Posted on 06/24/2011 7:57:17 AM PDT by Walter Scott Hudson
Attracting some of the hardest of hardcore politicos to a cold and rainy pavilion in South Saint Paul, the Republican Liberty Caucus hosted a town hall style forum Wednesday evening. The subject was a state-by-state initiative to establish a National Popular Vote for the office of President of the United States.
This is a controversial issue among conservatives and libertarians which I have come down on the unpopular side of. I haven’t wholly endorsed NPV. I have urged Tea Partiers to take an objective look at what it could do for Minnesota. However, before we can seriously analyze the idea, we have to understand what it is – and what it is not. We must disabuse ourselves of the notion that it is an attack upon our Founding Fathers, our Constitution, the Republic, and Mother’s apple pie.
Articulating that position at Wednesday’s forum was state Representative Glenn Gruenhagen. I took away three themes from his remarks. The first was that NPV is an attempt to undermine the Electoral College and transform the American republic into a pure democracy. The second, made in answer to the case for NPV by former state Representative Laura Brod, was that NPV sounds great “in theory” but is not based upon any “objective fact.” Finally, Gruenhagen referenced a rogues gallery of leftists who have promoted NPV, inferring that their support is reason enough to oppose it.
Brod competently answered each of these concerns. All three distract from the real issue, which is whether or not NPV is the best use of Minnesota’s constitutional power to assign its Electors as it sees fit.
Wherever NPV is discussed, the most prominent opposing argument is that it represents some sort of attack against our republican form of government. This is simply untrue. As Brod explained, the NPV state compact does not alter the Electoral College in any way. It is an application of the College according to the law of the participating states. Legally and philosophically, it proceeds from precisely the same power the current winner-takes-all rule does.
Furthermore, the distinguishing characteristic of a republic is not the absence of democratic process. The popular vote determines who we send to Congress, who we send to City Hall, who we send to the State Capitol, etc. Yet no one objects to these contests as exercises in pure democracy.
Setting that aside, the Right’s interest in NPV has (perhaps counter-intuitively) nothing to do with the actual vote. Affecting the way presidents are elected is a means to an end. The end is affecting the manner in which presidential candidates campaign, and in which presidents govern. As it stands, unless you live in a battleground state (which Minnesota is not), you are virtually ignored in presidential contests. It doesn’t matter how many or how few people live in your state, or where they live within the state. If it’s not purple, it’s a flyover. Establishing NPV would change that dynamic. Suddenly, every vote would count.
This is where many conservatives and libertarians say, “Ah ha! Democracy!” But again, the point is missed. We don’t want every vote to count for the mere sake of every vote counting. We want every vote to count so that presidential candidates will be forced to weigh every state instead of a few battlegrounds. It’s not about democracy. It’s an answer to a de facto oligarchy, where a few special interests in a few special states have disproportionate influence over presidential candidates.
To this, Gruenhagen admits NPV sounds like a good theoretical solution. However, he claims the theory is not backed by any objective fact. With all due respect, many claims from opponents seem far more theoretical than NPV does. Take, for instance, the claim that NPV would result in unprecedented nationwide recounts which could tie up courts in several states for months on end. There is frankly nothing to suggest this possibility. There is no national election infrastructure, and NPV does not (and constitutionally could not) create one. Elections would still be administered precisely the way they are today, according to state law, supervised by the various secretaries of state. Recounts would occur only according to the laws in each state, and affecting the vote tally within states. There is simply no affect a close national popular vote could or would have upon a state’s process for recount. In Minnesota for example, an automatic recount would require a close vote within the state, not nationally. This would be the case whether NPV is enacted or not. It’s the case now.
The final argument deployed against NPV is the most instructive. The movement to enact NPV started amongst the Left in response to the presidential contest of 2000. It was in retaliation for the victory of George W. Bush against Al Gore. Many among the Left swore they would never let such an outcome occur again. They proceeded from the conviction that the winner of the popular vote should be elected to office because they won the popular vote. As noted above, this is not the reason conservatives have signed on to NPV. Frankly, given the rarity with which a president has been elected counter to the popular vote, it’s a silly issue to get hung up on. But we happily let the Left hang themselves on it because there is significant reason to believe it will open up the presidential contest to a broader, more conservative electorate. Regardless, the notion that we ought to judge an idea by the quality of its supporters is a bold-faced fallacy. It’s called an ad hominem attack, and we really ought to leave those to the Left.
Believe it or not, none of the above is an argument for NPV. I am making the argument to have the argument. As it stands, I see many of my libertarian friends and Tea Party cohort dismissing NPV out of hand for reasons which don’t hold muster. In fact, NPV may be a bad idea for Minnesota. The one point Gruenhagen made which I flagged for follow-up was a finding by the CATO Institute that Minnesota’s influence over the presidential contest would decrease by 3% under NPV. I’m curious to learn how they quantified that with such precision. Regardless, it speaks to the real issue we should be debating. Is NPV good for our state? Is it the best way to utilize our Electors? Those are questions of merit. So are concerns about the affect of voter fraud in certain notorious states. But we can’t consider those arguments before getting past the misguided constitutional concern.
Because they're suicidal? Because they're really useful idiots for the 'progressive agenda'? Could be either one. Time will tell.
Why Are Conservatives Supporting the National Popular Vote?
Supreme ignorance...
Riiiiiiggghhhhtt....I'm sure the good people of Wyoming, North Dakota, et al will be just thrilled at the jump in campaign activity. If you wrote this, you are delusional.
No true conservative would support this. Why? Because we tend to conserve institutions.
Going the NPV route would result in the political equivalent of "free beer" to New York, California, and a couple of other large states constituting an electoral majority. Can you not see that?
We don’t need a “magic wand” change to the process.
The underlying fundamental is the character and morals of the population. The more work that is done towards promoting a population of good character and morals, the more the voting process - even the current one - will result in candidates being elected who share the same good qualities.
I would support an amendment to allocate EVs by Congressional District (plus awarding the 2 senate seats by overall state winner) or by county.
Not the NPV though.
Because they are idiots. No one who calls himself "conservative" should support NPV because NPV was never the law of the land when it came to electing Presidents. Ever.
0bama is in serious trouble. The Democrats always throw out NPV as a "solution" to a "problem" (which of course doesn't exist) whenever they need helpful fraud in major cities to negate red state voters.
They are “cocktail circuit Republicans”
If they truly want to do this, allocate by Congressional district or County.
This way, at least some semblance of conservatives in CA, or, to be fair, liberals in Texas, can have their votes count.
Don’t they realize that four liberal states would then control the country? It was fun explaining the electoral college to my Aussie mates.
because most conservatives want the laws the libs passed repealed, and want to put in their own laws on the opposite side of the political spectrum...either way, repression is the result...strict constitutionalism is the only way to go...
Mob rule has always been a bad idea. The Founding Fathers knew what they were doing.
Going the NPV route would result in the political equivalent of "free beer" to New York, California, and a couple of other large states constituting an electoral majority. Can you not see that?
That's simply untrue. It presumes that everyone in those areas votes the same way, which they don't. It also presumes that if you somehow convinced everyone in those areas to vote the same way you'd have a national majority, which you wouldn't. I'll spare you the cut and paste routine. Check out the FAQ page on nationalpopularvote(dot)com. If you can dispute their numbers, more power to you.
To your point about conserving institutions, I would make two notes. First, no institution is threatened by the NPV state compact. But even if it was, argument from tradition is not an argument. We don't conserve institutions merely because they exist. We conserve them when they serve a rational purpose. This brings us back to the argument we should be having, which is whether the NPV compact has merit as policy.
Anybody else see the supreme irony of that?
The real problem here is not merely that NPV gives disproportionate representation to the big population centers. It might even be possible to make a rational argument for that but only — and here is the real issue — if we intend to jettison the federal system and replace it with an even larger, more powerful, central government. That is the real agenda of the left. Centralized consolidation of power. NPV is just one of the means to achieve it.
The ultimate result would be to vastly extend the reach of vote fraud in the heavily populated blue states. That’s why the leftists are pushing the idea.
It might sound appealing that the winner of the national popular vote wins the election.
However, in a very close election, it’s not always clear who that is.
On election night 2000, Bush was ahead by about a million popular votes nationwide.
By the Wednesday afternoon, the day after election day, Gore was ahead nationwide by about 500,000 popular votes. That’s a razor thin margin, percentagewise, over the whole country.
In the 2000 election, a national recount would have been needed to verify who really won the national popular vote. Until that is done, you couldn’t even get to the electoral vote under these NPV proposals.
Ditto in 1960, Kennedy vs. Nixon. Officially Kennedy won the popular vote by about 100,000+ votes nationwide. But there too, if such a system were in place then, you would need a national recount. Who is going to supervise that, who would pay for that?
In Washington three counties (King, Pierce, and Snohomish) control the whole state. In King county there are more lawyers than in the whole country of Japan.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.