Posted on 06/03/2011 7:25:02 PM PDT by EternalVigilance
Popular-vote pact picks up steam
A once-sleepy movement that would upend the Electoral College, reverse two centuries of constitutional practice and elect presidents by direct popular vote has quietly picked up momentum in recent days, with Republican Party leaders scrambling to stanch a steady stream of defections by GOP state lawmakers to the plan.
*snip*
Under the idea introduced in 2006 by Stanford University consulting professor John Koza, states that join the NPV compact pledge to give all of their electoral votes to the presidential candidate who wins the national popular vote - even if a majority of the state’s voters supported another candidate. If a group of states with an accumulated tally of 270 electoral votes - the bare majority - sign on, the practical effect would be that the popular-vote winner instantly becomes the Electoral College winner as well.
*snip*
A rash of Republican state legislators have signed on as co-sponsors and even sponsors of this year’s spate of NPV bills. At a May 12 news conference, two prominent Republicans — former Sen. Fred Thompson of Tennessee and former Gov. Jim Edgar of Illinois — endorsed the compact.
“We’re perpetually kind of rolling the dice in presidential elections in this country and risking electing someone who didn’t get the most votes,” Mr. Thompson said at the event. “It’s an unnecessary risk.”
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtontimes.com ...
NOT necessarily ...
SCOTUS has ruled that a state's decision on how to allocate electors is plenary and that there is no inherent constitutional right for an individual citizen to select [vote for] an elector. This decision trumps the Compact Clause of the Constitution.
OTOH, SCOTUS HAS ALSO RULED that once a state grants it's citizens the right to vote for electors - then:
"... the right to vote as the legislature has prescribed is fundamental; and one source of its fundamental nature lies in the equal weight accorded to each vote and the equal dignity owed to each voter."
Furthermore, SCOTUS has ruled that:
"The right to vote is protected in more than the initial allocation of the franchise. Equal protection applies as well to the manner of its exercise. Having once granted the right to vote on equal terms, the State may not, by later arbitrary and disparate treatment, value one person's vote over that of another."
These 2 views are diametrically opposed to each other. The state's right to determine how the electors are selected AND the individual voter's right to equal protection of his vote under the 14th Amendment.
So, SCOTUS would have to decide whether this proposed "compact" is constitutional ...
Fred never saw a liberal cause he didn’t want to hug.
NEVER and FU fred... I want my damn $2500..00 back that you pissed away... you ass faced turncoat!
LLS
As far as I am concerned it was a ruse. After Chinagate, I never trusted him.
And that is the only constitutional version that I would agree with.
I remember the first time I read such a proposal here on FR and I thought about and posted something to the effect of, "Hey, now the 43% of votes for Pubbies in California would count for something." Then someone here replied to my post with two simple yet scary words: "National Recount" Needless to say that was the last time I even considered messing with the Electoral College.
I tried to warn ‘em, but most wouldn’t listen.
And watching the developing 2012 race it seems that most haven’t learned much, quite frankly.
To be a turncoat he would have had to have once been on your side. I'm just sayin' ...
I for one am in favor of eliminating the electoral college. I would replace it with a system where the winner in each county gets a point. Most points wins. This way you can win NYC and it counts the same as winning a small town upstate.
Is is really fair to win a state like Pennsylvania just because you won Philly?
Leave congress alone and just apply it to the senate and the presidency.
Each state can choose to award its electoral votes however it likes, BUT that decision must be on its own. Entering into an agreement or compact with another state to award its electoral votes according to the compact is clearly prohibited by the Constitution (unless Congress gives its consent first).
Nope. In '08 he was never anything more than a stalking horse for McCain. That's it. Worked beautifully, too.
LLS
As I noted at the time, Fred deserved due credit for endorsing Hoffman before it was popular to do so, but ONE decent conservative endorsement in his life didn't make Fred into a great conservative role model overall. In fact, the Hoffman endorsement was rather unusual for Fred, in the past he nearly always supported the GOP establishment choice over a conservative underdog in primaries. Let's wait and see if Fred has truly turned over a new leaf, I argued. But Fred's fans would have none of it, laughing about how all the prominent Republicans who got aboard the Hoffman express afterwards were nothing compared to Fred's kick ass conservative leadership.
Fast forward two years later, and where all those Fredheads now? After swearing during the 2008 campaign that Fred's past endorsement of McCain would NEVER happen again cuz Fred's such a principled conservative now, they were pretty silent when he did radios ads promoting McCain over J.D. Hayworth in the 2010 U.S. Senate primary. Sarah Palin got racked over the coals for it on FR, and unlike Fred, she had an excuse for endorsing McCain (the old "you scratch my back, I'll scratch yours" rule in politics), whereas Fred Thompson owed McCain nothing and was retired, making his endorsement even worse.
Now Fred's working with the left to dismantle the electoral college? Do the Fredheads still think he's soooooooooo much more a consistent, principled conservative than Mike Huckabee, Duncan Hunter, Tom Tancredo, etc.? Fred Thompson was to the right of his pal McCain in the Senate, but the number of degrees to the right can be measured in milimeters. He's certainly better than a RINO, but I think it's time to admire he's no 'southern fried Reagan" as his fanclub continually claimed.
Dayum.
See my Post #30 - winner of each district wins the single electoral vote for that district. 2 electoral votes for the state are left over. Those votes go to the overall winner of the state's popular vote [as a "bonus"].
If this had been in place in 2008 in MD [where I live], Obama woulda won 7-3 instead of 10-0 ...
Another bought and paid for senile P.R.I.C.K.
The Second Amendment gives the lamb the ability to contest the vote of the two wolves.
LLS
I don’t get it. What do you mean?
They kept arguing Hunter should drop in favor of "southern fried Reagan" Fred Thompson, fantasizing about the possibility of a Thompson/Hunter ticket. However, this ignored the fact that "Federalist Fred" completely ignored Duncan Hunter and wouldn't give him the time of day. In fact, the only presidential candidate who even floated the possibility of having Hunter on his team was "nanny state socialist" Mike Huckabee.
LLS
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