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 ...
That is what they are hoping for...I think 2/3rds of the states need to pass the law....
Fax Tom Umberg
(916) 319-2169 fax
Bad analogy. Either these politicians are completely ignorant, or they are banking that the voters are.
well, he does represent Santa Ana....more voters there will cast ballots in the Mexico elections than the US races.
The States are supposed to be guaranteed a republican form of government. Looks like a deal-breaker to me.
No State shall, without the Consent of Congress, lay any duty of Tonnage, keep Troops, or Ships of War in time of Peace, enter into any Agreement or Compact with another State, or with a foreign Power, or engage in War, unless actually invaded, or in such imminent Danger as will not admit of delay.
The Dems are just banking on the 12 million new citizens they hope to amnestize....they are located mostly in large cities.
It would have been kind of funny to watch them throw their votes to Bush in 2004. I'll bet that if they pass it, and they have to give the votes to a Republican in a close race in 2008, it will be rescinded in the next legislative session.
Well, he certainly proves his implicit premise. Trouble is he's a grownup, not in first grade.
First of all our country is not a first-grade class.
Secondly, first-grade classes do not consist of free independent states agreeing to join a Republic, a concept that takes a little more sophistication to understand than can be found in the first grade.
I would go on and into the importance of a limited central government, a concept too "grown up" politically, economically and socially, for Umberg and his classmates. Suffice to say that, during the founding of our country, the electoral system was argued at length, and has been with us 203 years for very important reasons.
If those reasons are no longer valid, let the second graders of the country try to fix it the proper way: through a Constitutional Amendment.
"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"
Yeah - Mr. Umberg is probably right. Since we teach our school children it's all about "feeling good" and "fairness means equal results, not equal opportunity", and since we teach them next to nothing about our constitution and form of government, most children in our public schools probably would think this way about our elections.
And yes, Mr. Umberg is applying first grade logic to this situation, with a manifest inability to read, understand and honor the Constitution that one would expect of a five year old.
What ever happened to following the damn rules, sir?
From The Constitution of the United States Article I, Section 10:
No State shall, without the Consent of Congress, lay any Duty of Tonnage, keep Troops, or Ships of War in time of Peace, enter into any Agreement or Compact with another State, or with a foreign Power, or engage in War, unless actually invaded, or in such imminent Danger as will not admit of delay.
Such utter disregard for our Constitution is disgusting.
You nailed it.
When I read that headline, I thought about how yesterday in Brookline, Massachusetts the town meeting voted to call for the impeachment of the President.
In this article, someone talks about a first-grade vote and the one with the most votes wins.
There is a tussle going on about English being our official language.
These three are greater indications of something going on that's more important in the long run than the immigration debates.
The reason something like 9-11 was so destructive was because some individuals chose to go outside the accepted methods of civilisation. DUmmies and Michael Moore types have, oddly enough, used a similar approach (I don't mean breaking the law, I mean deciding that they don't want to work through the system).
The whole idea of a civil society is NOT that we will all be happy about how things go all the time; it's that we all agree that the way we organize society is the way we will abide by. You don't work the system and at the end of the day, if a ruling, for example, doesn't go your way, you suddenly say "I still want to win" and blow up the court house.
This kind of thing shows that this nation is splintering badly.
I am a huge fan of the president's--I've been called a Bushbot--but I think it is undeniable that he is not a respected leader to a large number of people in this country. If we had a "no confidence" vote, he would be out.
In previous years we would just sail along until 2008 and put someone in we or they would prefer.
But now? November 2006 is their target date. It is their sole concern: getting into power and getting rid of Bush. It doesn't matter that Cheney will become president because they don't care, they're not thinking that far ahead, they just want to GET the President.
I have often called people on being hysterical about this or that on this site, but this kind of thing is increasing. States that have one-party rule are looking at the rest of the country and thinking "I don't want to be associated with THOSE people."
Balkanization is inevitable in a nation where there is no common ethnicity, no common religion, no common language, and no agreement that the system itself will be the arbiter of disputes.
There is no way this will ever happen people.
"Now, like all great plans, my strategy is so simple an idiot could have devised it." - Zapp Branigan, Futurama
Was it unfair that the Pittsburg Pirates won the 1960 World Series 5 games to 4 when the New York Yankees scored 55 runs and the Pirates just 27 runs over the course of the 9 games of the series? Or is that just the way the system works -- and is supposed to work?
Maybe Madison, Franklin, and the boys knew something that most first-graders (and this schmuck) don't ?
NL/NJ
And when a republican gets the popular vote and not a democrat,the democrats will revert to the electorial college and site the constitutional reqirement.
The amigos in Santa Ana proudly vote in both.
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