Posted on 09/21/2007 6:15:49 AM PDT by Maceman
Leaders of a national campaign to elect the president by popular vote are hoping to gain ground in Massachusetts, a state proponents say has largely been ignored by presidential candidates who spend most of their time and money in states that don't have a strong party allegiance.
Although leaders of the National Popular Vote Campaign say the issue is resonating with voters across the country, local lawmakers are less than enthusiastic about the proposed legislation.
If Massachusetts joins Maryland, the first state to sign the inter-state compact into law, it would have to cast its 12 Electoral College votes for the nationwide popular vote winner, as opposed to the candidate who wins the state majority.
"If you're born a Republican in Massachusetts you could die without your one vote ever meaning anything," said Maryland Democratic state Sen. Jamin Raskin. "Every democracy in the world elects its president by popular vote."
The new system would have produced a different result in 2000 when Al Gore lost the election to George W. Bush despite winning the popular vote.
According to Raskin, who testified at a State House hearing yesterday, the advantage of the bill is that states will work through the Electoral College rather than trying, as many failed attempts have, to abolish the college with a constitutional amendment.
The national compact would not take effect until enough states have passed it into law to control the majority of Electoral College votes.
Greg Casey, aide to Sen. Scott Brown, R-Wrentham, said the senator has met with proponents, but has not yet taken a position.
"The popular vote can go either way. It's not something that either party has a claim to," said Casey, who believes it is one of the few truly bipartisan issues.
"I haven't put it at the top of my priority list," said state Rep. John Fernandes, D-Milford, who would prefer awarding electoral votes according to the percentages each party wins. "The fact that Massachusetts could go 70 (percent for one party) and 30 (percent) in the other direction and still have to exercise all of its electoral votes toward the 30. ... Something about this has left me feeling not right."
At the Election Laws Committee hearing yesterday, Chairman Sen. Edward Augustus, D-Worcester, worried the proposal would force candidates to focus on densely populated cities and states, still leaving small and rural states on the sidelines.
"There's been a lot of issues on the Legislature's agenda and this one hasn't been able to be on the front burner," said state Rep. Pam Richardson, D-Framingham, who added her name to the bill's sponsors after hearing from constituents.
Barry Fadem, the campaign's president, believes the 20-25 states needed to control the Electoral College will adopt the compact before the 2012 election.
But Brian McNiff, spokesman for Secretary of State William Galvin, the state's chief election officer, was skeptical, saying it would be a "somewhat difficult hurdle" to get enough states to sign on at all.
It is unlikely the compact will gain momentum if so-called swing states - states such as New Hampshire, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Michigan and Florida where candidates compete for an electorate that could go either way - reject the idea of a national popular vote.
So far Maryland is the only state to adopt the legislation that has been introduced in 47 states since 2006.
The bill passed through the Hawaii and California legislatures, but was vetoed by their governors. Illinois lawmakers also passed the bill, which is awaiting the governor's signature.
"I agree with the impetus behind the National Popular Vote push, particularly as Massachusetts is considered by some to be a 'spectator state' when it comes to the Electoral College," said Sen. Karen Spilka, D-Ashland in a written statement. "Massachusetts voters are informed, engaged and involved, and therefore every single one of our votes should count."
(Daily News staff writer Lindsey Parietti can be reached at lpariett@cnc.com.)
After the change in 1914 or so, where selecting state senators moved from the state legislature to a popular vote,this would move us to direct democracy.
Sad, the founders understood the evil of mob rule.
ruefully
Al Gore Junior would not have won the 2000 election if we’d looked at the popular vote.
How can I say this? He had a 0.51% margin of victory over GW Bush. We would’ve needed the horrors of the Florida recount repeated across the entire country in every district.
There were many mail in ballots that were never counted in the presidential race because they made no difference to the electoral votes in those states.
And those contested military ballots in Florida were approved by the Florida Supremes but they were not included in Katherine Harris’ certified total (she held to the original count).
And certainly there was some vote fraud that could cause that sort of a margin (a hair over half of one percent).
We’d still be recounting 2000.
Kinda funny how Democrat states are proposing this and Bush won the popular vote in 2004.
I bet if they did pass (and were able to enforce) it they’d scream bloody murder when a Republican wins the popular vote.
Shhh. They like to pretend that JFKerry was denied his rightful Presidential term by “fraud” in Ohio.
I wonder how far along this BS “popular vote” movement would be had John Kerry won in Ohio in 2004 and presumably won the election without winning the popular vote.
When this became law in Maryland, the first thing I thought was... WOW... Maryland might actually be a RED state now. There'd be rioting in the streets!
These proponents were on WRKO Boston the other morning and discussed this at length. But the one question that never came up for these guys is I think THE most important: What about recounts? Would there be a national standard or individual state standards? If by state then would it break down by county commisioners like in Florida in 2000? If not then if a blue state like Massachusetts decides recount standards at a state level how would Republicans be ensured they would have a fair shake? Visa-versa for blue states.
First of all, nobody's "one vote" has ever meant anything in any presidential election--no state's popular vote has ever been decided by one vote. That's not why people vote.
Second, what's this crap about "every democracy in the world"? Not ever democracy in the world has a president, and those that do tend to have it as just a ceremonial position (e.g., Germany). There are lots of very democratic (small d) countries like Canada, Germany, the UK, etc., who elect their heads of government the way we do, by aggregating the votes in smaller subdivisions, so that the leader is often chosen despite lacking a majority, or even a plurality, of the popular vote.
How many of these “Democracies” are Representative Republics, like our’s? Also, states entering into these kind of compacts is very unconstitutional.
If this piece of crap legislation passes, it would be poetic justice to have a 2004 redux whereby states like Massachusetts, Maryland and California were forced to vote Republican.
You would, at minimum, see a avalanche of lawsuits shopped to activist judges seeking to negate the very legislation which they passed.
I remain hopeful, though not fully convinced, that there is enough decency left in this country that God will not allow the anti-Christ Hillary and her banker (George Soros) to steal the next election.
And how do they propose that Kerry would have won the election under a national popular vote? Do they think that Kerry could overcome the three million vote separation from Ohio alone?
Isn’t there some sort of agreement that it won’t go into effect until a majority of the states sign on?
Which explains why a) we're better than all of them, and b) why we are not a democracy.
Heck, I don't think any country is a "democracy" in the sense of direct democracy. If they were, they wouldn't be voting for a president!
Raskin was using the term in a less precise sense. He probably was thinking of, say, Mexico, and France, which recently had direct popular voting for president, and ignoring all of the parliamentary countries. When Canadians talk smack to me about our Electoral College, I just remind them that their system is similarly attenuated, and that they have had prime ministers win while losing the popular vote.
As for the compact being unconstitutional, the thing I don't get is why these states need all of the others to join in. If just one or two purple states decided to give their EVs to the national popular vote winner, the election would, as a practical matter, go to the national popular vote winner, because the electoral vote (under the current system) and the national popular vote never diverge by much.
Yes. Technically... it means there exists a possibility, albeit very small, that Maryland might go RED. :)
That’s why they have to pretend.
“If you’re born a Republican in Massachusetts you could die without your one vote ever meaning anything”
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