Posted on 05/03/2014 6:53:48 AM PDT by Kaslin
Just another group of New York lawyers:
“Let’s see if we can find a loophole in the Constitution of the United States and amend the Constitution without a Constitutional Amendment.”
“Let’s skip any vote required by Congress, let’s skip the required vote of the states and let’s skip a Constitutional Convention --- oh, and let’s not even ask the people of New York.”
Looking for a loophole. That is what we just love about lawyers, isn’t it?
Governor Cuomo has signed, on behalf of the people of New York, the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact. This Compact would result in the State of New York voting each of its electoral votes for the winner of the national popular vote regardless of the actual vote of the citizens of New York.
The Compact would become effective when and if states controlling 270 electoral votes, a number sufficient to elect the President, pass identical contractually binding legislation. State delegates in each of these states would thereafter be required to ignore their constituents and vote their state’s electoral votes for the winner of the national popular vote.
Without a vote of the people of New York, the New York legislature and the Governor agreed to essentially change the Constitution of the United States, risk the possibility that the State of New York will vote its electoral votes for a person other than the candidate selected by the people of New York and ultimately cause yet another presidential election to be decided by the Supreme Court of the United States.
There could be no greater irony than Governor Cuomo signing a bill to disenfranchise the roughly 13,000,000 million registered voters of New York. Ignoring all intellectual positions, the Governor must know that if in 2004, 59,300 Ohioans had voted for John Kerry instead of George W. Bush, Senator Kerry would have become President despite having lost the national popular vote by over 3 million votes. New York voted overwhelmingly (58%) for Mr. Kerry. If the National Popular Vote Compact had been in place, every New York electoral vote would have gone to President Bush and made him the President of the United States instead of Mr. Kerry.
This notion that a number of states controlling 270 electoral votes (theoretically possible with the approval of only 11 states) should be able, by a contract among themselves, affect a "poor man's constitutional amendment" to the Constitution of the United States is fascinating. This should be abhorrent to anyone with the slightest interest in the vitality and history of the Constitution. Such a plan would reduce the combined voting impact of the voters of Vermont, Wyoming, North Dakota and South Dakota in the presidential race to that of Brooklyn.
The Founders' conceptual framework for electing a President insured that urban voters of a few states could not totally control the selection of the President. Electing a President through a national popular vote would obliterate this concept.
Oh yes, the Compact is likely unconstitutional. Article 2 of the Constitution of the United States does allow each state legislature almost unlimited power to direct their electors in casting their electoral votes for President. However, two other articles of the Constitution individually and collectively trump Article 2.
First, Article 1 of the Constitution specifically prohibits agreements between States without the consent of Congress. While this clause has been judicially narrowed over time, it is unlikely that it has been narrowed sufficiently to allow the National Popular Vote compact without Congressional consent.
Second, this "poor man's constitutional amendment" is specifically designed to circumvent the Constitution. Without reservation, its sole purpose is to avoid the constitutionally necessary and likely unattainable requirement of ratification of this notion by three quarters of the states under Article 5. Would the Supreme Court allow such a result? I think not.
Under either Articles 1 & 5, separately and certainly collectively, the Supreme Court should hold the Compact unconstitutional. But here is the rub. First there would have to be an election, then there would have to be a lawsuit, then the Supreme Court would have to decide if the winner of a presidential election would be the winner according to the Constitution or via a loophole developed by approved by a bunch of New York lawyers. Then, instead of an election determined by the popular vote or the electoral system, the president would be determined by a majority of the then nine Supreme Court judges. Disaster!
The Compact contemplates neither multiple or regional candidates. The proposal does not contemplate a popular third party candidate emerging in 2016 or thereafter. It is not inconceivable that a candidate could win but two or three states, but do well across the country and win the presidency.
That any state legislature could be taking actions to approve a "poor man's constitutional amendment" rather than moving forward with a proper constitutional amendment as envisioned by the Founders is unacceptable. That any state legislature would consider ignoring their constituents' votes through their own affirmative action should be reserved for the fiction section of our local libraries.
It’s also a mass disenfranchisement of voters in a particular state.
Something is wrong with this argument. I'm pretty certain that President Bush *did* become president in 2004. Whatever point the author was trying to make here is hopelessly muddy.
These kinds of machinations are what scares me about recent attempts to begin the process to hold a convention of states intended to reinforce the basic tenets of the US Constitution. Frankly, I don’t think the proponents for this could reasonably control the process and keep our enemies from interfering and subverting the process.
Thass a LOT of voters!
.......there’s no question that silver spoon Cuomo and lawyer and governor Cuomo, indeed all 3 of those people are “Leaders” of The Left in this country. Only Obama, Biden and Kerry, all three lefties too, are higher in the Marxist food chain in the US.
There’s also no question that The Left has declared war on the Constitution! They know they can’t kill it outright but “death by a thousand cuts” is their goal.
The only question is “Is The Right going to have the backbone and stamina to resist and defeat these bastards over the long haul?”
Every state that has passed this stupid measure has voted for Democratic presidential candidates for years, so I can't imagine a scenario where any of these states would be in a position to change their votes from a Republican candidate who wins the most votes in the state to a Democratic candidate who loses the state but wins the "national popular vote."
The whole discussion here is idiotic. If you go back over the last few elections and see how this would have played out in the past, you'll find that it rarely would have been applied and it never would have done much except change the margin of victory for the winning candidate in a presidential election. For example, what you find is that a lot of "Blue" states would have been changing their electoral votes from John Kerry to George W. Bush in 2004.
Former MI GOP chairman Saul Anuzis got into some trouble for pimping this national popular vote crap.
Fred Thompson is another NPV pimp.
It’s just an argument for getting what they want in spite of the rules of the Electoral vote process. In my mind, a national popular vote would relegate the control of this country to the whims of maybe 20 or 30 highly populated cities and counties (mainly leftists).
Regional rights and legitimate interests would be subsumed to a few areas where targeted government influence could make all others’ needs irrelevant.
Whenever someone says to me “Why should Wyoming have two Senators?” I reply, “Why in the hell should Rhode Island have two?”
On the one hand, the entire spiel of leftists is the richness of “Diversity, inclusion and fairness”. Yet when it comes to engineering a foolproof way to ensure continual power, they bristle at it. They can go screw themselves.
NPV subverts the context of this country being a Constitutional Republic. In effect, it would relegate it to being nothing but a mob democracy where individual rights are damned at the whim of the mob.
The bill they passed in the Michigan house some years ago included an opt out clause in case it looked like the democrats were going to lose.
You are foolish if you think the democrats have overlooked the possibility of losing.
I'm not an attorney, but there might be an alternate route.
I don't see why the state of WY could not file suit against one or more states with this Compact in place. Supreme Court would have original jurisdiction, and presumably could determine whether it is or is not constitutional prior to an election.
Possibly even a citizen of NY could file such a lawsuit, which again would go straight to the Supremes.
Article III, Section 2. In all Cases ... in which a State shall be Party, the supreme Court shall have original Jurisdiction.
If somebody with better understanding of constitutional law could comment on whether a state or voter could file such a suit against a state for this reason, I'd appreciate it.
Sorry (well not really) but I think the AC is an anachronistic joke. Every single campaign just floods a handful of areas. A handful of voters have WAY too much power. While we should amend the Constitution to get rid of the EC, this is a States’ Rights matter. They get to assign their EVs as they please. So if one has a problem with this, it again pints out with this anachronism.
Get rid of the EVs. I hope the States do this. And besides, if you can’t get a majority of the people to elect your guy, you don’t deserve to have your guy elected. Every other election in this Nation is popular vote.
This foolishness was started after the 2000 election. It is only gaining popularity in liberal states where of course the powers believe it will allow them to elect a liberal candidate in the event of another popular vote vs electoral vote schism. The first time a conservative wins the popular vote these libs will be running for the exits clinging to their seldom read copies of the Constitution.
“It’s also a mass disenfranchisement of voters in a particular state.”
Voting for electors is not required. State Legislatures have complete authority over how electors are chosen. Voting by citizens of the states is optional.
You do realize that the term “State” and not “Province” is used to describe each State?
Do you understand why? Because the word State means “country”. We are fifty separate countries united by a Constitution. Each candidate for the Presidency of this union of countries is elected by fifty separate countries. Each one of those countries deserves to have the right to have a voice in the election of their President.
That is why the Electoral College is important. Each country (State) in the union deserves to have a solid, form voice. Not just the thirty biggest metropolitan areas.
What is your opinion on proportional elector selection by a particular state?
As opposed to the present system, where the election hinges on the results from a handful of "swing states."
I think the power of State Legislatures over the appointment of their electors is plenary and unreviewable (except for an illegal interstate compact).
Any method a Legislature chooses is fine, including proportional appointment.
Just look at what happened to the senate when we started electing senators by popular vote. In most states, the cities elect the senator.
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