The Brief

Every presidential election cycle, constitutional law expert Alison LaCroix can count on people asking her one question when they learn what she does for a living.

“Why do we have the Electoral College?” she says she's asked — again and again. “It's good news in terms of people being aware that it exists,” says LaCroix, who teaches law and history at the University of Chicago, “but bad news in the sense that people feel like, ‘Why does it exist, and is it useful?’”

A majority of Americans — more than 60% — support abolishing the Electoral College, according to a September report by the Pew Research Center. But the system has survived an unprecedented number of attempts to change it.

“There have been more proposals for Constitutional amendments on changing the Electoral College than on any other subject,” according to the National Archives, citing more than 700 efforts to dismantle the process.

Backers of the Electoral College idea say the system balances power among large and small states, brings stability, and is an obstacle to demagogues. But critics call the Electoral College an indirect process that’s undemocratic and rooted in racism. It’s also the reason we have swing states.

“From the perspective of 2024, you know, it doesn't seem ‘small-d’ democratic to have this sort of intermediate body between the people voting and the ultimate decision,” says LaCroix, who has written a historical analysis of the U.S. Constitution.

Here’s a quick guide:

How does the Electoral College work?

Dec. 16, 1940: New York State electors, part of the Electoral College, cast votes at the state capital in Albany. "All are unidentified," according to The Associated Press.

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“When voters cast their ballots for a candidate for president of the United States, they are actually voting for the presidential electors who were selected by that candidate’s party,” according to the National Conference of State Legislatures.

On ballots around the country, names like “Donald Trump” and “Kamala Harris” actually represent slates of electors — members of the Electoral College who are pledged to vote for that candidate.

There are 538 members of the Electoral College nationwide: one for each state’s members of Congress, and three more for the District of Columbia. That’s where the presidential election’s famous number comes from: The candidate with at least 270 electoral votes (a majority) wins. As we’ve seen in some previous elections, that candidate doesn’t have to win the popular vote.

Despite its substantial-sounding name, the Electoral College is neither a place nor a permanent body: It’s more of a process. In each state, political parties designate their own slate of potential electors before the November general election.

Nearly every state and the District of Columbia have a winner-take-all policy, meaning only those electors tied to a candidate who won the popular vote in their state will send their ballots to the Capitol. Maine and Nebraska divide the ballots, giving two “at-large” electoral votes to the state’s overall winner but also one for each congressional district won.

The electors then gather in mid-December to cast their votes for president and vice president, sending the results to Congress.

Congress then certifies the votes, on Jan. 6. If there’s a tie, the House of Representatives would hold a contingent election to choose the president.

A presidential candidate can win the Electoral College vote but lose the popular vote: it happened in 2016 and 2000, and several times in the 1800s.

Who are the electors?

In most states, the two main parties choose slates of potential electors either at their conventions or by committee votes. They’re often people who play prominent roles in state government or are longstanding party members.

Each state’s legislature determines how electors are chosen — but there are two main restrictions: They can’t be federal government workers; and they can’t be members of Congress.

Federal law doesn’t require electors to vote in a way that reflects that results in their state, but 37 states have laws requiring them to do so, according to the NCSL. The organization says the 2016 election saw seven “faithless” electors — including five Democratic electors who refused to cast their votes for Hillary Clinton — the most since 1972.

Despite their power, electors’ identities aren’t usually widely known outside of their state. Unlike members of Congress, there isn’t a centralized list of all the states’ electors, according to the Office of the Federal Register.

The Framers opted against a popular vote

Jan. 6, 2021: Then-President Trump's supporters march at the Michigan State Capitol to protest the certification of Joe Biden as the next U.S. president.

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The country’s framers saw the Electoral College as a way to balance a lot of competing motivations, from the separation of federal powers to states not wanting to cede power, to concerns of unequal power between the states due to population differences (and for some, not wanting to risk losing slavery). LaCroix says even at the time, in the 1780s when this decision was made at the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia, the delegates chose “an unusual body.”

The Constitution’s framers were also dubious about a popular vote, concerned on one hand that the country was too large for the public to make an informed choice on a leader — and on the other, that a direct system could help a demagogue rise to power.

They also considered, but dismissed, the idea of having Congress choose the president, similar to Great Britain’s parliamentary system. But at the Convention, Gouverneur Morris — who argued for a popular vote — warned that if the legislature picked the president, “it will be the work of intrigue, of cabal, and of faction.”

But some Convention attendees also believed candidates would likely fail to gain national support outside their region, leaving Congress to decide the presidency.

“And then they say, well, what about an intermediate body, which becomes the Electoral College,” LaCroix says. “[It] solves the problem of the president being too beholden to Congress. It's a temporary body. It's not some entity that has ongoing power. And they thought that was appealing.”

A further sign of the Electoral College’s ephemeral nature: The term isn’t mentioned in the Constitution.

Why do some call the Electoral College a relic of racism?

Dec. 13, 2000: Supporters of Democratic presidential candidate Al Gore march to the Florida State Capitol to rally against the legislature's intention to name a slate of electors favorable to Republican presidential candidate George W. Bush.

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At the Convention, Southern states successfully argued for using enslaved people’s population numbers to bolster their power in Congress, claiming that each slave should be counted as 3/5 of a person — but not have the right to vote — when calculating representation.

A direct popular vote for the presidency would undermine that power. But if the Electoral College were to be based on representation in Congress, the Three Fifths Compromise’s amplification of Southern political power would carry over into choosing the president. The dynamic has been a force in presidential elections ever since.

“That's a problem with the Electoral College today, is it just sort of refracts too much power to small states,” LaCroix says. “And some of it is about smaller states — or states that were, like Georgia and South Carolina, really concerned about protecting slavery” in the new Constitution.

The Civil War and the 13th Amendment ended the Three Fifths era. But for decades afterward, Southern states worked to suppress and dilute Black voters’ impact. Today, the Electoral College’s critics say that its winner-take-all aspect is still harmful.

“You see the impact, for example, in the South right now,” Jesse Wegman, author of the book Let The People Pick The President: The Case For Abolishing The Electoral College, told NPR’s Fresh Air in 2020. Wegman says millions of Black citizens’ votes in Southern states are simply drowned out by white majorities.

“You see these patterns replicating themselves throughout our history,” he said. “The people who stopped the popular vote amendment in the late 1960s were Southern segregationists. Some of the people who prevented us from getting to a popular vote in the founding of the country were slave holders. Again and again the pattern repeats itself.”

The House overwhelmingly voted to abolish the Electoral College in 1969

Nov. 13, 2016: Protestors demonstrate against President-elect Donald Trump outside Independence Hall in Philadelphia. The Republican lost the popular vote by more than a million votes, but he won the Electoral College vote.

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Going back more than 50 years, a majority of voters have supported doing away with the Electoral College.

“Public opinion polls have shown Americans favored abolishing it by majorities of 58 percent in 1967; 81 percent in 1968; and 75 percent in 1981,” according to the National Archives.

Momentum to replace the Electoral College got a boost in 1968, when Richard Nixon notched a razor-thin win of the popular vote — after earlier concerns that segregationist George Wallace’s third-party candidacy might siphon enough electoral votes to prevent a clear majority.

Sen. Birch Bayh led a push to amend the Constitution, and in September of 1969, the House voted 339–70 to adopt the measure. But the amendment languished in the Senate.

“Led by Southern senators but helped by some very conservative Midwestern Republicans, the proposal is defeated by a filibuster,” as Harvard Kennedy School professor Alex Keyssar told NPR’s Throughline ahead of the 2020 election.

Segregationists weren’t the only ones who wanted to preserve the Electoral College. Some Black leaders, such as Vernon Jordan, argued in the 1970s that Black voters could wield political power as “swing” election deciders. But many of those leaders later opted to support a popular vote.

There’s an ongoing debate over whether to replace the Electoral College

The college’s supporters include the conservative Heritage Foundation, which says it prevents presidential candidates from focusing only on winning votes from high-population and urban areas, thus addressing “the Founders’ fears of a ‘tyranny of the majority,” according to its website.

The Heritage Foundation also says the Electoral College tends to magnify the margin of victory, imparting a mandate to govern; and “has the added benefit of eschewing radical candidates for more moderate ones.”

Even experts who want change also warn that some of the impacts could be unpredictable.

For instance, Akhil Reed Amar, a law professor at Yale University, told NPR’s Throughline that running a new, national direct election would bring complications — from what central federal authority oversees it to how to get 50 states to agree on the rules.

But, Amar added, “Here's my best argument for why we should have reform: equality. One person, one vote. Each person's vote should count the same…. One person, one vote is a powerful affirmation of equality.”

In the face of high federal hurdles such as a constitutional amendment, there is a push for change at the state level.

Under the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact, states adopt legislation requiring them to award their electors’ votes to whichever presidential candidate wins the popular vote nationwide. The mechanism would kick in once enough states join the compact to decide a presidential election.

As of this year, National Popular Vote legislation has become law in 17 states and D.C., reflecting 209 electoral votes. In 2023, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz signed his state’s version of the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact. This year, Maine also joined the group.

The legislation “has also passed at least one legislative chamber in 7 states possessing 74 electoral votes (Arkansas, Arizona, Michigan, North Carolina, Nevada, Oklahoma, Virginia),” according to the National Popular Vote website.

The compact needs to add states holding 61 more electoral votes to trigger the change.

California’s first-in-the-nation fast food council — created to give workers a voice on wages, safety and working conditions — has not met in over a year and has no chairperson.

Now the workers the council was built to protect, organized by the Service Employees International Union, are taking their concerns directly to the state, demanding that Gov. Gavin Newsom appoint a chairperson so the council can do its work, as required by law.

Luna Mondragon, who works at a Carl’s Jr. in Milpitas, told CalMatters through a translator that she started out as a cook but has done many other duties in her five years there. After she joined the fast food workers union, she said she began speaking up, especially when she started to experience aches and pains from her job. Since then, she said she has been retaliated against, including with fewer shifts.

“If we don’t have our health we can’t accomplish anything,” she said, her voice choked with emotion. “It’s so important for them to appoint a chair. We need the council.”

The council was created as part of a 2023 compromise that also set a $20 minimum wage for fast food workers. It has the power to set standards on wages, health, safety and working conditions — and to raise the minimum wage annually for hundreds of thousands of fast food workers at chains with 60 or more locations nationwide.

The council — composed of four members representing the businesses, four members representing labor and a chairperson who’s an “unaffiliated” member of the public — must, under state law, hold at least two meetings a year, though the law does not specify who should enforce this provision.

The council only held those meetings in 2024; last year it held two subcommittee meetings, the latest in February 2025. Shortly after, the council’s chairperson, Nick Hardeman, resigned when Newsom appointed him to a different state position. When reached by CalMatters, Hardeman said he did not want to speak on the record about a council he has not chaired in a while.

In 2022, the Legislature raised fast food workers’ minimum wage to $22 an hour. The industry fought back, gathering signatures to repeal the law. Workers across the state went on strike. In late 2023, the SEIU and the industry reached a last-minute compromise: Workers dropped a ballot fight in exchange for a $20 minimum wage and the establishment of the council. The SEIU-affiliated California Fast Food Workers Union launched the following year — lacking the collective bargaining rights of a traditional union but acting as an advocacy and membership group for workers.

Tara Gallegos, a spokesperson for the governor, would not answer questions about the council, instead referring CalMatters to the state’s Labor & Workforce Development Agency. Crystal Young, a spokesperson for the agency, confirmed that there is no chairperson and the council’s meetings are on hold. The council’s four-person staff continues to respond to inquiries and prepare for future meetings, she said.

On April 16, marking about two years since the council’s first meeting, workers delivered a 96-page book to the governor’s office, describing more than 100 complaints filed with CalOSHA, the state labor department and different city agencies since the council’s formation, alleging wage theft and poor working conditions. The union estimates there are about 630,000 fast food workers in the state, about 75% of whom are people of color and 20% of whom are immigrants.

“Employers feel newly empowered to threaten us with calling ICE when we ask questions about paid sick leave or [workers’ compensation] or report health and safety hazards,” Angelica Hernandez, a McDonald’s worker who is a member of the fast food council, said in the book.

Rich Reinis, a member of the council who represents employers and is a former franchise owner, said he has no knowledge of when meetings will resume and is waiting. In his view, the council should have been discussing “fire and ICE.” The phrase refers to the effects of last year’s L.A. County fires on the fast food industry and its workers, some of whom lost their homes, and what businesses and workers need to know about immigration enforcement.

Reinis also wants the council to order a study of the wage increase’s effects on prices and employment. Competing studies by UC Berkeley and UC Santa Cruz have reached opposite conclusions, and the question of affordability remains unresolved, he said.

A Los Angeles Times columnist who analyzed the competing studies concluded the debate over the wage's effects is likely to continue. Hernandez, the councilmember, rejected the industry's claims the wage increase has hurt business. “The sky didn’t fall on the California fast food industry,” she said.

The council is also required to submit a performance review to the Legislature every three years — a deadline approaching without a single full meeting in the past year. Before he resigned, Hardeman, the former chairperson, said it was hard for the council to reach decisions.

“The staff will have to write a report without having any meetings,” Reinis said. “How the hell are we supposed to do that?”

Chris Holden, the former California assemblymember who authored the law that raised the workers’ wages and created the council, told CalMatters the council was “groundbreaking” and “needs to address the challenges that were the genesis of the council in the first place.” He said he hopes the governor is doing his due diligence to identify a new chairperson.

“I want to tell [the governor] to finish the job he started,” Julieta Garcia, a cook at a Pizza Hut in Los Angeles, told CalMatters through a translator. “Leave a good legacy for this generation and the future generation, so you can be recognized as a leader who gave fast food workers a chance.”

Young, the Labor & Workforce Development Agency spokesperson who was speaking on the governor’s behalf, confirmed that Newsom’s office received the workers’ book.

The governor's office has not said when — or whether — Newsom plans to appoint a chairperson to the council.

This article was originally published on CalMatters and was republished under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives license.

Nearly 20 years after founding a successful environmental and safety consulting services company, Robin Thorne said she still gets checked for being a Black woman in the construction industry.

“I've had situations where people, they don't even make eye contact, and then the male has to step back to say, 'She's running the show,'" she said.

Robin Thorne (in pink jacket) founded DemoChicks to help women of color land jobs in construction industries.

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Thorne runs CTI Environmental, a multi-million dollar company that was contracted by the Army Corps of Engineers to do debris removal after the L.A. fires.

She’s been an engineer for decades and knows fewer than one of four workers in architecture, construction and engineering industries who are women — and much fewer are women of color.

That proportion is low considering 47% of the U.S. labor force are women.

That's why she’s organized a “Women in STEM Signing Day” at Long Beach City College on Saturday, May 30. The event’s meant to create the type of excitement normally associated with young people signing up for college sports teams.

She wants younger women to tap into their drive to succeed

There were far fewer women in these jobs when Thorne was growing up in Philadelphia, but she didn’t let roadblocks, including those in her personal life — like being a single mom on public assistance — stop her.

DemoChicks helps give young women of color exposure to construction-related jobs.

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“When I thought about being an engineer, I didn't think about it being male-dominated. I just knew I wanted to be an engineer,” she said.

She added that some women do give up on similar dreams or fail to find the spark that allows them to see themselves doing these jobs. That’s why Thorne started DemoChicks seven years ago. She wants young women to see her and think “engineer,” as well as connect with women who are already working in these industries.

Mentorship, examples, and money

The organization is called DemoChicks because demolition is one of the jobs that keeps Thorne’s company busy. More women are entering architecture, construction and engineering jobs than before, but the percentage of women in each industry is still low:

15% in engineering
26% in architecture
11% in construction

These are mostly stable jobs with good entry-level wages, jobs such as safety coordinators, project managers, project engineers and construction managers.

Beyond giving teen girls IRL examples of women in construction industry jobs, DemoChicks supports their academic efforts, which often means helping them out meet college expenses. DemoChicks gave out $1,000 scholarships to eight women last year (35 applied).

A third generation Latina truck driver from South LA

One of those scholarship recipients in 2024 was Ana Terrazas. She recalled growing up in South L.A., not as a latch key kid, but as a truck cab kid.

Ana Terrazas as a teen at her mother's construction job. Terrazas now works for a large construction company as a project engineer.

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 ”My mother… was a truck driver,” Terrazas said, driving belly dump trailers on construction sites. Terrazas would help her mother change tires and lend a hand with any mechanical repairs. Her grandfather was a truck driver too.

“Since then I've always been obsessed with job sites, and also the superintendent, the one that would tell everybody where to go, how to do their job, and organize everything,” Terrazas said.

Two years ago she was working hard to finish her two majors — civil engineering and construction management — to earn her bachelor’s degree from Cal Poly Pomona. She applied for and was awarded a $1,500 scholarship from DemoChicks. That help, she said, had a big effect.

DemoChicks founder Robin Thorne, right, presents Ana Terrazas with a scholarship.

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“I didn't have to take as many hours of work to be able to focus more on my studies and also in my internship during that time,” Terrazas said.

The internship, at Swinerton, a nationwide construction company that's more than 100 years old, turned into full time work as a project engineer.

Terrazas paid it forward earlier this year, inviting Thorne and a dozen DemoChicks to a Swinerton work site during Women in Construction Week. She urged the women to tap into their drive to succeed and lean on people like her for help.

“As long as they're driven and this is what they want, there shouldn't be a reason for them to not be able to get a job here,” Terrazas said.

With LACMA’s new David Geffen Galleries just steps away, it may be easy to forget that we have the richest Ice Age fossil site on Earth right here with the La Brea Tar Pits.

But the museum and research facilities at the tar pits are also scheduled for a multimillion dollar renovation.

Built in 1977, the George C. Page Museum at the tar pits has a special place in the hearts of Angelenos who’ve ever taken a field trip to see its massive mastodon skeletons or dire wolf skulls. Or have maybe shed a tear at the sculptures of the mammoth family in distress in the Lake Pit out front.

All that stuff is staying, museum educator Kay Lai told LAist, but new interactive exhibits will allow visitors to better understand the science that’s happening in their own backyard.

A rendering of the new outdoor amphitheater at the La Brea Tar Pits.

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The transformation

“This museum, as beloved as it is, definitely needs that refresh,” Lai said. “And I’m really excited for the next generation of kids that gets to grow up and make new memories here with this new space.”

Lai said the museum refresh will include a new focus on Zed — the 80% complete Columbian mammoth found here — and other notable animals they’ve unearthed over the decades. The mammoth’s bones will be reassembled and Zed will “stand tall for the first time since the Ice Age,” according to the museum’s website.

“We’re able to focus on the very first saber-toothed cat fossils that we’ve ever discovered ... As well as some of our Ice Age survivors ... like Pebbles the Puma ... Pebbles would have been the ancestor of some of the mountain lions that still live in Los Angeles today, including P-22 that passed away a couple years ago,” Lai said.

Then there’s the fish bowl: you know, the fossil lab with windows where you can watch researchers at work?

An even better fish bowl

“So we’ll still have the fish bowl, but it’s going to be much more interactive and there’ll be much more discussion of what’s going on inside the fossil lab,” said Regan Dunn, assistant deputy director and curator at the new Samuel Oschin Global Center for Ice Age Research.

A digital rendering of the new fish bowl at the Samuel Oschin Global Center for Ice Age Research.

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Dunn explained that the area where they store their collections of fossils and other specimens is getting major updates too.

“Super valuable, millions of specimens, will be in upgraded systems where there’s climate control. There’ll be enclosed cabinets and be under much better maintenance. And also allow for much more research to happen,” she said.

The La Brea Tar Pits are still very much an active paleontological research site. Dunn said any time a hole goes in the ground in the Hancock Park area, a new discovery is made.

With new outdoor classrooms and a 1-kilometer pedestrian pathway that will take visitors past excavation sites, the idea is to make the research going on here more visible to the public.

Your last chance to visit the tar pits before its two-year transformation is July 6.

A digital rendering showing the aerial view of the updated La Brea Tar Pits grounds.

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This story was originally published by CalMatters. Sign up for their newsletters.

In the face of the nation's highest gas prices, California lawmakers approved a bill to ease restrictions on E85 conversion kits — devices that let conventional gasoline cars run on a cheaper, mostly ethanol fuel blend.

Assembly Bill 2046, dubbed the “Access to Affordable Gas Act” by its author, Assemblymember Rhodesia Ransom, a Stockton Democrat, advanced through the Assembly on a 59-0 vote with no debate or opposition.

The measure is the latest example of Sacramento lawmakers scrambling to respond to gas costs that have soared amid the Iran-Israel war, which has rattled global oil markets and pushed California pump prices above $6 a gallon. It now heads to the California state Senate and would need Gov. Gavin Newsom’s approval before it becomes law.

“Californians consistently pay more at the pump than drivers from other states, and gas prices are once again climbing across the state,” Ransom said on the Assembly floor Thursday. “For commuters and working families, [the proposal] offers a practical way to save money.”

If approved in its current form, the measure would exempt manufacturers of E85 converter kits from an approval process by the state’s primary climate regulator, the California Air Resources Board, which requires companies to demonstrate the devices do not increase a vehicle's emissions. The bill would leave in place a separate federal certification process run by the Environmental Protection Agency.

“Members in Sacramento are looking for ways to try to reduce costs — or appear to reduce costs of driving — and so this is a way to do that,” said Aaron Smith, a UC Berkeley economist and fuels expert.

The converter kits, which cost between $800 to $1,250, according to a legislative analysis of the bill, would let drivers convert their cars to run on both gasoline and E85 fuel.

E85 is a blend of up to 85% ethanol and 15% gasoline; the share of ethanol typically is between 55% and 85%, said Smith, the Berkeley expert.

Jeff Wilkerson, government affairs manager for Pearson Fuels, the largest E85 fuel provider in the state and a bill supporter, said E85 — much of which is made from Midwest corn — is largely insulated from overseas oil shocks that drive California gas prices. The ethanol blend has sold for $2 or more less per gallon than gasoline during recent price spikes.

While E85 is typically priced lower than gasoline and can reduce petroleum dependence and carbon emissions, it delivers 20% to 30% fewer miles per gallon, according to the air board, meaning drivers only save money when E85 is priced at least 20% to 30% below gasoline.

About 1.3 million vehicles in California can currently use the fuel, which is sold at about 640 stations statewide — just 3% of the state’s more than 15,000 fuel pumps, according to the bill analysis.

Ransom said more E85 pumps would be built if the state loosened restrictions and encouraged demand for the fuel blend. She stressed that her bill would present E85 as an alternative.

“For some people, it may not be a wise choice, but at least now it’s going to be a choice,” she said.

Environmentally, the fuel is rated cleaner than regular gasoline by California's Low Carbon Fuel Standard. But that rating has critics. Smith, the Berkeley economist, said the benefits of ethanol are likely overstated. Official numbers likely understate emissions from land use as rising corn demand for ethanol pushes farmers to clear forested land.

The state’s own certification record offers a cautionary tale. Lindsay Buckley, a spokesperson for the board, said the agency has received only five applications from companies for E85 conversion kits since 2008 and that none has cleared the certification process, which is designed to ensure modified vehicles still meet their original emissions standards. Supporters of the proposal argue the board moves slowly and its regulations are burdensome.

But loosening that standard carries its own risk, cautioned Aaron Kurz, senior consultant on the Assembly Transportation Committee, especially now.

As the federal government has stripped scientific expertise from regulatory decisions, he wrote in his analysis, “this committee should consider if the state should cede authority over an inherently scientific process and set a precedent for transferring approval authority to the federal government.”