Mayor Has One More Vote to Cast

When I talked to him a couple of days ago, Manuel Lopez knew as much about the Electoral College as I did.

Which is to say, not much.

“I’m as uninformed as anyone else,” said Lopez, the mayor of Oxnard. “I’ll have to do some research.”

Electoral College: Of course, it rings a bell.

But so do the differential equation, the Dred Scott decision, the Isle of Langerhans and the War of Jenkin’s Ear.

I learned about them, or at least heard of them, a long time ago.

“Electoral College”: As I stared vacantly out the window of Mr. Garfinkel’s social studies class at the sad and lovely maples of autumn, the term may have pierced the adolescent haze. But it instantly receded.

Until now, I haven’t thought much about the Electoral College, despite its mention in the back pages once every four years. A busy optometrist, Lopez said he hasn’t thought much about it either.

The difference is that at 2 p.m. on Dec. 18, I’ll be sitting at my desk, casting around sullenly for a Christmas column that’s never been done. Lopez, on the other hand, will be immersed in pomp and circumstance, casting a ballot for democracy, Al Gore, and the constitutional hiccup known as the Electoral College.

In California, each major-party congressional candidate gets to select an “elector” for the Electoral College. The party whose presidential candidate wins the state gets to send its electors to Sacramento. On the same day, other electors will flock to state capitals from Augusta to Honolulu.

Michael Case, the Democratic candidate in the 23rd Congressional District, picked the soft-spoken Lopez, who is about as active a Democrat as you can find in Ventura County. Case lost, but Gore, of course, won the state.

So at 73, Lopez, a graduate of UC Berkeley, will find himself back in college.

He’ll fly north with his wife Irma, march into the Assembly’s meeting room, take an oath, and, with 53 other electors, solemnly cast his vote for Gore. Then he, Irma, and their two daughters will adjourn to a nice restaurant.

There’s no profit in being an elector, Lopez said.

“We’ll be entitled to $49 in expenses,” he said. “Or something like eight cents a mile.”

Naturally, I asked Lopez the kind of questions everyone suddenly is asking about the Electoral College: Is it fair? Is it necessary? If it is, should the people of Oxnard choose their City Council members via electors representing both the populous apartment complexes and the sparsely settled subdivisions?

Wisely, Lopez demurred.

As the talk shows and letters to the editor erupt with outrage, a note of restraint is a refreshing thing. Maybe the Electoral College is a crazy anachronism--but, as we should have learned from the TV networks on election night, now is not the time for quick judgments.

“For me, this is a learning experience,” Lopez said. “And I’ll cherish it. It’s a very esoteric thing, but it’s part of the system.”

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Steve Chawkins can be reached at 653-7561 or at steve.chawkins@latimes.com.