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“What do you say?”

Well, I’m an old guy with a Constitution fetish (although I’m considering switching to the Declaration).

The Founders were very concerned about the Presidency becoming a way for the (small, limited) national government to take over the States.

Everything they did, they did for a reason. They debated National Popular Vote. They debated election by the Senate, the House, or both.

They wound up with appointment by the State Legislatures, doubly indirect. Legislators chosen by the People voting (in their States) would then choose Electors voting in their State capitals would appoint the President, who would PRESIDE over the national government to make sure the rights of both States and People were preserved.

So, I defend the bottom line - it’s an appointive, not an elected, office and all three branches of the national government are excluded from participating, unless the Electoral College is divided, in which case the States still appoint the President by the House voting - BUT EACH STATE GETS ONE VOTE. California = Wyoming when the House appoints the President.

This highlights the point that it is that States that are the main actors. It’s not the population-apportioned House that chooses - it’s the STATES, as equals, who do the work.

I understand what you're saying and agree that it was supposed to be the states that lead the federal goverenment.

I wrote this here in one form or another:

Joy Behar wants a king, and she thinks the President is supposed to be one.
We don't vote directly for the President because the President is not the ruler of the People. The President is the executive officer of the federation of states. It's the states that elect the President to oversee the limited powers that the states delegated to the federal government.
It was the role of the governors of the several states to lead the people of their states. It was the role of the federal Executive to manage the relationships between the states, to be the voice of the nation in foreign relations with other countries, and to be the commander-in-chief of the military during armed conflicts.
The President's constituents were the governors, not the people. The states were the sovereign governments closest to the people. That's why the Senate was designed to be appointed by their respective state legislatures: 1) to confirm the President's nominations for executive branch offices and judicial picks, and 2) to ratify treaties that the President negotiated with foreign governments.
It was the several states, through the Senate, that were supposed to "lead" the President, not the other way around. This is why Article IV Section 4 says "and on Application of the Legislature, or of the Executive (when the Legislature cannot be convened)..." The states were expected to communicate to their Senators to convey to the President what the states were going to do. They were not asking the President for permission, they were informing the President of their intended actions.

I didn't expect you to take such a passive tone in response to my last post. I was suggesting that there are limits to plenary power, and that once exercised the plenary body is obligated to follow their own rules until they use that power again to make new rules. In a legislature, that power requires all chambers of the legislature to agree on a law, and then the executive to sign it. A plenary that disregards its own law becomes a king.

One thing that you wrote, though, requires clarification:

They wound up with appointment by the State Legislatures, doubly indirect. Legislators chosen by the People voting (in their States) would then choose Electors...

That's not what the Constitution says. Article II Section 1 says:

Each State shall appoint, in such Manner as the Legislature thereof may direct, a Number of Electors...

I know that you know this. Legislatures certainly could have set it up in their own state to be direct appointment just as you described, but they did not. They set up to be election by the people in their states. That's not to say that it can't be changed for future elections -- that's something I've argued in the threads about SCOTUS ruling on "faithless Electors" where states can change the method of appointing Electors where they no longer have the ability to be faithless.

Anyway, back to the topic of this thread...

I think SCOTUS wasn't power-grabbing in Florida, they were stopping a rogue state court from power-grabbing the election before irreparable damage was done. I think we're seeing the stars aligning in a similar way in New York with the Democrat courts trying to interfere with the Republican nominating convention, and SCOTUS should step in to keep that from happening via appropriate constitutional means. It's clear that Trump's constitutional rights were trampled on in New York just to get this very result.

-PJ