Two Texas Electors have decided they can't vote for Trump

AUSTIN, Texas (AP) – A Republican member of the Electoral College from Texas says he won’t cast one of his state’s 38 electoral votes for Donald Trump.

Dallas paramedic Chris Suprun previously said he would support Trump. But he said Monday that the president-elect’s postelection attacks on the First Amendment and the American electoral process changed his mind.

Suprun said: “I am here to elect a president, not a king.”

He said he hasn’t decided whom he will support, but would “strongly consider” someone like Ohio Gov. John Kasich. He said he won’t vote for Hillary Clinton.

Another Texas Republican elector, Art Sisneros, resigned last week rather than vote for Trump.

http://wtaw.com/2016/12/05/a-second-texas-republican-members-electoral-college-wont-vote-trump/

In the meantime, Clinton's lead in the popular vote has gone over 2.5 million.

Don't bet on that being the answer. There are 538 votes in the EC, and Trump landed 306 of them. That means that 37 electors would have to flip...not only leave Trump, but opt for Hillary. In all of past history, only one elector has done that.

If Hillary doesn't come up with a majority, it throws the whole election into the House of Representatives, where the race would be among the three candidates receiving the most votes.

Then it goes to the states, each of which get 1 vote. Remember: The Republicans control the House, and the majority of states (30, plus part of Maine, which has its own split system) went to Trump. So, back to square one.

Besides, although there is no federal law telling electors how to vote, there are state laws that do.

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/politics/don-expect-electoral-college-stop-trump-president-article-1.2900461

I don't care if the EC doesn't stop Trump -- but I do think it would be pretty stunning to see at least a dozen of his pledged electors not vote for him. I think momentum is starting to gather where we may see more.

There's a better source on this article where Suprun cites the Federalist Papers to make the case that the EC was intended to be a lot more than a rubber stamp, I'll post it soon.

Here it is:

Fifteen years ago, as a firefighter, I was part of the response to the Sept. 11 attacks against our nation. That attack and this year’s election may seem unrelated, but for me the relationship becomes clearer every day.

George W. Bush is an imperfect man, but he led us through the tragic days following the attacks. His leadership showed that America was a great nation. That was also the last time I remember the nation united. I watch Mr. Trump fail to unite America and drive a wedge between us.

Mr. Trump goes out of his way to attack the cast of “Saturday Night Live” for bias. He tweets day and night, but waited two days to offer sympathy to the Ohio State community after an attack there. He does not encourage civil discourse, but chooses to stoke fear and create outrage.

This is unacceptable. For me, America is that shining city on a hill that Ronald Reagan envisioned. It has problems. It has challenges. These can be met and overcome just as our nation overcame Sept. 11.

The United States was set up as a republic. Alexander Hamilton provided a blueprint for states’ votes. Federalist 68 argued that an Electoral College should determine if candidates are qualified, not engaged in demagogy, and independent from foreign influence. Mr. Trump shows us again and again that he does not meet these standards. Given his own public statements, it isn’t clear how the Electoral College can ignore these issues, and so it should reject him.

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/12/05/opinion/why-i-will-not-cast-my-electoral-vote-for-donald-trump.html

Also, the Change.org petition calling on the EC to select Clinton is closing in on 4.8 million signatures: https://www.change.org/p/electoral-college-make-hillary-clinton-president-on-december-19-4a78160a-023c-4ff0-9069-53cee2a095a8?utm_source=taboola&utm_medium=content&utm_campaign=taboola_electoral2

Suprun wrote:The United States was set up as a republic. Alexander Hamilton provided a blueprint for states’ votes. Federalist 68 argued that an Electoral College should determine if candidates are qualified, not engaged in demagogy, and independent from foreign influence. Mr. Trump shows us again and again that he does not meet these standards. Given his own public statements, it isn’t clear how the Electoral College can ignore these issues, and so it should reject him.

The questions were very different when the Federalist Papers were written.  They were a series of articles published in The Independent Journal and The New York Packet between October 1787 and August 1788, intended to sell citizens on the Constitution, as opposed to the then-organizing document of the nation, The Articles of Confederation.  The arguments were between whether the 13 independent political entities should stay a loose confederation, or become a united, single nation.

I won't go into the disputes they encountered over taxation, travel, mail and other problems of multiple jurisdictions.  At odds were those who felt the states should be the principle authority, and those who felt the national entity should be paramount.  At a minimum it was important that the organs of the new federal government be respectful of the popular vote, but also to be respectful of the will of the individual states.  Thus the House of Representatives was to be the organ of the popular vote, while the Senate and the Presidency were to be put up and determined by the state governments.

Things have turned out drastically different today.  The idea of the popular will directing the nation has become the dominant trend.  The Senate has changed over completely, to popular election.  The Electoral College is a vestige of a by-gone era (and concern), and needs to be changed.  In the meantime, participants still muck around with it to gain partisan advantage.  The election of 2000 and this election (2016) are examples.

We don't need to relitigate the substance of Federalist 68.  Was the Electoral College created to place in power people of "information and discernment", or was it to respect the prerogatives of the states?  Just like other parts of the Constitution, we needn't become slaves to the prior thoughts of long-dead men, who never faced our contemporary issues.  

The Electoral College is the left-over gravestone of a long-dead issue.  Don't waste time arguing it didn't say what it did say...rather, simply abandon it.  Either build a lawsuit on the proposition that the elitism of the Electoral College is inconsistent with the idea of popular sovereignty as found in the Preamble, Article V and/or Article VII of the Constitution, or go through the long and arduous process of amending the Constitution.