This commentary is by Travis Jacobs, a professor emeritus of American history at Middlebury College.
In 1968, 52 years before President Donald Trump’s controversial attempts to overthrow the decision of the properly elected presidential electors, Vermont Congressman Robert T. Stafford wanted to abolish the Electoral College.
Trump and his followers wanted the acceptance of an alternative slate of electors or the rejection of electors they had challenged in a number of states. Then, in the House of Representatives, every state would have a single vote for the new president, and the Republicans would win.
What prompted Stafford, a Republican and former governor who was seeking his fifth term in the House, to propose the election of the president by popular vote? What had happened?
During the 1968 presidential campaign, Stafford had been concerned that Alabama segregationist George Wallace’s third party might deprive either major candidate of a majority of electoral votes, thereby throwing the election into the House of Representatives. After Nixon’s Inauguration in January 1969, Stafford wrote with a sense of relief to his constituents: “Once again, we have witnessed one of the truly great wonders of modern government, the orderly and peaceful transition from one administration to another.”
This “remarkable occurrence, he added, “should bring a sense of pride to all Americans” after the turmoil and violence of 1968.
As the Vietnam War dragged on and on in early 1968, the Viet Cong’s Tet offensive shocked Americans. Soon Minnesota Congressman Eugene McCarthy announced he would challenge President Lyndon Johnson in the 1968 New Hampshire Democratic presidential primary. Johnson won, but it was a pyrrhic victory, and soon New York Senator Robert F. Kennedy, brother of the martyred John F. Kennedy, entered the race. A couple of weeks later, Johnson stunned Americans when he announced he would not seek reelection. Vice President Hubert H. Humphrey became the leading candidate for the party’s nomination; he was, though, seen as the heir apparent to Johnson’s Vietnam policies.
Four days later, civil rights leader Martin Luther King was assassinated, and 130 cities throughout America burned. In early June, Kennedy, campaigning in Los Angeles, was assassinated. Stafford declared on the House floor: “Senator Kennedy was in touch with the young people of our nation. … He had faith in their ability to help lead America to new heights.”
He told the graduates of the College of St. Joseph that they have a “right to question policies set by your elders.”
That spring and summer, many considered former vice president Richard Nixon — the presumptive Republican nominee — a war hawk and an ardent law-and-order advocate who would not address the nation’s ills. His policies concerned Stafford, a strong civil rights supporter and, after two visits to Vietnam, he was no longer a war hawk; he could understand the disquiet, especially since his twin daughters were graduating from high school.
Meanwhile, former New York governor Nelson Rockefeller, the main challenger to Nixon, dropped out, and then reentered the race. As the Republican National Convention approached, Stafford agreed to serve as a floor manager for Rockefeller, but the Nixon forces would carry the day and nominate Maryland Gov. Spiro Agnew for vice president.
Then, at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago, violent protesters in the streets overshadowed, indeed disrupted, the nomination process. Humphrey, nevertheless, received the nomination, but his party was in shambles.
That summer, Stafford had had another grave concern: the potential danger posed by George Wallace’s third party. The former Alabama governor, rallying voters who opposed the Great Society’s civil rights legislation, promised a strong race.
Stafford feared that Wallace could win enough states in the South to prevent either major nominee from receiving a majority in the Electoral College. In that case, the election would go to the House of Representatives, where each state would have a single vote. Wallace might well have enough electoral votes to gain concessions for his program from one of the major candidates.
Stafford joined in the creation of a bipartisan People’s Presidential Committee of a dozen House members to prevent that from happening and “insure for all members of the next House to commit themselves in writing to vote only for the candidate who receives the plurality in the November election.” Stafford, “favorably impressed” with the “stop Wallace” plan, said, “I don’t feel anyone should be in a position to bargain with the election of a president.” The Rutland Herald noted that the former Democratic and Republican national chairmen endorsed the plan, but Sen. George Aiken did not. He believed that the support for Wallace was overstated.
Neither Stafford nor Aiken was opposed for reelection in November, and the state’s main newspapers did not bother to provide the vote count the next day. In Burlington, each had more write-in Democratic votes than regular Republican votes — an impressive performance in the Democratic stronghold.
Stafford, though, had worried with good reason about the national election and the possibility that Wallace, with a strong showing, might prevent an electoral majority. The contest was too close to call election night. Nixon received only 43.4 percent of the popular vote, or only 511,944 more votes than Humphrey’s 42.7 percent, while Wallace had 13.5 percent.
Nixon, however, had a majority in the Electoral College with 301.
Humphrey had surged in October and gained more after Johnson announced the bombing halt of North Vietnam, but he had only 191 electoral votes. Wallace had 46 from five states in the South, and he took votes from Humphrey in the North and Midwest, even though he had been politically embarrassed by his vice presidential nominee, Gen. Curtis LeMay, who proposed using nuclear weapons in Vietnam.
Still, Wallace and Humphrey needed only 32 more electoral votes to send the election to the House. And, emphasizing the closeness, for the first time since the Civil War, a newly elected president had not won the House or the Senate.
“Nearly every person with whom I have talked,” Stafford wrote, “has agreed on the need to change our election laws,” and he asserted he would work for reform in Congress the coming year. Personally, he favored abolishing the Electoral College and having “the popular election of the president and vice president as a team.” He also wanted “the guarantee of the right to vote in a national election, consideration of lowering the voting age,” and full reporting of expenditures and receipts.
When the new Congress convened, Stafford and other representatives introduced legislation endorsing “the popular election of the president and vice president.” Soon, the House Judiciary Committee considered election reform proposals and in late April voted 28-6 to submit to the House a constitutional amendment abolishing the Electoral College.
In September, the House, on a bipartisan vote of 339-70, sent the Constitution proposal to the Senate; President Nixon endorsed it and urged the Senate passage. In 1970 the Senate Judiciary Committee reported the proposed amendment, but a filibuster led by several Southern senators killed it.
This election reform effort, which Stafford had discussed in 1968 with his Vermont constituents, still remains the closest attempt to abolish the Electoral College.
