CA: Assembly panel OKs bills that could alter presidential campaigns (primary,electoral college)

"It's an effort to make California relevant again in presidential elections," he said.

A better effort would be not to rubber-stamp whoever the Dem nominee is with automatic double-digit leads.

Its politics. Besides, if California moved up its primary from March, New Hampshire would retaliate by moving theirs up to December of the previous year.

(Denny Crane: "I Don't Want To Socialize With A Pinko Liberal Democrat Commie. Say What You Like About Republicans. We Stick To Our Convictions. Even When We Know We're Dead Wrong.")

Turning our tempered system of electing a president into a direct democracy is troubling.

Allowing a due process to moderate the will of the mob was, and continues to be, wise. This is an increasingly important protection as the mob becomes increasingly international.

Can any state change how their electoral votes are cast?????

Doesn't this contradict the Constitution?

Can any state change how their electoral votes are cast????? Doesn't this contradict the Constitution?

The state legislatures decide how to award their respective states' Electoral votes.

However, I think it would be smarter for CA to adopt a form of proportional allotment within the state by allowing each Congressional District to decide its one vote, and then giving the remaining two state votes to the overall winner.

This would force Democrat and Republican presidential candidates to campaign throughout the state. Democrats would have to come to CA to maximize their EV's. Republicans would have to come to CA to try to win a few more EV's.

Its politics. Besides, if California moved up its primary from March, New Hampshire would retaliate by moving theirs up to December of the previous year.

If everyone would just move their primaries to November, then we could have regularly scheduled elections 3 out of every 4 Novembers.

The second bill would ratify an interstate compact under which California's 55 Electoral College members would agree to support the winner of the national popular vote for president, regardless of the outcome of the election in California.

If this gets put in place, no-one in California need vote in the Presidential election, as their vote will be irrelevant.

I think it would be smarter for CA to adopt a form of proportional allotment within the state by allowing each Congressional District to decide its one vote.

Consider the following:

In the Republican Party, the nominees for governor, lieutenant governor, treasurer, controller, attorney general, secretary of state, United States Senators (again, going back two elections) the Senate and Assembly GOP leaders, all elected officers of the GOP state central committee, the national committeeman and committeewoman, the president of the GOP county central committee chairmen's organization and the chair or president of each GOP volunteer organization officially recognized by the state central committee act as electors.

Given this Republican process in California, who would the CRP send to DC if all districts did not go Republican? The gubernatorial nominee? The retired minority leaders? CRP apparatchiks?

Not really, Their vote in 2000 is what gave Gore the 500,000 majority popular vote. Los Angeles County gave Gore 838,575 more votes than Bush.

Furthermore California gave Gore 1,293,774 more votes that Bush. So you see they would have to go to the polls just to get his national [Democrat candidate] votes as high as possible.

When they say Gore really won the 2000 election because he received 500,000 more votes that Bush I always say ""which city elected him?"

That compact's been proposed before and it doesn't require a constitutional amendment. States would simply pledge to support the nationwide popular vote winner of an election regardless of the outcome in a particular state. So if California's electoral votes were needed to ensure the popular vote winner obtained the presidency, those votes would go to that candidate. Assuming of course, other states to the compact pledged their electoral votes in a similar manner.

(Denny Crane: "I Don't Want To Socialize With A Pinko Liberal Democrat Commie. Say What You Like About Republicans. We Stick To Our Convictions. Even When We Know We're Dead Wrong.")

I would like to see CA having some voice in who the parties nominate which we currently have less than zero say in.

The electoral college foot-stomping is beyond laughable.

considering 1/8th of the nation's legal population live here, it would seem only fair they have some say, altho many would prefer not to see a blue state have such power in the process, in the end 54 electoral votes can still have a lot of sway in the end.

the electoral stomp is not in the least amusing, I agree.

However, I think it would be smarter for CA to adopt a form of proportional allotment within the state by allowing each Congressional District to decide its one vote, and then giving the remaining two state votes to the overall winner.

Though I think that your idea of choosing the electors is good. I don't see why the electors have to be sworn to a particular candidate. Originally the Electoral College was supposed to work something like the College of Cardinals where the wise electors are chosen and they can independently choose the President. There were many benefits to the Original system. The fact that no one could control how power was gotten, meant that no one faction of the people could be tyrants over the other half of the people. The system that most states currently have in place which favors a winner of the popular vote takes all only facilitates mob rule. Here is what the Federalist Papers have to say about it :

Another and no less important desideratum was, that the Executive should be independent for his continuance in office on all but the people themselves. He might otherwise be tempted to sacrifice his duty to his complaisance for those whose favor was necessary to the duration of his official consequence. This advantage will also be secured, by making his re-election to depend on a special body of representatives, deputed by the society for the single purpose of making the important choice.

On Second thought here is the whole of Federalist #68 about the Electoral College and its explanation. Reading it will help consider some of the things necessary to ponder before making alterations to the system.

To the People of the State of New York:

THE mode of appointment of the Chief Magistrate of the United States is almost the only part of the system, of any consequence, which has escaped without severe censure, or which has received the slightest mark of approbation from its opponents. The most plausible of these, who has appeared in print, has even deigned to admit that the election of the President is pretty well guarded.1 I venture somewhat further, and hesitate not to affirm, that if the manner of it be not perfect, it is at least excellent. It unites in an eminent degree all the advantages, the union of which was to be wished for.

It was desirable that the sense of the people should operate in the choice of the person to whom so important a trust was to be confided. This end will be answered by committing the right of making it, not to any preestablished body, but to men chosen by the people for the special purpose, and at the particular conjuncture.

It was equally desirable, that the immediate election should be made by men most capable of analyzing the qualities adapted to the station, and acting under circumstances favorable to deliberation, and to a judicious combination of all the reasons and inducements which were proper to govern their choice. A small number of persons, selected by their fellow-citizens from the general mass, will be most likely to possess the information and discernment requisite to such complicated investigations.

It was also peculiarly desirable to afford as little opportunity as possible to tumult and disorder. This evil was not least to be dreaded in the election of a magistrate, who was to have so important an agency in the administration of the government as the President of the United States. But the precautions which have been so happily concerted in the system under consideration, promise an effectual security against this mischief. The choice of SEVERAL, to form an intermediate body of electors, will be much less apt to convulse the community with any extraordinary or violent movements, than the choice of ONE who was himself to be the final object of the public wishes. And as the electors, chosen in each State, are to assemble and vote in the State in which they are chosen, this detached and divided situation will expose them much less to heats and ferments, which might be communicated from them to the people, than if they were all to be convened at one time, in one place.

Nothing was more to be desired than that every practicable obstacle should be opposed to cabal, intrigue, and corruption. These most deadly adversaries of republican government might naturally have been expected to make their approaches from more than one querter, but chiefly from the desire in foreign powers to gain an improper ascendant in our councils. How could they better gratify this, than by raising a creature of their own to the chief magistracy of the Union? But the convention have guarded against all danger of this sort, with the most provident and judicious attention. They have not made the appointment of the President to depend on any preexisting bodies of men, who might be tampered with beforehand to prostitute their votes; but they have referred it in the first instance to an immediate act of the people of America, to be exerted in the choice of persons for the temporary and sole purpose of making the appointment. And they have excluded from eligibility to this trust, all those who from situation might be suspected of too great devotion to the President in office. No senator, representative, or other person holding a place of trust or profit under the United States, can be of the numbers of the electors. Thus without corrupting the body of the people, the immediate agents in the election will at least enter upon the task free from any sinister bias. Their transient existence, and their detached situation, already taken notice of, afford a satisfactory prospect of their continuing so, to the conclusion of it. The business of corruption, when it is to embrace so considerable a number of men, requires time as well as means. Nor would it be found easy suddenly to embark them, dispersed as they would be over thirteen States, in any combinations founded upon motives, which though they could not properly be denominated corrupt, might yet be of a nature to mislead them from their duty.

Another and no less important desideratum was, that the Executive should be independent for his continuance in office on all but the people themselves. He might otherwise be tempted to sacrifice his duty to his complaisance for those whose favor was necessary to the duration of his official consequence. This advantage will also be secured, by making his re-election to depend on a special body of representatives, deputed by the society for the single purpose of making the important choice.

All these advantages will happily combine in the plan devised by the convention; which is, that the people of each State shall choose a number of persons as electors, equal to the number of senators and representatives of such State in the national government, who shall assemble within the State, and vote for some fit person as President. Their votes, thus given, are to be transmitted to the seat of the national government, and the person who may happen to have a majority of the whole number of votes will be the President. But as a majority of the votes might not always happen to centre in one man, and as it might be unsafe to permit less than a majority to be conclusive, it is provided that, in such a contingency, the House of Representatives shall select out of the candidates who shall have the five highest number of votes, the man who in their opinion may be best qualified for the office.

The process of election affords a moral certainty, that the office of President will never fall to the lot of any man who is not in an eminent degree endowed with the requisite qualifications. Talents for low intrigue, and the little arts of popularity, may alone suffice to elevate a man to the first honors in a single State; but it will require other talents, and a different kind of merit, to establish him in the esteem and confidence of the whole Union, or of so considerable a portion of it as would be necessary to make him a successful candidate for the distinguished office of President of the United States. It will not be too strong to say, that there will be a constant probability of seeing the station filled by characters pre-eminent for ability and virtue. And this will be thought no inconsiderable recommendation of the Constitution, by those who are able to estimate the share which the executive in every government must necessarily have in its good or ill administration. Though we cannot acquiesce in the political heresy of the poet who says: "For forms of government let fools contest That which is best administered is best," yet we may safely pronounce, that the true test of a good government is its aptitude and tendency to produce a good administration.

The Vice-President is to be chosen in the same manner with the President; with this difference, that the Senate is to do, in respect to the former, what is to be done by the House of Representatives, in respect to the latter.

The appointment of an extraordinary person, as Vice-President, has been objected to as superfluous, if not mischievous. It has been alleged, that it would have been preferable to have authorized the Senate to elect out of their own body an officer answering that description. But two considerations seem to justify the ideas of the convention in this respect. One is, that to secure at all times the possibility of a definite resolution of the body, it is necessary that the President should have only a casting vote. And to take the senator of any State from his seat as senator, to place him in that of President of the Senate, would be to exchange, in regard to the State from which he came, a constant for a contingent vote. The other consideration is, that as the Vice-President may occasionally become a substitute for the President, in the supreme executive magistracy, all the reasons which recommend the mode of election prescribed for the one, apply with great if not with equal force to the manner of appointing the other. It is remarkable that in this, as in most other instances, the objection which is made would lie against the constitution of this State. We have a Lieutenant-Governor, chosen by the people at large, who presides in the Senate, and is the constitutional substitute for the Governor, in casualties similar to those which would authorize the Vice-President to exercise the authorities and discharge the duties of the President.

PUBLIUS.

tampering with the EC is happening because of the total failure of public schools to teach civics or american govt.,...i want to see how happy CA voters will be when their state awards its EV to a candidate the voters didnt support.

Also expect there to be massive attempts to influence Electors in the EC, should this go thru. Youll see Electors from states not all voting the same way.

A silly interstate compact like the one proposed herein would nearly completely erode some of the final vestiges of federalism that we have left in this country. Yet the media clamors for it proclaiming more Democracy is better. This nation was not designed to be a tyrannical government, and have no doubts about it, pure democracy is just as totalitarian as any other form of government. History witnesses to this. A government that can sacrifice oppress 49.9% of its population for its selfish designs is not a government much worth having. A Federal Republic was the solution to remedy such an evil was the solution of the founders yet there are few who rally to its defense today. Shall Federalism die with a whimper? God Forbid that such a thing should be so.

The compact idea is attempt by Far Left Blue Staters to disenfranchise the smaller red states like LA, and MO. Notice that the larger blue states are in the compact deal - IL and CA?