Eliminate the Winner-Take-All Rule
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In presidential election years, Texas's electoral votes always go to the Red team. In fact, the concept of Texas voting Red in a presidential election is so fundamentally reliable that the ONLY time that presidential candidates even come to Texas is to suck up to our residents for campaign donations. But it doesn't have to be that way.
At the heart of our current dilemma is the "winner-take-all" rule for the Electoral College. Now I don't want to get off on a rant here, but the Electoral College is really a very good system, but just as with everything else, when someone in the Old Parties wants something badly enough, they will usually find a way to manipulate the system to get it. And the only thing that Old Party politicians love more than high-stakes soap-opera drama is finding a way to convince the trees to vote for the axe because its handle is made of wood, and the "winner-take-all" rule was it.
"Things crawl in the darkness that imagination spins. Needles at your nerve ends crawl like spiders on your skin."
No, I do not want to eliminate the Electoral College. That is a supremely stupid idea for a number of reasons. However, I do want to eliminate the "winner-take-all" rule here in Texas. The Constitution leaves it entirely up to the individual states as to how they allocate their Electoral College votes and this is where we, as Texans, can make a significant difference by eliminating the "winner-take-all" rule.
I want to pause here to re-iterate my first campaign promise: "If I am elected, I promise to propose a bill in the Texas Legislature that will alter the method that Texas uses to allocate its electoral votes to use a more equally distributive method than the current 'winner-take-all' rule."
"I'm not giving in to security under pressure, I'm not missing out on the promise of adventure. I'm not giving up on implausible dreams."
If you are wondering "why would he promise this?", well, I have two answers: the first is that since I am running as a Libertarian, I already know going in that there's very little chance that I'll EVER need to follow up on this (or any other) campaign promise. As a result, I can pretty much promise whatever the hell I want, and nobody will give a damn. If you don't believe me, prove me wrong. I dare you.
The second reason is that the "winner-take-all" rule turns Texas into "just another fly-over state". It turns our state into a political black hole where if you vote one way, your vote, along with everyone else who voted the same way you did, just disappears into the void. The rule itself only benefits one group, and that's why they want to keep it, but that's the same reason I want to eliminate it: because I believe that ALL of Texas's voters deserve a voice in who they want to be the President of our great nation.
"A suspicious-looking stranger flashes you a dangerous grin. Shadows across your window, was it only trees in the wind?"
It's the difference between a bull and a steer. Only two states are bulls - Maine and Nebraska - because they still have their giant brass ones to play the electoral game by its original rules and distribute their votes using "the Congressional District Method." The other 48 states, including Texas, are just steers, unable to do anything except throw their castrated weight around as if they have something to prove.
"Revolution or just resistance? Is it living or just existence?"
Yes, I know that a bill such as the one I propose would only get voted down by the "steers" in the Texas Legislature; that's not the point. The point is that by voting down the bill, it shows, without equivocation, just exactly how partisan these legislators are. They don't really care about you and letting your voice be heard (despite what they may say during their own campaigns). They just want to promote their party and their particular version of what they think America should look like, whether you agree with them or not.
"Every breath a static charge, a tongue that tastes like tin. Steely eyed outside to hide the enemy within."
Eliminating the "winner-take-all" rule in Texas is about making sure every voter’s voice is heard in a more balanced way. It would get more non-Red Texas voters to step up to the voting booth because they would know that their voice DOES count, and while it may not be an overwhelming majority, having at least some voice in the election of the president is better than having no voice.
If we can get Texas to eliminate it's "winner-take-all" rule and distribute its electoral votes more evenly, maybe we can also get presidential candidates to actually campaign in Texas instead of thinking of it as "just another fly-over state", or instead of only coming here to prostitute themselves to our wealthy for their money, or to think twice about coming here to endorse weak candidates who only want to bolster their lame-ass claims of being "the better candidate".