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 ...
"Doesn't the Electoral College system help ensure that the President represents the whole country? If the voters in a few heavily populated states could determine the outcome (because they would determine the popular vote) wouldn't Presidential candidates pander to urbanized areas and ignore rural states?"
Exactly! Surely the tolerant, voice of the little guy Democrats would recognize this. This shows why Bush didn't bother coming to the most populous state during the 04 campaign.
Most of us actually leave the first grade; liberals never do.
Just remember....Hillary was the one person that screamed that the electoral college should be abolished.
And also why California wants mandatory pre-school. Can never start indoctrination too early.
Such a compact is unconstitutional unless it has Congressional approval.
Please tell me you're kidding ... cause if you're not you'll be needing to go stand in the corner for a while.
When you're trying to make a point, Freedom, the devil is in the details ...
I am not sure if this can happen or not. It seems to me that a State cannot command individual electors to vote for a specific guy. That would seem to be a tad out of their jurisidction. As someone from a rural state I hope this isnt true and in fact is uneforceable
That's what the Dems would like you to believe. If the GOP was able to win the majority of votes nationally, California wouldn't matter very much. If the we had a repeat of 2000 with a close vote in both the popular and electoral vote, the states belonging to the compact could swing the election. It is comparable to the gang of 14 in the Senate.
The Dems run up their big majorities in a few key states. They are in reality the urban party. If they can run up large margins of victory in states like California, Illinois, and New York, they may be able to reverse electoral victories in smaller states that are part of the compact.
If this is such a good deal for the Reps, why do you think it is primarily the Dems that are pushing this?
They are actually not concerned about the Constitution, because they intend to subvert the Constitution by the method of putting their proposal into affect.
Those states that adopt it will use it, and when, they hope, enough high population states have adopted it, it will have the desired affect on the election no matter how many small and medium population states have not adopted it.
It is a subversion of the Constitutional process because the method of adopting it does not require a mandate from 2/3s of the states and an act of Congress.
The "popular vote" idea would be a travesty for the Republic at some future point in time when just a few very high population states - could decide the election all on their own - no matter how few states they represented.
The "nation" is not simply the "population". It is the land, the states, the counties and the localities and the electoral college process requires that a winning candidate collect majorities in a majority of the local jurisdictions across the country, not just a handful of states.
Those that rightly see the error of the absolute tyranny of the majority must oppose this move.
Very, very good point.
I'm not sure I see the problem with his point. What am I missing?
"Doesn't the Electoral College system help ensure that the President represents the whole country?"
Yes, which is why the big blue states (CA and NY) hate it so much.
here it is!!http://www.nationalpopularvote.com/npv/index.php?option=npvcontent&task=viewContent&content_id=58
"One it's not clear to me that Gore won the popular vote in 00 and, two, Kerry lost the popular vote very badly".
And three, the democrats were trying to hold out in hopes of winning Ohio. Hypocrites!
[...]
This is an end run around the electoral college, which would require a constitutional amendment to change.
Abolishing the electoral college would require a constitutional amendment. But as you point out, each state has the authority to allocate its electoral votes as it sees fit, and if each state votes to do so in proportion with the popular vote, it's constitutional.
Personally, I'd go for the system of allocating one electoral vote per congressional district and two to the winner of each state at large. That would reduce the possibility of a risk of a majority candidate winning the presidency while still preserving one function of the EC, which is to turn a plurality into a majority. This compact would give the bigger states more power to determine the outcome.
"...the kids would recognize that this is not a fair system."
It's also not fair that people who don't work for a living get the same vote that productive citizens get. When might that be changed?
But the bill is some kind of interstate compact boondoggle:
ASSEMBLY COMMITTEE ON ELECTIONS AND REDISTRICTING
Tom Umberg, Chair
AB 2948 (Umberg) - As Amended: April 4, 2006
SUMMARY : Ratifies an interstate compact whereby the state agrees to award its electoral votes to the Presidential ticket that received the most popular votes nationwide if certain conditions are met. Specifically, this bill ratifies the Agreement Among the States to Elect the President by National Popular Vote (Agreement), an interstate compact that contains the following provisions:......
< /sarcasm>
Not constitutional!The reason for electoral vote is that if we did'nt have it,ONLY THE HEAVILY POPULATED AREAS WOULD ALWAYS ELECT THE PRESIDENT.The rural vote literally would not count.
When are the people in California who live OUTSIDE the large cities going to get together and insist on spliting CA into 3 or 4 states?
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