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Posted on 05/31/2006 3:09:09 PM PDT by BurbankKarl
Six years after Democrat Al Gore won the popular vote but lost the presidency to Republican George W. Bush, there's a new move afoot in the California Legislature and other states to ensure that such things never happen again.
The linchpin is a proposed "interstate compact," designed to guarantee that presidents will be selected by popular vote, without amending the U.S. Constitution or eliminating the electoral college.
Assemblyman Tom Umberg, a Santa Ana Democrat who chairs the Assembly Election and Redistricting Committee, said the basic premise is understandable even to children.
"When you're in first grade, if the person who got the second-most votes became class leader, the kids would recognize that this is not a fair system," he said.
Umberg's Assembly Bill 2948, proposing such a compact, passed the Assembly's elections and appropriations committees on party-line votes, with Republicans opposed.
"We have a system that's worked effectively for more than 200 years," said Sal Russo, a GOP political consultant. "We probably should be very hesitant to change that."
John Koza, an official of National Popular Vote, which is pushing the proposal, said sentiment has not split along party lines in other states.
"I don't think anyone can convincingly put their finger on any partisan advantage," said Koza, a consulting professor at Stanford University.
Though Republicans disproportionately benefited from the electoral college in 2000, when Bush edged Gore despite getting 544,000 fewer votes, Democrats nearly turned the tables four years later.
(Excerpt) Read more at contracostatimes.com ...
Under this compact arrangement, the voter does not know how that vote will be counted. The Electoral College vote in Massachusetts will not be based on the popular vote in Massachusetts. It will be based on the number of dead people who vote in Chicago. The current system has a clear result for a counted vote, so the voter knows.
Imagine a future election where the Democrat wins Massachusetts with 80%, but the Republican wins a squeaker with 50.1% of the national vote. You mean to tell me that the Supreme Court of Massachusetts is not going to figure out a way to let the Legislature cast those votes for the Donk favored by 80% of their population?
Eventually the matter would be settled in court, but there would be a heck of a lot of pushing and shoving before that happened.
Here is another nightmare scenario for you... Currently the Electors do not have to vote for the candidate they are "supposed" to vote for. In 2000, at least one Elector was threatening to change his vote, but it would not have made a difference, so nobody paid much attention. But how are you going to find an elector in Massachusetts who is going to go against "The Will of the People"?
The voter expects the vote to be added to the national popular vote, and that the state's Electoral College votes will be given to the national popular vote winner. You supposed that California (or Massachusetts) would balk at giving their Electoral College votes to a Republican if that candidate won the national vote (but not the California vote). I'm saying that if California, under the conditions above, reneg on the compact and give their votes to the Democrat anyway, then that is a violation of how the voter expected that vote to count when entering the voting booth, which would be illegal and could be contested.
The state legislature would have to pass a bill allowing for this compact before the presidential election first, so that the people know that this is the counting method for their presidential vote.
As for the issue of faithless electors, some states have laws binding the vote of electors, other states do not bind electors but have slates of supposedly trusted electors. I'd hate to be a trusted elector who betrays the state and turns the election the other way. Is it worth have one party love you will the rest of the country despises you?
-PJ -PJ
The so-called "faithless elector" would be being extremely faithful to the political apparatus that put him in place. His party establishment would be extremely pleased with him, as would be the majority of voters in his state.
Thanks!
Well .. I still don't think a state can change federal election laws. And .. so far nobody has told me differently. Guess I'll have to call my local election people and ask them.
No, but they're perfectly free to change how they assign their electoral votes. If California wishes to apportion them on a winner-take-all basis by the national vote total, and the Republicans get 54 free electoral votes as a result, I'm not complaining!
Well .. I just don't like it. The dems are sneaky and they would never support anything which might end up favoring the repubs. That's why I think there's more to this than meets the eye. I still say there's a piece of the puzzle missing.
I'm not surprised that California would want this. As one of the populous states, they would want everything to be done by popular vote. Of course, the small population states would never allow it. This was the basic problem that split the large population states vs the small population states at the Constitution convention. They had to agree on the great compromise (mostly make Congress into a bicameral chamber, one of them representing a state based on population, the other where all the states are represented by 2 senators regardless of size).
They're also stupid, and do not understand the concept of "consequences."
The GOP typically wins the nationwide popular vote for President.
"do not understand the concept of 'consequences'".
Well .. I agree with you there .. "consequences" are not their strong suit. This is why everything they have tried to do to Bush has backfired.
If no party has an absolute majority in Parliament, does only the one party have a voice in choosing who the PM will be, or do the other parties in the alliance forming the government have a voice?
It's interesting, then, that neither your Head of Government nor your Head of State are subject to a general election. And it seems, then, that your legislature elects your chief executive, which means you have less "separation of powers" than we do in the U.S.
The party leaders are chosen by their own party only. There is nothing preventing Members of other parties being put into Cabinet & that sort of thing is common in countries with proportional representation. However, it doesn't happen in Canada -- the minority parties don't want to be seen "getting into bed" with another party. Behind the scenes in a minority Parliament (like we have now) there's no end of deal making going on, which gives the minority parties lots of power. Harper seems to be particularly skilled at this -- he's getting his agenda through with different alliances for each vote.
You're exactly right about the "separation of powers" thing. The U.S. system is definitely better on that score. I think it's because you had a revolution. The office of President replaced the monarch & Parliament (Congress) continued on as before. In the British Commonwealth, the Monarchy gradually became just a figurehead -- leaving virtually all the power in Parliament.
One other thing we (unfortunately) have in common with the U.S., but not with Britain, is a Supreme Court that legislates from the bench. We didn't really have that problem until 1982, when the Charter of Rights and Freedoms was added to the Constitution.
Basically, compacts are OK as long as they don't infringe on federal sovereignty. I can't imagine a bigger infringement on federal sovereignty than attempting to bypass the constitutionally mandated electoral college system. So I'd bet dollars to donuts SCOTUS would strike this down, unless, of course, Congress specifically authorizes it.
Never said it was. What I said was clear, the question is why did you have trouble understanding it.
There was a little dust-up over the difference in the terms from 1861 to 1865 (actually, from about 1820 to 1865, but there was only blood shed in the last part). You might have heard of it; it made all the papers.
Wonderful, you've heard of the Civil War. Impressive.
But even if your definitions are unchallenged, the most that means is that this so-called compact isn't one. That doesn't change the fact that neither Congress nor SCOTUS has any power to void any individual state action in the matter. They can declare it non-binding, but they can't strike it down.
Think again. If Congress doesn't sign off on the compact, the compact is unlawful.
Interstate Compacts vs Universal Laws
An excerpt:
"Therefore, compacts have standing as both binding state law and a contract between the member states such that no one state can unilaterally act in conflict with the terms of the compact. Any state law in contradiction or conflict with the compact is unconstitutional, absent the reserve of power to the party states. The terms of the compact take precedence over state law even to the extent that a compact can trump a state constitutional provision. In effect, by entering a compact, the party states have contractually agreed that the terms and conditions of the compact supercede state considerations to the extent authorized by the compact relative to any conflicting laws or principles."
Sound familiar?
That's not quite true. But I agree this compact is blatantly unconstitutional. It infringes of Federal prerogatives. Nice case law review article here.
(And nice to see we're on the same side, for a change).
Libertarian ping.To be added or removed from my ping list freepmail me or post a message here
| Runs Scored | Game 1 | Game 2 | Game 3 | Game 4 | Game 5 | Game 6 | Game 7 |
| Blue States | 7 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Red States | 0 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 |
BLUE STATES WIN!
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