A6
NATION
East Oregonian
Thursday, March 21, 2019
2020 Democrats’ new litmus
test: Abolish Electoral College
By NICHOLAS
RICCARDI
Associated Press
The Green New Deal and
“Medicare for All” are old
news. The hottest position in
the Democratic presidential
field this week is abolishing
the Electoral College.
Elizabeth Warren kicked
things off at a CNN town
hall on Monday night when
the Massachusetts senator
drew enthusiastic applause
by saying: “Every vote mat-
ters, and the way we can
make that happen is that we
can have national voting,
and that means get rid of the
Electoral College.”
The next day, former
Texas Rep. Beto O’Ro-
urke said there was “a lot
of wisdom” in abolishing
the Electoral College. Cali-
fornia Sen. Kamala Harris
told late night host Jimmy
Kimmel on Tuesday night
that she’s “open to the dis-
cussion.” Mayor Pete Butti-
gieg of South Bend, Indiana,
tweeted a clip of him saying
the Electoral College “has
got to go.”
It’s the latest push by
White House hopefuls to
embrace a procedural tac-
tic to rally the Democratic
base, following similar
calls to scrap the filibuster
and increase the size of the
Supreme Court. The 2020
candidates are tapping into
Democratic anger after Don-
ald Trump became the sec-
ond Republican in five pres-
idential elections to win the
presidency through the Elec-
toral College while losing
the popular vote.
The Electoral College, a
group that comes together
every four years to techni-
cally elect the president, is
enshrined in the Constitution
and won’t be easy to elimi-
nate. O’Rourke suggested a
constitutional amendment to
award the presidency to the
winner of the popular vote.
Several Democratic-con-
trolled states are pushing
for a national popular vote.
AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster, file
In this Nov. 3, 208 file photo, Republican presidential can-
didate Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz. speaks at a rally outside
Raymond James Stadium in Tampa, Fla.
GOP senators defend
the late McCain against
Trump’s attacks
By LAURIE KELLMAN
Associated Press
AP Photo/Adrian Sainz
Democratic presidential candidate Elizabeth Warren speaks to a group of about 400 poten-
tial voters at a high school on Sunday in Memphis, Tenn.
But rather than pass a con-
stitutional amendment, these
legislatures are joining the
National Popular Vote Inter-
state Compact, a group of
states that pledge to give
their electoral votes to the
winner of the national pop-
ular vote.
The compact only goes
into effect when it includes
states representing 270
electoral votes, the major-
ity needed to win the White
House. Colorado Gov. Jared
Polis brought the current
total to 181 when he signed
a bill last week to join the
compact, and the Demo-
cratic governors of Delaware
and New Mexico also have
bills on their desk.
Still, with legislative ses-
sions winding down, there
are no other states expected
to join this year.
Warren endorsed the
compact after her town hall.
Patrick Rosenstiel of the
group pushing the idea said
in an interview that con-
verting to a national popular
vote is not a partisan issue.
“The way to do it is
through state action and we
would welcome Sen. War-
ren, President Trump, any-
one who believes” in the
popular vote, said Rosen-
stiel, a self-described “life-
long conservative Republi-
can” who grew tired of his
vote not factoring into pres-
idential elections in reliably
Democratic Minnesota.
Though the Electoral Col-
lege favored Trump in 2016,
and some analysts predict it
could give him an edge in
2020, it is not necessarily a
pro-GOP institution. During
Barack Obama’s presidency,
many predicted he may ben-
efit from an Electoral Col-
lege advantage.
That led to criticism of the
institution at the time from
some Republicans, notably,
Trump himself. “The elec-
toral college is a disaster for
democracy,” Trump tweeted
on the evening of the 2012
election, before it was appar-
ent Obama had also won the
national popular vote.
Now that the institution
made him president, Trump
takes a warmer view. “The
Electoral College is actually
genius in that it brings all
states, including the smaller
ones, into play,” he tweeted
Tuesday.
Critics say the Electoral
College focuses attention on
a handful of swing states at
the expense of candidates
campaigning throughout the
country.
But defenders say the
current system almost
always lines up with the
popular vote and is part of
the way the country’s found-
ers wanted to check popu-
lar passions and encourages
attention to small states that
may otherwise get passed
over.
Some Democrats agree.
Andrew Yang, an entre-
preneur running for the
party’s presidential nom-
ination, tweeted: “The
problem with deciding
Presidential elections via
popular vote is that candi-
dates would naturally cam-
paign in urban areas with
big media markets and their
policies would follow suit.
Better to have proportional
electoral college votes in
each state so you campaign
everywhere.”
National Guard to help fireproof California towns
By DON THOMPSON
Associated Press
SACRAMENTO, Calif.
— California is calling in
the National Guard for the
first time next month to help
protect communities from
devastating fires like the
one that largely destroyed
the city of Paradise last fall.
It’s pulling the troops
away from President Donald
Trump’s border protection
efforts and devoting them
to fire protection, another
area where Trump has been
critical of California’s Dem-
ocratic officials — even
threatening to cut off federal
disaster funding.
Starting next week, 110
California National Guard
troops will receive 11 days
of training in using shovels,
rakes and chain saws to help
thin trees and brush, Cali-
fornia Department of For-
estry and Fire Protection
spokesman Mike Mohler
said.
They will be divided into
five teams that will travel
around the state starting in
April to work on forest man-
agement projects, mainly
clearing or reducing trees
and vegetation in an effort
to deprive flames of fuel.
“They will be boots
on the ground doing fuels
projects alongside CalFire
crews,” Mohler said. “We’ve
had them out for flood fight-
ing, several different oper-
ations, but this would be
the first time their mission
would be fuels thinning and
forest management.”
They have helped fight
fires before, however.
Former Gov. Arnold
Schwarzenegger was the
first in recent decades to
deploy California National
Guard troops as firefight-
ers. That occurred on July 4,
2008, after lightning storms
sparked hundreds of fires,
Guard Lt. Col. Jonathan
AP Photo/Noah Berger, File
In this Nov. 9, 2018, file photo, firefighters work to keep
flames from spreading through the Shadowbrook apart-
ment complex as a wildfire burns through Paradise, Calif.
Shiroma said.
While many of the troops
are being reassigned from
the border this time, the
Guard also is asking other
service members if they
want to participate, Shiroma
said.
The training is similar for
firefighting and fire protec-
tion. Mohler said the troops
also will receive some train-
ing in forest management,
“so they’re not just out there
cutting brush” but under-
stand why they’re doing
what they’re doing.
For instance, firefight-
ing crews generally cut fire
lines down to mineral earth
during active wildfires.
Fuels management crews
often do less-intensive thin-
ning of trees and chaparral
to slow advancing flames.
That often involves cre-
ating fuel breaks. They can
range from stripping away
all woody vegetation on
wide strips of land to thin-
ning larger trees and remov-
ing shorter trees, brush and
debris to discourage fires
from climbing into treetops
and jumping from tree to
tree.
Critics say the work
damages forests and can
be useless against wind-
driven fires, like the one in
the Sierra Nevada foothills
community of Paradise last
year, killing 85 people in the
Northern California city of
27,000 people.
“CalFire is taking the
Trump approach, logging
the forest and weakening
critical environmental pro-
tections, and that’s the exact
opposite of what we need to
be doing,” Center for Bio-
logical Diversity scientist
Shaye Wolf said.
She said the better
approach is to make homes
more fire resistant while
pruning vegetation immedi-
ately surrounding homes.
CalFire this month listed
35 fuel-reduction projects
it wants to start immedi-
ately, covering more than
140 square miles, double the
acreage in previous years.
But state officials estimate
23,438 square miles of Cal-
ifornia forestland need thin-
ning or other restoration.
“It’s not a problem that’s
going to get fixed over-
night,” Mohler said.
Such thinning operations
are getting more attention in
recent years, with the U.S.
Forest Service estimating
last month that 18 million
trees died in California over
the last year.
The agency estimated
that more than 147 million
trees have died across nearly
15,625 square miles during a
drought that began in 2010,
while about 1.5 million dead
trees have been cut.
Investigations have often
blamed recent wildfires on
utilities not doing a good
enough job of clearing veg-
etation around power lines
and equipment. Democratic
state Sen. Bill Dodd of Napa
has proposed legislation that
would require CalFire to
tell utilities which trees and
brush to remove and then
inspect the work.
Aside from Guard troops,
CalFire also is creating
10 civilian fuels manage-
ment crews this year. The
10-member crews could help
with initial fire suppression
if need be but will primarily
reduce fuels, Mohler said.
“It’s going to be a pretty
amazing sight to see as these
crews get out there on the
ground,” he said. “There’s
hundreds of, unfortunately,
Paradises across the state,
(so) the public needs to
understand this.”
WASHINGTON
—
Key
Republicans
on
Wednesday defended the
late Sen. John McCain
as a “hero” against ongo-
ing attacks from President
Donald Trump, daring to
say what most in the GOP
still won’t seven months
after the Arizona senator’s
death from brain cancer.
A trio of senators, from
the most senior to the
greenest freshman, defied
Trump’s apparently unpro-
voked declaration that he’s
“not a fan” of the deco-
rated Vietnam War vet-
eran because McCain cast
the deciding vote against
the Republican repeal of
national health care. They
took great care to describe
McCain as a “hero,” clear
pushback against Trump’s
longtime assessment that
McCain is not one because
he had been captured in
Vietnam.
Senate Majority Leader
Mitch McConnell did not
mention Trump directly,
but said that he misses his
friend McCain “today and
every day.”
“It was a blessing to
serve alongside a rare
patriot and genuine Amer-
ican hero in the Senate,”
the Kentucky Republican,
who is up for re-election in
2020, tweeted. “His mem-
ory continues to remind
me every day that our
nation is sustained by the
sacrifices of heroes.”
McCain, a Navy pilot,
was held as a prisoner of
war and tortured for more
than five years. Trump
has never served in the
military because he got a
deferment for a bone spur
in his foot.
Sen. Johnny Isakson,
R-Ga., said the nation
“deserves better” than
Trump’s disparagement.
“The McCain family
deserves better, I don’t
care if he’s president of
United States, owns all the
real estate in New York,
or is building the great-
est immigration system in
the world,” Isakson told
The Bulwark, a conser-
vative news and opinion
website. Later, Isakson
called Trump’s remarks
“deplorable.”
“It will (be) deplorable
seven months from now if
he says it again,” Isakson
said Wednesday on Geor-
gia Public Broadcasting’s
Political Rewind radio
show.
Pushback also came
from
Sen.
Martha
McSally, a Republican Air
Force veteran appointed
to McCain’s seat from
Arizona.
“John McCain is an
American hero and I am
thankful for his life of
service and legacy to our
country and Arizona,”
she tweeted Wednesday.
“Everyone should give
him and his family the
respect, admiration, and
peace they deserve.”
That McSally declined
to criticize Trump directly
reflects a broader wariness
among Republicans to
cross a president famous
for holding a grudge and
mobilizing his followers
against GOP lawmakers
he deems disloyal.
Many
Republicans
have stayed silent this
week, declining to join the
GOP senators defending
McCain and more broadly,
America’s millions of
veterans.
But this week, Trump
seemed to inspire a new
determination
among
some Republicans to draw
a line, however delicately.
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