Jill Lepore

to punish Birch Bayh for having defeated the nominations of two of Nixon's Supreme Court justices.

And that is why we still have an electoral college.

That's the only reason.

Yeah.

Yeah.

It's there's there's like a coda to it, too.

He.

In the 70s, he tries again.

And I think it's like 1977.

And it's so stressful.

There's this quite brilliant conservative constitutional scholar named Martin Diamond, who was really opposed to abolishing the Electoral College.

And he comes to testify in Biden's committee.

And then he goes to sit and watch where the other people who are testifying, he's opposed to abolishing it, but the other people who are testifying, we're going to testify that day about why it's the right thing to do.

But the Martin Diamond has been so stressed out by his testimony.

He has a heart attack in the hearing room.

And Birch Bayh and Orrin Hatch try to revive him.

And the phone, like the emergency phone in the room doesn't work and help does not come and the guy dies.

And I think the hearings just never resume.

Like, it's just, it was not going to happen.

It just feels like fate is not on the side of abolishing the election, which is a horrible death for this poor man.