5 County GOP Leaders Go to College to Cast Electoral Votes

When former Orange County Supervisor Bruce Nestande was in high school, he debated against this proposition: “Resolved: The Electoral College should be abolished.”

Now, more than 30 years later, Nestande is among five electors from Orange County, and 47 from California, who will have a moment in history Monday as a part of the institution he defended.

“People scoff at the Electoral College, but if you analyze it from a historical perspective, it’s a remarkable institution,” said Nestande, who credits it with fostering the two-party system and political stability. “When you give it some surgical analysis, it has a lot of intellectual sense to it.”

Nestande and other Orange County GOP leaders--Assembly Minority Leader Ross Johnson (R-Fullerton), state Sen. William Campbell (R-Hacienda Heights), Republican National Committee member Charlotte Mousel of Tustin and state Republican Party first assistant secretary Marcia Gilchrist of North Tustin--will take part in what has become a largely ceremonial, almost quaint, formal election of the President and vice president.

Balloting in Sacramento

The Electoral College will meet at 2 p.m. in the Assembly chamber in Sacramento for the formal balloting, which, under the 2-centuries-old U.S. Constitution, is required to ratify the vote of the people. In the popular vote, Vice President George Bush and his running mate, Indiana Sen. Dan Quayle, won with what is supposed to translate into 426 of the nation’s 538 electoral votes. The rest went to Democratic nominee Michael S. Dukakis.

Under California’s winner-take-all system, Bush is to get all 47 of the state’s electoral votes.

At least, that is how the electors are supposed to vote.

Here is how it works:

Each state gets an elector for every member it sends to Congress. In California, there are 45 members of the House of Representatives and two U.S. senators.

In the early days of the Constitution, the candidate who received the most electoral votes became President and the runner-up became vice president. That changed with the 12th Amendment after the election of 1800, when Thomas Jefferson finally won the presidency after a deadlock with Aaron Burr put the matter in the hands of the House of Representatives. It took the House 36 votes and more than 6 days to resolve the matter.

Thereafter the 12th Amendment required that there be separate electoral votes for President and vice president.

At one time, the Electoral College voting was a much livelier process, because the nation’s two top officers were elected by the will of the electors, rather than by electoral votes-- an important distinction that ended with the emergence of political parties in the early 19th Century. Since that time, electors have been pledged to party candidates and, with rare exception, have carried out this obligation.

“If you’re willing to do something different, you can be an asterisk” in history books, Campbell joked. He quickly added that he has no plans to vote for anyone other than Bush and Quayle. Besides, under California law, Campbell and the other electors are required to vote for the candidates endorsed by their party.

Tally Jan. 4

Electoral ballots will be opened and counted Jan. 4 by the vice president, who in this case is also the victor in the presidential election, in the presence of the House and the Senate. Bush thus will get to announce his own victory--and Quayle’s.

Most of the electors of both parties are determined by law. Democrats allow each of their congressional nominees to make an appointment. Republicans appoint prominent party members.

Among these are GOP nominees for the most recent statewide elections (including Campbell, the nominee for controller in 1986, and Nestande, the 1986 nominee for secretary of state); members of the Republican National Committee (there are only two from California, of which Mousel is one); officers in the state Republican Party (there are 10, including Gilchrist and Mousel, who is secretary); presidents of statewide Republican organizations, and the GOP leaders of the Assembly (Johnson) and state Senate. (Members of Congress are not eligible.)

Bush Donors Chosen

The remainder--which this year numbers about a dozen--are selected by the state GOP chairman, currently Bob Naylor, a former Menlo Park assemblyman. Naylor said he chose longtime Republican supporters, including several major contributors to Bush’s campaign.

“I think that it is kind of a unique patriotic role to play that doesn’t fall to that many people,” said Naylor, who will be among the electors. “You’re sitting there as an equivalent of a congressman or senator and casting one of the most important votes that can be cast. And, while it’s almost a ministerial, prescribed act, it’s still a real honor.”

Mousel, who was an elector in 1984, said the balloting is a solemn, if brief, process.

“Each person is given a ballot for President,” Mousel said. “After they tally the first ballot and announce the vote, then you’re given another ballot . . . to vote for vice president. That’s tallied and then it’s over.” She said that in 1984, she and another elector were designated to deliver the ballots to Washington. But she never was actually called on to do it, she said. Somehow or other, President Reagan’s reelection still became official.

Nestande said that, while the electoral system seems archaic, “you can see the intellectual genius of it.” He said the Founding Fathers obviously thought about the consequences of requiring the Electoral College to select a President by a majority vote, which Nestande said has resulted in the two-party system rather than a multiparty system.

“They were trying to provide as stable a basis for government as they could,” Nestande said, recalling his debate arguments from high school, “and a majority provision was a significant provision. . . . (It) provided stability that a multiparty system doesn’t do.”

Before the vote, Gov. George Deukmejian will treat electors to lunch at the Hyatt Regency across the street from the Capitol.

To defray their expenses, electors receive a $10 stipend and are paid 5 cents a mile in travel expenses.

“When I saw that, I kind of chuckled,” Gilchrist said of the modest mileage reimbursement. “Maybe I can go by Pony Express.”

Campbell, a member of the Electoral College three times in the past 20 years, joked that the one thing the experience has given him is a sure bet he can make in a bar late at night.

It goes like this: “I bet I’m the only one in this bar who voted for George Bush for President.” Of course not, his friends insist. Pay up, Campbell says. “You cast your vote for a group of electors who, in turn, cast their votes for the President.”