The states have carte blanche to decide how they pick electors. I see nothing unconstitutional about this bill.
***********
So California, and all the states with Democrat legislatures as soon as they assumed power, could decide that their electors would always go to the Democrats, even if their voters wanted to change their minds, effectively precluding us from ever having a Republican president? That’s not what our founding fathers intended, even though the Democrats, developing a sudden yen for language literalism, could argue to the contrary.
Actually, if all the states with Republican legislators tried that strategy we wouldn't have a Democrat President.
But yes, it's perfectly legal. The legislatures get to choose the electors. It so happens they've chosen to effect that by holding an election, but they don't have to. This isn't some hyper-literal reading of the Constitution. It is the process that the document lays out and exactly what the framers intended. Their intent was that the states pick the President, the executive officer of the union of states. The only election of a federal office holder specified in the original Constitution is for your House Representative.
Yes, of course they could. Voting by individuals is not required by the Constitution, the appointment of Electors is the sole prerogative of the Legislature.
It so happens that all 50 Legislatures have chosen a popular vote method to do this (except for the 3 electors Congress awarded itself in 1960), but it is not required.
The California Legislature could do as you suggest tomorrow and it would absolutely be Constitutional.