President Carter won with 50.01% in 1976.
...against President Ford!
Posted on 09/21/2006 11:26:10 PM PDT by calcowgirl
In his early 20’s, John R. Koza and fellow graduate students invented a brutally complicated board game based on the Electoral College ...
Now, a 63-year-old eminence among computer scientists who teaches genetic programming at Stanford, Dr. Koza has decided to top off things with an end run on the Constitution. He has concocted a plan for states to skirt the Electoral College system legally to insure the election of whichever presidential candidate receives the most votes nationwide.
The first fruit of his effort, a bill approved by the California legislature that would allocate the state’s 55 electoral votes to the winner of the national popular vote, sits on Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s desk. The governor has to decide by Sept. 30 whether to sign it ...
The brainstorm behind Dr. Koza’s effort, led by a seven-month-old group, National Popular Vote, was to abandon that approach and focus on creating interstate compacts. Those are contracts that bind states over issues like nuclear waste and port authorities.
Dr. Koza’s compact, if approved by enough legislatures, would commit a state’s electors to vote for the candidate who wins the most national votes, even if the candidate loses in that state.
“The bottom line is that the system has outlived its usefulness,” said Assemblyman Thomas J. Umberg, the Anaheim Democrat who sponsored the bill here. “It’s past time that Americans should elect their president by direct vote of the people.”
Mr. Umberg and his staff met some of Mr. Schwarzenegger’s top staff members on Wednesday and came away encouraged about the prospects of the legislation. Although they received no commitment, it was clear that the governor, a Republican, was seriously considering the question and had not made up his mind about it, Mr. Umberg said.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
In the last election that would have thrown all of CA's electoral votes to Bush.
Although, if I were a Californian I wouldn't appreciate my vote being taken away and given to the residents in every other state.
These commie rat bastards will continue to subvert the Constitution until it becomes meaningless; or until the rest of us stop them.
There is so much to comment upon....sheesh...where to start?
"He has concocted a plan for states to skirt the Electoral College system legally to insure the election of whichever presidential candidate receives the most votes nationwide."
Starts off wrong to begin with. It is not "legal" for states to enter into compacts with each other without the consent of Congress. This isn't going to happen anytime soon. Next, "skirting" the Constitution is not legal to begin with. You either follow it or you don't...no grey area here.
"“The bottom line is that the system has outlived its usefulness,” said Assemblyman Thomas J. Umberg, the Anaheim Democrat who sponsored the bill here. “It’s past time that Americans should elect their president by direct vote of the people.”"
Yeah, that direct election sure worked for Senators huh? One of the worst things done was allow for direct election of Senators. This took the last link to state's power away. Congress was meant to be kept in check by a House elected by the people and a Senate elected by State legislators. This meant that States had some say in the federal government as well as the people. It was a perfect system. Then direct election and WHAM....states became the lackeys of the feds...."no more highway money until you bend over and grab your ankles in front of the federal gods." It went from the United States of America to the United State of America.
Now they want to take away the power of the small states and the less populace states and give it to the urbanites and a few enclaves of liberals who tend to congregate like rats. This man should be hung for treasonous ideals.
"Sign that bill into law!"
Yeah, California signing that bill would definitely work in the Republicans' favor. I'm on board.
"I'm on board"
At least as far as Cali is concerned.
I hope you are right.
How long has it been since a democrat presidential candidate got a majority of the vote? 30 years?
yitbos
President Carter won with 50.01% in 1976.
...against President Ford!
This is not a "compact" in the Article I Section 10 sense, since it's not actually an agreement between states. Instead it's a procedure which doesn't go into effect until enough other states (representing at least 270 electoral votes) pass similar laws. That's perfectly legal and Constitutional.
There are powerful political reasons why this is a futile measure. Most small states and most competitive states are not going to approve similar laws because it would undercut the advantages they now hold in the electoral college. Only large states like California, which are already non-competitive, are going to endorse this proposal because there's no downside -- their electoral votes are already irrelevant in the Presidential calculus.
If we ever approached the 270 electoral vote threshold at which this would take effect, people would start looking very closely at the partisan makeup of the states involved. If going over the threshold would benefit Democrats, then Republican states wouldn't sign on and vice versa. So that 270 electoral vote threshold is a much higher barrier than is immediately obvious.
Think of the following analogy: Suppose California endorsed a Constitutional Amendment to make the number of Senators proportional to a state's population, instead of the present fixed number of two per state. Obviously that would benefit California and other big states. But what are its chances of going into effect? Zero. Because the small states which would be hurt would never ratify it.
Even though this isn't a Constitutional Amendment, it can't achieve it's goal unless the small states and toss-up states go along with it. If large states were to put it into effect, they'd be at an even bigger disadvantage than they are now. So it either won't happen or it will backfire.
The electoral college was designed to prevent the more densely populated areas from controlling the entire country. The last thing we need is for New York and L.A., et.al to determine who our leaders will be!
Despite that though, it is still unconstitutional without congressional approval.
"This is not a "compact" in the Article I Section 10 sense, since it's not actually an agreement between states. Instead it's a procedure which doesn't go into effect until enough other states (representing at least 270 electoral votes) pass similar laws. That's perfectly legal and Constitutional."
There would still be an implied agreement between all the states giving up all their electorial votes to the popular vote. The way a state who has passed a "similar law" would divide up their electors would be directly conditioned to how many electors participate in this scheme with a "simular law". They might be able to get away with it if it wasn't conditioned to how other states divide up their electors.
The small states cannot stop this. All it takes is for the 13 largest states to pass laws like this. Then, assuming it is constitutional, it would go into effect, without a single small state approving it.
In contrast, it takes the approval of 34 (or is it 38) states to pass a Constitutional Amendment. The large state liberals know they cannot get enough small states to agree to pass a Constitutional amendment to remove the Electoral College. That is why they are trying to get their way though the 'backdoor'. And if they can go 'backdoor' for this, can they do so on other things? How long until 13 big states are making all the decisions for this nations?
Well said!
This is not a democracy, but a Republic!
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.
Me and you both; this scares the ever living hell out of me.
"Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached." -Manuel II Paleologus
This is basically all anybody needs to know about this:
Hillary Calls For End To Electoral College
ALBANY, New York, Nov. 20, 2000
"Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached." -Manuel II Paleologus
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.