There is a lot of drama around Alexander Hamilton these days, and it's not all on a Broadway stage.
Last week, Monterey County Democratic Party chairperson Vinz Koller went to Washington, D.C. on business, and made a stop in the Library of Congress to peruse Hamilton's federalist papers.
By Friday, he was back in town and on Friday morning appeared in federal court in San Jose where his attorneys invoked Hamilton's writings in an effort to rethink the modern Electoral College.
Koller is one of 538 electors nationwide, and is scheduled to show up in Sacramento on Monday to cast his losing vote for Hillary Clinton, who won the popular vote in California (and hence all of its electoral votes).
Koller has since become one of a group of so-called "Hamilton electors," who are trying to give electors the latitude to vote for the candidate they believe is most qualified for office, whether or not that individual won the popular vote in their state.
To that end, Koller filed a lawsuit Dec. 9 against Gov. Jerry Brown and California Secretary of State Alex Padilla, calling on them not to enforce state law requiring him to vote for Clinton when the Electoral College convenes Dec. 19.
In a decision Friday, U.S. District Judge Edward Davila denied part of Koller's complaint and rules in favor of California state attorneys, as well as Donald Trump and the California Republican Party, who became parties to the lawsuit.
In his decision, Davila didn't weigh in on most of the substantive issues about electors' discretion, but determined that Koller had not met the legal threshold to prove that he would suffer extraordinary harm if the court didn't intervene and issue a temporary restraining order against state officials to prevent them from implementing California statutes.
"He has not provided anything to demonstrate that a prosecution is likely should he vote for individuals other than Clinton and Kaine," Davila wrote. (State law allows for a rogue elector to face felony prosecution, with penalties that could include fines and prison time.)
Davila also quoted Hamilton's federalist papers in his decision: "Hamilton argued that a 'small number of persons, selected by their fellow-citizens from the general mass' would be “most likely to possess the information and discernment requisite to such complicated investigations' [as to who should be president]."
There's been no ruling on the more substantive issue of Koller's lawsuit, challenging the constitutionality of California's policy around the Electoral College. That aspect of his lawsuit will proceed in federal court, but not until after the electors vote.
Koller and his attorneys appealed Davila's denial of the temporary restraining order to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals. They may seek an urgent hearing Monday morning before the Electoral College convenes at 2pm, but Koller says the decision in the appeal will matter for future elections even if it's not heard until a later date.
The way it is today, he says, in which electors don't exercise personal discretion, is out of step with what he believes the founding fathers wanted of electors. "We [should] people make decisions, or else it's just a computation.
(Koller's legal fees are being covered by the group Hamilton Defenders and Electors Trust, launched by Harvard law professor Lawrence Lessig, who briefly entered the Democratic presidential primary on a platform to reform campaign finance laws.)
Ironically, Koller has said he always intended to vote for Clinton and Kaine on Monday; his vote is not one that could tilt the presidential election. It's Republican defectors who could shift the balance from the anticipated 306-232 vote, based on the Election Day results in each state.
The Hamilton Electors would need 37 "faithless electors," Republicans who are supposed to vote for President-elect Donald Trump, to vote for another candidate in order to change the outcome of the election—an unlikely threshold to reach, and a goal to which California is irrelevant.