What's the point of states?

[Farm Boy]

Yeah, the electoral college needs to die. Everyone hates it. Except Republicans when they win the electoral vote but lose the popular vote

(Actually, the grammar is pretty good! The second comma should be a semicolon but that's the only error I see.)

Nah. I think it's still semi useful at least in theory as a counterbalance to large urban centers. It's not perfect at all, but its existence is a boon over its non-existence lacking a replacement. And my state's EC votes go the way of Chicago and I am very much not a Republican.

 

[Arwon]

First past the post voting and politician-drawn congressional districts are both far bigger issues. Those two other things serve to make many many more congresspeople safe in their seats than is healthy or justifiable.

The Electoral College is just a slight wrinkle in how the President - one office holder - gets chosen. And at the end of the day either the Republican or the Democratic candidate will get in, and it's inherently a winner-takes all thing. The worst that can happen is someone loses the popular vote but gets elected. Which is dodgy, but far from as bad as what happens in Congressional elections.

 

[Camikaze]

Funnily enough, despite the intentions of the oroginal framers at Federation in 1901 here (be less centralised than Canada), compared to Australia these days, Canada seems to have fairly strong provincial governments and a weaker central government.

We have the broad residual power residing in the States but in practice this has gotten narrower and narrower over time via court decisions. Some of the clauses that have aided this have been the power to regulate corporations and the power over treaty obligations.

Court decisions have definitely expanded federal power over the years, and the external affairs power is the best example, but the corporations power is quite narrow. From the 70s to the late 90s it was broader and allowed for a federal scheme, but the current Corporations Act is only the result of state cooperation and referral of power - the Constitution only allows the Commonwealth to regulate existing corporations, not to regulate their creation.

The fact that the states decided to cooperate and create a federal scheme does raise the question of why the Commonwealth shouldn't have the power, though.