson of Lavaca, said he’d been the recipient of almost 70,000 emails, 100 letters and a dozen phone calls urging him to follow his conscience, do his duty, and stand up against any rush to misjudgment—and, sure enough, he’d done all of the above by voting for Donald Trump as the next and 45th president of the United States.
It wasn’t clear how many among this deluge of demands to buck the Founders’ system had actually come from Arkansans and how many were just mass-produced by out-of-state outfits. Whatever its origin, Elector Gibson said he never considered voting for anyone but The Donald for president. That’s what he’d said he’d do and that’s what he did. To him and his fellow electors, it was as simple as that—and as complex as a system of representative government rather than one that follows the lead of a dictator and obeying his every whim.
No matter how high the piles of paper appeals mounted, it didn’t seem to matter to these distinguished citizens and electors, who weren’t about to make a big deal of just doing their duty and following the will of the people. Good for them and good for all who just do their duty without a lot of fuss-n-feathers and histrionics in general. It shouldn’t take a mailing list and lots of pre-fabricated appeals to get citizens to just do what’s right without all these high-pressure tactics and the rest of the rigamarole that goes with it. Why urge folks to follow somebody else’s conscience? They have a conscience of their own, thank you, and one should more than suffice.
TO READ all these supposedly high-minded appeals and how they’re different from politics as she is usually played brings to mind Huey Long’s distinction between high popalorum and low popahirum. One was taken from the top of the tree down and the other from the bottom of the tree up. Why not just tell it with the bark off, and let the Devil take the hindmost? Which greatly simplifies matters and, what’s more, allows those who practice honest candor to sleep better o’nights. Unlike a contemporary version of Cassius, who was forever pacing the floor and wondering how much devilment he could put his fellow citizens up to by calling it conscience instead of opportunism.
Just let electors do the electing and voters do the voting and there’ll be no need to worry about how other folks are doing their duty, let alone pressing them to join the mob, aka Public Opinion, and setting off all kinds of repercussions that no republic needs. Indeed, the whole purpose of the Constitution of the United States would seem to be hold public opinion in check, not give it reckless reign. Or as the Preamble to that remarkable document puts it: “We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.” If the spelling and punctuation of that document are more than a little dated, its principles aren’t.
When this quadrennial storm has safely passed and will be noted in old history books rather than today’s headlines, there’ll be time enough to conduct post-mortems and trade second and third thoughts. Sure, none of these goings-on are easy on the families of the electors, but theirs is almost an occupational hazard of going into politics or marrying someone who has taken up that vocation. Our thanks to all those who find themselves caught up in this hemi-semi-demi web of pressures and counter-pressures. You’ve done your duty and none of us can ask for anything more—or expect anything less.