this lawrence lessig. this is mark on with lawrence. caller: good morning.t had a question, professor. if you could explain, a lot of us don't really know how the electoral college was put into the original documents so could you explain about that and could you explain also if you think the electoral college where it relies on those mains well states that it can be gerrymandered -- main 12 states, that it can be gerrymandered? the electoral college was an innovation to deal with the problem the framers had which is never before in the history of the size had a country of the united states elected the president. they had to figure out how they were going to do it and some people want to direct election other people wanted congress to make the selection. they greeted his body that would be somewhere between those two extremes, but the purpose of the body was to act as an independent judgment about who the president should be. initially state legislatures would select the electors in the select, but very soon most states adopted a to monitor the system in it s

political news of the day with the washington times online opinion editor and harvard law on theor lawrence lessig lawsuit he joined to challenge the electoral college system. join the discussion. ♪ host: it is the washington journal for august the 17th for our first hour this morning. we are interested in hearing from you, what you would choose as the top story of the week. for example, president trump's decision to rescind john brennan's security clearance. you may consider 700 news -- several hundred newspapers showed solidarity, criticizing president trump and his views on omarosa. or tapes from one released yesterday and promises of more to come. you wantis something to talk about in your hometown, that is up for consideration on this top news story of the week. if you want to call with that, 202-748-8001 for republicans. 202-748-8000 for democrats. independents, 202-748-8002. if you want to tweet us, you can do so@and -- you can do so @cspanwj and post on our page at facebook.com/cspan. the editors of "the washington post" highlight that story concerning mr. brennan's security clearance. pre