Justin's Political Corner

Gun Owners of America director Larry Pratt is upset that just because President Obama “got 50-plus percent of the vote,” he thinks can now carry out his policy agenda. In one of his frequent interviews with conspiracy nut Alex Jones recently, Pratt alleged that the president is a “communist,” a “full-bore Marxist” and a “Mr. Dictator” who is “grabbing ahold of every bit of power and centralizing in his hands.”

Pratt also agreed with Jones that Democrats “had to steal the election” and urged supporters to take jobs as election monitors because “it’s either that or the republic.”

H/T: RWW

After watching the Republican presidential candidates lose the last two elections, right-wing activist Ken Blackwell cooked up a scheme whereby states would move away from winner-take-all allocations of electors to a system in which Electoral College votes would be assigned according to congressional districts.

The result would be that a Republican presidential candidate who does not win the overall popular vote in the state could still end up receiving a majority of that state’s electoral votes simply by virtue of winning the popular vote in more individual districts.

Today, Blackwell appeared on “WallBuilders Live” to promote this scheme, where it was met with enthusiastic support from Rick Green and David Barton. As Blackwell explained, if every state had implemented this plan for the 2012 election, Mitt Romney would have won despite the fact that he lost the overall popular vote by nearly 5 million votes.

Blackwell: There’s an old farmer’s tale that if you throw a brick at a pack of pigs, the one that squeals is the one you hit.  Well, when we put this out there, the Left started squealing, the New York Times started squealing, so we must be on to something.

Green: You must be on to something. No doubt about that.  I haven’t had a chance to look, I don’t if anyone has done a map, I’d be real curious to know if every state did this, how would the last few elections [have gone]? Have you had a chance to look?

Blackwell: I already know. If every state did it, Romney would have won the election.  And so that’s another reason that the Left just instinctively dislikes it.

…

Barton: This actually is a way to give the people a greater voice rather than just having the majority slap it to the minority every time you turn around. And I really like what he’s proposed here with reverting back out of the winner-take-all philosophy of the states, going back to congressional district take all, which is a good way to do it.

From the 05.02.2013 edition of Wallbuilders Live:

h/t: Kyle Mantyla at Right Wing Watch

Recently GOP released an internal assessment of losses in 2012 elections, possible causes and recommendations. Though the report did state that party has been losing base with the minorities and many other groups, the response from the party was to “deliver the message better”. It seems to me that party has not understood the root causes of their losses in elections, less favorability in the nation and declining voter base. I became a US citizen in 1986, and voted as Republican till 2004. Since then I have been increasingly dissatisfied with GOP’s relationships with the Muslims in USA. The Islamophobic rhetoric, though not exclusively restricted to Republican Party, has been consistently increasing over years.

Muslims mostly identify with GOP due to conservative values, and up till 2000 used to vote in greater numbers with Republican Party. In 2000 national elections, George Bush was endorsed by Muslim organizations and over 70% voted for the party. Many of President Bush’s supporters give credit to Muslims in Florida for the win in the state, leading to White House. Last year about 4% Muslims voted for GOP. Over 40% of American Muslims view themselves as independent voters, 7% identify themselves as Republicans and rest are affiliated with Democratic Party. Over last decade there have been more Muslim voters added, as the second generation has become adults and more immigrants have joined the pool. The Muslim voters’ ratio has dropped dramatically, but the Party has not taken any constructive steps to improve the relationships or even look into the causes.

The anti Muslim zeal increased over the last 2 years. American Muslims are becoming accustomed to bracing themselves for increasing Islamophobia during election years for political gains. The hearings by Representative Peter King (NY) on radicalization of Muslims in America were mainly airing anti Muslim sentiments. Many Muslim organization and individuals who could have given positive reports about American Muslims were not asked to testify in front of the committee. Law enforcement officials denied that there were major extremist Muslim groups in USA. Over 20 states introduced legislations, mostly Republicans to ban “Sharia law”. According to our constitution we cannot have foreign laws; the legislators very well knew that Sharia law cannot be and is not being implemented. But to appease their base and get political gains among the public they chose to waste their time and efforts on this nonexistent issue. Only thing they succeeded were in inflaming the anti Muslim feelings. According to CAIR in last 2 years 78 bills or amendments were moved in the country interfering with practices of Muslims; 73 of these bills were moved by Republicans. The voters at large did reject this message, as in last year’s election 4 out of 11 congressmen who were the most proponents of anti Muslim bias lost their seats.

Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.), along with four Republicans colleagues alleged that Huma Abedin, a top aide to Secretary Of State Hillary Clinton had ties to Muslim Brotherhood. This was based on pure speculations and Islamophobia. Some Republican leaders including Senator McCain did rebuke the comments but Rep Bachmann has not toned down her Muslim bashing. Herman Cain’s comments that he would require Muslims to take” a loyalty oath” in his cabinet were an insult to all Muslims who are hard working, productive members of the society. The remark was even more disheartening coming from Mr. Cain, who himself is a minority and has known the struggles of African Americans over years. Mitt Romney gave his tacit approval to the anti Islamic message during the campaign, while jogging our memories about difficulties faced by Mormons in the past.

President Obama has been “accused” of being Muslim and even his citizenship has been questioned. General Colin Powell aptly answered to this question of him being possibly a Muslim, “So what if he was”. Every born American irrespective of his/her faith, race or ethnic background can dream of becoming US President.

h/t: Ghazala Hayat at STLtoday.com

“Scott Prouty.”

The fellow on the other end of the phone call pronounced his name with hesitation. For nearly a fortnight, he and I had been building a long-distance rapport via private tweets, emails, and phone conversations as we discussed how best to make public the secret video he had shot of Mitt Romney talking at a private, $50,000-per-plate fundraiser in Boca Raton, Florida. Now I was almost ready to break the story at Mother Jones. I had verified the video, confirming when and where it had been shot, and my colleagues and I had selected eight clips—including Romney’s now-infamous remarks about the 47 percent of Americans he characterized as “victims” unwilling to “take personal responsibility and care for their lives”—to embed in two articles. We had blurred these clips, at the source’s request, to make it difficult to tell where Romney had uttered these revealing comments, while clearly showing that it was Romney speaking. The goal was to afford the source a modicum of protection.

The source was justifiably worried about repercussions. Once the video was posted, he might lose his job. He might face criminal prosecution or a civil lawsuit. Months earlier, he had anonymously posted a snippet from the video, in which Romney nonchalantly described the work-camp-like living conditions at a Chinese factory he had visited. The source, offended by these comments, had hoped that the short clip would catch fire in the political-media world. But it hadn’t, partly because its context and origins were unknown. The source’s desire to remain in the shadows had hindered his ability to bring the story to the public.

Then James Carter IV, a freelance researcher (and, though I didn’t know it then, the grandson of Jimmy Carter) who had been sending me public documents regarding Romney’s prior business investments, had, at my request, tracked the anonymous poster down. I subsequently persuaded him to send me the full video of the fundraiser and to allow me to release portions of it, under the strict condition that I’d do whatever was possible to keep his identity hidden. He did not want to become the story. He hoped the public would focus only on Romney’s words. And through all this, he had not told me who he was, though he disclosed that he had worked at the fundraiser and insisted that he was no political partisan and had filmed Romney more out of curiosity than as part of a plan to trap the GOP candidate.

I respected his desire for privacy. He was about to commit a courageous and unprecedented act of whistle-blowing. But as we neared publication, I said I had to know his name. Do you really need it? he asked. Yes, I replied, explaining I could not publish the stories without knowing his identity. I vowed I would keep it a secret.

I had waited until the final moments to press him on this. I realized there was a chance that he might decline to identify himself, and the story would die. He asked once more if it was necessary. I said it was and held my breath. There was a long silence. “Scott,” he said. “Scott Prouty.” Thank you, I replied. Then we moved on to other details.

When I got off the phone, I did the obvious: I Googled him. The initial results were worrisome. I found mug shots for two men with that name who had been arrested. But then I located aproclamation (issued by the mayor and town council of Davie, Florida) that the source had mentioned earlier. On September 25, 2005, a car had plunged into a canal along I-75 and sunk into the water. Prouty, then working at motorcycle dealership, rushed to the scene. A tall fellow with a strapping build, Prouty jumped into the water and, using a knife provided by a fellow employee, cut the seatbelt, freed the unconscious woman in the driver’s seat, and handed her to a coworker who revived her with CPR. Prouty, who had noticed there was a child safety seat in the car, kept diving into the dark water in search of a child. But there had been no one else in the car. The proclamation noted that Prouty and two of his coworkers had taken “valiant and swift lifesaving actions in the face of an emergency without thought to their own safety” and declared them “lifesaving heroes.” I also found a local newsletter with a photo of Prouty and his colleagues being honored by the Weston City Commission for their heroism (his name was misspelled “Proudly”). The picture did not match either of the mug shots, and I saw that one of the other Proutys was incarcerated in Wisconsin, while the other seemed to be from a different part of Florida. I was relieved. I would later learn that my source was a college-educated bartender, in his late 30s, who had grown up in the Boston area.

Days later, we published the first article. It went hyper-viral. The 47 percent story quickly became bigger than Prouty and I had expected. Realizing he could not keep hidden the location and date of what was becoming the most notorious fundraiser in modern history, Prouty gave me permission to reveal those details, to remove the blurring from the videos we had posted, and to release the entire video he had sent me. This will make it easier for someone to track you down, I said. If they want to find me, he replied, they will.

And there was this: If Prouty did claim credit, he would immediately become a target of the right, especially during the campaign. He could expect an effort to smear and discredit him.

But it was also natural for Prouty to want to accept the many accolades flowing to the mystery videographer. Why not come forward and enjoy the moment? There might be a financial benefit, or, better yet, an opportunity to enhance his career prospects. He was interested in going back to school or working in public policy. Donations or other assistance might materialize. Some media outlets were looking to make offers.

In the course of our ongoing discussions, I said I would support him, whatever he did. I did point out that were he to reveal himself, he could expect forces on the right to dig up whatever dirt could be found on him, his friends, and his family—or to make stuff up. I had no idea if this was a real concern, but I wanted him to consider the possibility. As he pondered his options, he repeatedly told me that he did not want to distract from the impact of his video. And he meant it.

After the election, the dynamics changed slightly. Prouty no longer had to fret about any possible retribution from a Romney administration. But the fundamentals remained. Going public would bring cheers and perhaps rewards but also place him in the crosshairs. I was frequently asked whether I thought my source would out himself. I answered that I could envision him remaining a ghost for the next 20 years, or deciding to hold a press conference the next day. I got the sense that he was living with a tough choice—and thinking about it—every day.

 wondered if Prouty’s role would remain a secret for as long. But he has now decided to come forward. Not for a big payoff, but to pursue the same passion for social justice that caused him to post that China clip. I’ll let him explain that and his motives—for making the video, for releasing it, and for now stepping out of the shadows. He’s doing so with an hourlong interview on The Ed Show. It’s his story, and I’m glad he’s telling it.

h/t: Mother Jones

In the continuing fallout from their failure to retake the White House in November, Republicans have been having a spirited (if not downright cannibalistic) debate about the future of their party. Accusations have been thrown out, lines have been drawn in the sand, and reasons for their failure have been postulated - all in an effort to reconcile the unexpected losses in an election where most conservatives thought they would win by a landslide. Are they finally looking at their own media mechanisms (like Fox News) and how they don’t always report in a “fair and balanced” manner? Heck no. 

Reince Priebus (Chairman of the Republican National Committee) told the media on Thursday they the RNC would be releasing the findings of their post-election “autopsy” on the GOP’s failure in the last election. In highlighting what could be expected when he speaks at the National Press Club, Priebus said the GOP needs to work on “controlling the debate process, getting involved in moderators and networks and all of these other issues so that we don’t have chaos. I mean, we just can’t have MSNBC hosting a debate at the Reagan Library only to have their network make the commentary afterwards for three hours about the debate of the Republican Party. I mean, it’s ridiculous.”

On her show Thursday evening (after Priebus made the now-infamous comments blaming MSNBC for the GOP loss), Rachel Maddow interviewed former presidential senior adviser  David Axelrod and discussed the GOP’s new scapegoat. “We learned that the autopsy that the Republican Party commissioned to figure out why they did so badly and what is wrong with them as a party…that autopsy is done,” she said.

Casino mogul Sheldon Adelson, who spent as much as $150 million on independent expenditures to bolster Republicans in the 2012 election, has informed the Securities and Exchange Commission that his Las Vegas Sands Corporation “likely violated a federal law against bribing foreign officials.”

“[T]here were likely violations of the books and records and internal controls provisions” of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, the company said in its annual regulatory report published on Friday. Late last year, Adelson reportedly held meetings with at least one House GOP leader to discuss “possible changes to the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act,” arguing that he had been the target of federal investigations under the Act as retribution for his strong support for Republican candidates.

h/t: Igor Volsky at Think Progress Justice

Mitt Romney stood by his belief that President Obama was aided in his re-election by giving gifts to minority voters, during an interview that aired on “Fox News Sunday.” 

“The president had the power of incumbency, ‘Obamacare’ was very attractive, particularly to those without insurance, and they came out in large numbers to vote,” Romney said. “So that was part of a successful campaign.”

Romney first made comments to this effect on a conference call with donors after the November election, when he said Obama had been “very generous” in doling out “big gifts” to “the African American community, the Hispanic community and young people” as well as women during his first term. 

“I think the ‘Obamacare’ attractiveness and feature was something we underestimated, particularly among lower incomes,” Romney said.

h/t: TPM LiveWire

WASHINGTON — A former congressional candidate is taking the Internal Revenue Service to court for its failure to enforce its laws governing political activity by nonprofits organized under the social welfare section of the tax code.

Dr. David Gill, the 2012 Democratic candidate in Illinois’ 13th district, and Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) are suing the IRS for allowing the “dark money” nonprofit American Action Network to spend $2.6 million against Gill while enjoying tax exemption and donor anonymity.

Gill and CREW have alleged that the IRS improperly interpreted tax law when it promulgated regulations for social welfare nonprofits, stating that they must be “primarily” focused on social welfare. In contrast, the federal statute states that these nonprofits must be “exclusively” focused on social welfare.

This interpretation has been highly controversial ever since the 2010 Citizen United decision allowed corporations — including nonprofit corporations — and unions to spend freely on elections. Since then, social welfare nonprofits have become a huge force in federal elections, with spending exceeding $300 million in the 2012 campaign.

“It is offensive that the IRS turns a blind eye to reality and allows partisan political groups to seek refuge in a provision of the IRS code that is meant to govern organizations such as volunteer firefighter companies and homeowner organizations,” Dr. Gill said.

The IRS told HuffPost that they do not have a comment and typically don’t comment on pending litigation.

Dr. Gill said he believes that his razor-thin defeat on Nov. 6, 2012, was due to misinformation about his support for Medicare spread by American Action Network’s ads. One ad stated that Gill’s support for single-payer health care meant that he wanted to eliminate Medicare.

“As I went around the district, I was told that people who were going to vote for me changed their minds to save Medicare,” Gill said.

Gill lost by just 1,002 votes to Republican Rodney Davis. The Davis and Gill campaigns combined to spend $2.7 million on the entire election, just $100,000 more than the spending by American Action Network. The only group spending more than American Action Network on the race was the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC), which spent nearly $2.9 million on the race.

h/t: Paul Blumenthal at Huffington Post

Last night on The O’Reilly Factor, previewing Sen. Marco Rubio’s response to President Obama’s State of the Union speech, Fox News political analyst Karl Rove labeled Rubio “the American experience” and declared him “probably one of the best communicators since Ronald Reagan.”

Over-the-top praise of Rubio on the network is nothing new. Rubio’s increasingly prominent role in the national political conversation is thanks, in part, to the help of Fox News, which has served as his primary cheerleader since his 2010 Senate campaign. 

In recent weeks, Rove in particular has showered praise on Rubio and his role in the debate over immigration reform. His comparison of Rubio to Reagan on The O’Reilly Factor wasn’t even the first time he had done so on Fox’s airwaves this month; he made similar comments during a February 4 appearance on Special Report. 

Rove isn’t alone in his adoration of the Florida senator. Fox personalities have fawned over Rubio on-air for years, boosted his 2010 Florida Senate run (including helping him fundraise on-air), hosted him for dozens of primetime appearances on the network, and repeatedly touted him as an ideal vice presidential pick for former GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney.

When Marco Rubio declared his intention to run for the Florida Senate seat left open by Mel Martinez, he trailed Gov. Charlie Crist — then still a Republican — by a huge margin and seemed like a longshot candidate.

Less than a year and a half later, Rubio was elected comfortably. According to Rubio, his meteoric rise in the race is thanks in no small part to Fox News political analyst Karl Rove.

Appearing at a fundraising breakfast for Rove’s Crossroads political groups at the 2012 Republican National Convention, Rubio claimed it was “big news” when Rove personally donated money to his Senate campaign because it meant that ”someone of his stature would actually take a bet on someone who was such a long shot.”

Rove’s help for Rubio extended well beyond sending personal checks; the Crossroads groups poured nearly $3 million (by Rove’s accounting) into the race. During his fundraising pitch for Crossroads at the RNC, Rubio specifically praised the ads Rove’s groups ran in his favor, saying “you would turn on the TV and there were ads that created a clear distinction, and did so in ways that were meaningful.”

Rove wasn’t the only Fox personality that helped Rubio’s Senate run — the network practically went all-in for him.

During his Senate run, Rubio was also formally endorsed — in addition to being praised on-air — by several Fox personalities, including former contributors Newt Gingrich, Sarah Palin, and Rick Santorum. In addition to endorsing Rubio, Fox host Mike Huckabee gave material support to his campaign in the form of a $5,000 donation from his political group, Huck PAC.

h/t: MMFA

On Monday of last week, Rep. Steve Stockman (R-Texas) announced that if President Barack Obama attempted to enact new gun violence prevention measures through executive order, he would have no choice but to file articles of impeachment. By Tuesday, he was comparing Obama to Saddam Hussein for using children as props at a speech introducing a gun control package. By Wednesday, he had stepped back from the precipice, asserting that “impeachment is not something to be taken lightly.” After all, where did anyone get that idea?

This is the way it has always been with Steve Stockman: Light a fire; add some potassium nitrate; then stand back and gawk at the crater.

The Texas congressman, who is three weeks into his second term after a 16-year hiatus from the House, is almost certainly the only member of Congress to have been caught with 30 mg of valium hidden in a cellophane wrapper in his underwear. He’s defended militia groups; accused an attorney general of “premeditated murder”; appeared on a Holocaust-denying radio program; waged a one-man war against Alfred Kinsey; compared his constituents—favorably—to Branch Davidians; and traveled to Denmark to protest climate change while wearing a red blindfold. The man who bested his 2012 opponent by 44 points isn’t the most ballyhooed of incoming lawmakers. He’s just the nuttiest.

tockman’s first congressional victory, a 1994 upset of 42-year incumbent Jack Brooks, may have been the closest his state ever came toelecting a gun. In the preceding years, Stockman had experienced a personal purgatory—the aforementioned Wisconsin drug bust, which he blamed on his girlfriend; a brief period as a “studerino” (his words) surrounded by “hot-looking babes”; myriad bounced checks; a falling out with his brother; and a year living in a Forth Worth park with another homeless man hecompared to Lennie from Of Mice and Man. Then Stockman discovered Christ and Ronald Reagan in East Texas.

While making just $11,000 a year as an accountant (if his financial disclosures were to be believed—which, according to his opponents, they weren’t) Stockman poured his energies into local Republican causes. He lost House races in 1990 and 1992, but hit the jackpot during the Gingrich Revolution of 1994. The deciding issue was assault weapons. Brooks, a longtime National Rifle Association booster, had voted for President Bill Clinton’s ban—the “scary weapons ban” in Stockman’s parlance—and that made Brooks a target. The Virginia-based Gun Owners of America came to Stockman’s aid; so did the NRA. Stockman also bashed Brooks for his support of the 1993 raid on the Branch Davidian compound in Waco, which left 76 people dead.

Trying to beat back the gun-rights-fueled assault, Brooks highlighted Stockman’s apparent habit of falsifying his resume. Stockman had touted himself a graduate of the University of Houston before he had graduated, and he had claimed to have worked as a consultant for the university for five years, though the school said it had no record of such a gig. Brooks also hinted not-so-subtly that Stockman was gay, running an ad alleging that he had operated a studio in a neighborhood in Houston known for its nude modeling studios.

Once in Congress, Stockman wasted little time advancing his agenda. He filed legislation to repeal provisions “relating to semiautomatic assault weapons and large-capacity, ammunition-feeding devices” (i.e. assault weapons), declaring that “gun control is dead.” He proposed forcing all members of Congress to live in dorms (an idea he still supports) and led a mini-insurrection against Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich over spending cuts. Stockman was a rising star.

Then, in April of 1995,  the Oklahoma City bombing happened. According to news accounts a few days after the attack, Stockman’s office had received a cryptic fax minutes before the detonation, alluding to a major incident in Oklahoma: “First update. Bldg 7 to 10 floors only. Military people on scene—BATF/FBI. Bomb threat received last week. Perpetrator unknown at this time. Oklahoma.” The fax, the news stories said, had been sent to Stockman from a prominent Michigan militia leader, and rather than report it directly to the proper authorities, Stockman’s office had sent it to the NRA—before handing the FBI a copy two days later.

First, a month before the bombing, Stockman and a handful of other Republican congressmen wrote to Attorney General Janet Reno urging her to consider what he called an “impending raid” on militias. He had specifics. According to Stockman, the Bureau of Alochol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives, and a US Army unit called Joint Task Force Six were planning on launching a “paramilitary-style attack against Americans” at 4 a.m. on either March 25 or 26, 1995. The result, Stockman warned, could be a “bloody fiasco like Waco.”

A congressman for all of five months, Stockman was now everyone’s new favorite target, and he didn’t do himself any favors. Next, he came under fire from the Anti-Defamation League after going on a radio show run by a pro-militia conspiracy theorist group called the Liberty Lobby. Stockman rejected the ADL’s assertion that the Holocaust-denying radio show was anti-Semitic. “They said that because they talk against ‘international bankers’ that means they’re against Jewish folks,” he told Jewish Week. “I don’t agree…The largest banks today are not American. I know that most of them are Japanese now.”

Besides, he explained, he led by example. His own staff included “a Christian Jewish person.”

Stockman also came under scrutiny from the Federal Elections Commission. Although Stockman claimed to have been inspired to run for office by Oliver North’s testimony during the Iran-Contra scandal, there was another incentive he didn’t talk about. An Ohio direct marketing firm called Suarez Corp., angered by Brooks’ proposal to tax out-of-state direct marketing firms, had put out an ad in a local paper promising financial support for anyone who would run against him. They ultimately loaned the cash-strapped Stockman $82,000—then filed a complaint when he never repaid it; Stockman insisted he’d been given just $44,000.

Headlines of copies obtained by Roll Call included red-meat tracts such as “Servicemen Don’t Want Sodomites in the Military” and “HUD Appointee is a ‘Mean Lesbian.’”

Publicly, Stockman lamented his misfortune. But he made no effort to change his behavior. That December, after watching a Family Research Council movie called Children of Table 34, about sex researcher Alfred Kinsey, he wrote a letter to his colleagues calling for a moratorium on sexual education: “Our children have been taught that…any type of sex is a valid outlet for their emotions. They are taught that the problem with sex is not that it is wrong to engage in homosexual, bestial, underage, or premarital sex, but that it is wrong to do so without protection.”

Stockman’s antics made him a top target of Democrats. They recruited Nick Lampson, a former tax collector, to quit his job and run for the seat. Stockman edged Lampson in the 1996 election, but just when he thought he was out of the woods, a federal court invalidated the election result on the grounds that Stockman had been illegally redistricted into a more favorable seat. A second election one month later—in a district containing more Democratic turf and less of what Stockman characterized as “beer, Bible, and guns“—went to Lampson.

For Stockman, the second coming—sandwiched around stints as a banker, a fiber-optics entrepreneur, and an anti-climate-science activist—has been much like the first. His 2012 campaign headquarters was a raccoon-infested motorcycle repair shop, and in true militia fashion, Stockman volunteers dined on MREs. Running on a tea party platform in the newly created 36th district, Stockman faced only token Democratic opposition in the form of Max Martin, a retired pilot, and took 71 percent of the vote.

H/T: Mother Jones

Fresh from claiming the GOP’s 2012 run was “a great campaign—a nine-month campaign”; that only went awry at the end, Republican National Committee chairman Reince Priebus now wants to rig the Electoral College so that when Republicans lose they still might “win.”

Specifically, Priebus is urging Republican governors and legislators to take up what was once a fringe scheme to change the rule for distribution of Electoral College votes. Under the Priebus plan, electoral votes from battleground states such as Florida, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Virginia, Wisconsin and other states that now regularly back Democrats for president would be allocated not to the statewide winner but to the winners of individual congressional districts.

Because of gerrymandering by Republican governors and legislators, and the concentration of Democratic votes in urban areas and college towns, divvying up Electoral College votes based on congressional district wins would yield significantly better results for the GOP. In Wisconsin, where Democrat Barack Obama won in 2012 by a wider margin than he did nationally, the president would only have gotten half the electoral votes. In Pennsylvania, where Obama won easily, he would not have gotten the twenty electoral votes that he did; instead, under the Priebus plan, it would have been eight for Republican Mitt Romney, twelve for Barack Obama.

Nationwide, Obama won a sweeping popular-vote victory—with an almost 5-million ballot margin that made him the first president since Dwight Eisenhower to take more than 51 percent of the vote in two elections. That translated to a very comfortable 322-206 win in the Electoral College.

How would the 2012 results have changed if a Priebus plan had been in place? According to an analysis byFair Vote-The Center for Voting and Democracy, the results would have been a dramatically closer and might even have yielded a Romney win.

Under the most commonly proposed district plan (the statewide winner gets two votes with the rest divided by congressional district) Obama would have secured the narrowest possible win: 270-268. Under more aggressive plans (including one that awards electoral votes by district and then gives the two statewide votes to the candidate who won the most districts), Romney would have won 280-258.

“If Republicans in 2011 had abused their monopoly control of state government in several key swing states and passed new laws for allocating electoral votes, the exact same votes cast in the exact same way in the 2012 election would have converted Barack Obama’s advantage of nearly five million popular votes and 126 electoral votes into a resounding Electoral College defeat,” explains FairVote’s Rob Richie.

The RNC chair is encouraging Republican governors and legislators—who, thanks to the “Republican wave” election of 2010, still control many battleground states that backed Obama and the Democrats in 2012—to game the system.

“I think it’s something that a lot of states that have been consistently blue [Democratic in presidential politics] that are fully controlled red [in the statehouse] ought to be considering,” Priebus says with regard to the schemes for distributing electoral votes by district rather than the traditional awarding of the votes of each state (except Nebraska and Maine, which have historically used narrowly defined district plans) to the winner.

Already, there are moves afoot in a number of battleground states to “fix” the rules to favor the Republicans in 2016, just as they have already fixed the district lines for electing members of the House. Thanks to gerrymandering and the concentration of Democratic votes, Republicans were able to lose the overall nationwide vote for US House seats by 1.4 million votes and still take control of the chamber—thus giving the United States the divided government that voters have rejected.

h/t: John Nichols at The Nation