Posted on 06/23/2010 9:12:23 PM PDT by OldDeckHand
You won’t hear about it in the mainstream media, but the Electoral College is on the verge of being eliminated. One important legislative vote could occur Thursday. Two others could occur in the upcoming days and weeks.
A California-based group, National Popular Vote, is lobbying hard for a dangerous piece of anti-Electoral College legislation. My NRO article on the mechanics of the legislation is here. Five states have already approved NPV, but now three additional states are dangerously close to joining them: Delaware, Massachusetts, and New York. Another trio of state legislatures approved the scheme, but their governors vetoed the plan. These latter states remain important; a reasonable argument can be made that the gubernatorial vetoes are irrelevant.
If each of these states is counted, NPV could have as many as 169 electoral votes in favor of its plan. It needs 270. NPV has come startlingly close to success even as most Americans remain completely unaware that the presidential-election process is so close to being turned on its head.
The American presidential-election system is a unique blend of federalism and democracy, combining purely democratic state-level elections with a national election among the states. The practical effect of this system is that a candidate can’t win unless he appeals to a wide variety of voters around the nation. NPV’s plan tries to keep the democratic portions of the election, even as it strips the system of its federalist aspects. It fails, instead managing to lose both.
(Excerpt) Read more at corner.nationalreview.com ...
Doesn't sound too conservative. And there aren't many things more certain in our constitution than the fact that our Congress, and our Electoral College, is weighted to balance the interests of higher population states and lower population states, so that the high population states will not control everything. If they hadn't done that, the union would never have been formed as it was.
Yes, that's right. Isn't there at least one other state that assigns Electors by proportional representation? IOW, if McCain won 45% of the popular vote in that state, then he'd have 45% of the Electors from that same state.
That is MUCH different than what is being suggested here.
Don't think so. And if you believe that, maybe you also think it would be constitutional to reallocate the number of US senators based on population, without a constitutional amendment.
The intend of the Senate and the Electoral College was to balance the interest of high and low population states. A scheme that gives a state's electoral votes to a candidate based on the national popular vote is nonsense, and in direct opposition to the founder's intent, and in direct opposition to the will of the voters of a state that might not have voted the same as the national popular vote.
Constitutional amendments are hard to accomplish, which is why people come up with such convoluted, unconstitutional schemes as this to skirt what was clearly the founder's intent.
The Founding Fathers only said in the U.S. Constitution about presidential elections (only after debating among 60 ballots for choosing a method): “Each State shall appoint, in such Manner as the Legislature thereof may direct, a Number of Electors . . .” The U.S. Supreme Court has repeatedly characterized the authority of the state legislatures over the manner of awarding their electoral votes as “plenary” and “exclusive.”
Neither of the two most important features of the current system of electing the President (namely, universal suffrage, and the 48 state-by-state winner-take-all rule) are in the U.S. Constitution. Neither was the choice of the Founders when they went back to their states to organize the nation’s first presidential election.
In 1789, in the nation’s first election, the people had no vote for President in most states, Only men who owned a substantial amount of property could vote.
In 1789 only three states used the state-by-state winner-take-all rule to award electoral votes.
There is no valid argument that the winner-take-all rule is entitled to any special deference based on history or the historical meaning of the words in the U.S. Constitution. The current 48 state-by-state winner-take-all rule (i.e., awarding all of a state’s electoral votes to the candidate who receives the most popular votes in a particular state) is not mentioned in the U.S. Constitution, the debates of the Constitutional Convention, or the Federalist Papers. The actions taken by the Founding Fathers make it clear that they never gave their imprimatur to the winner-take-all rule.
As a result of changes in state laws enacted since 1789, the people have the right to vote for presidential electors in 100% of the states, there are no property requirements for voting in any state, and the state-by-state winner-take-all rule is used by 48 of the 50 states. Maine and Nebraska currently award electoral votes by congressional district — a reminder that an amendment to the U.S. Constitution is not required to change the way the President is elected.
The normal process of effecting change in the method of electing the President is specified in the U.S. Constitution, namely action by the state legislatures. This is how the current system was created, and this is the built-in method that the Constitution provides for making changes.
Article I-Section 10, Clause 3 of the U.S. Constitution specifically permits states to enter interstate compacts. In fact, there are hundreds of major compacts currently in force (and thousands of minor ones), as can be seen at
http://www.csg.org/programs/ncic/default.aspx
You're mixing hypotheticals, and suggesting a false analogy. Let's stay focused on the electoral college.
Article II Section 1 Clause 2 clearly says:
Each State shall appoint, in such Manner as the Legislature thereof may direct, a Number of Electors, equal to the whole Number of Senators and Representatives to which the State may be entitled in the Congress: but no Senator or Representative, or Person holding an Office of Trust or Profit under the United States, shall be appointed an Elector.
The state legislatures already have the authority to allocate their own electoral votes any way they choose. Most states choose a winner-take-all method, and two states allocate them via congressional districts, with the two Senate votes going to the overall winner. I'm saying that a state would be within its constitutional right (as shown above) to choose to allocate its electoral votes for the national winner if it wanted to.
What it cannot do is make this scheme contingent on a bloc of other states agreeing to do the same. That would be an interstate compact, with the effect of the bloc of states ganging up on the remaining states.
-PJ
I don't know of one, but I think other states have discussed it. And, what is almost the same argument, is the question of winner-take-all or allocated delegates to the Republican and Dim conventions. I think a state or two does divide their convention delegates based on the number of votes primary candidates receive.
And, really, maybe those advocating this harebrained scheme would also like to have all convention delegates assigned to the primary candidate who won the most popular votes nationally. Same thing. There is some weighting in the number of delegates a state gets.
The clause only permits it with the consent of Congress.
-PJ
A “republican” form of government means that the voters do not make laws themselves but, instead, delegate the job to periodically elected officials (Congressmen, Senators, and the President). The United States has a “republican” form of government regardless of whether popular votes for presidential electors are tallied at the state-level (as has been the case in 48 states) or at district-level (as has been the case in Maine and Nebraska) or at 50-state-level (as under the National Popular Vote bill).
-PJ
Under a national popular vote, every vote everywhere will be equally important politically. There will be nothing special about a vote cast in a big city or big state. When every vote is equal, candidates of both parties will seek out voters in small, medium, and large towns throughout the states in order to win. A vote cast in a big city or state will be equal to a vote cast in a small state, town, or rural area.
The population of the top 50 cities is only 19% of the population of the United States.
If the bill were to become law, any candidate who yielded, for example, the 21% of Americans who live in rural areas in favor of a “big city” approach would not likely win the national popular vote. Candidates would still have to appeal to a broad range of demographics, and perhaps even more so, because the election wouldn’t be capable of coming down to just one demographic, such as voters in Ohio.
As a matter of fact, I had the great privilege of defending the EC in a class conducted by Mike Dukakis at Northeastern a decade ago. M. Stanley came out swinging against it, and everyone in class except for the lone libertarian radical (me) nodded their head in agreement.
I'm not mixing anything. You're refusing to look at the intent of the founders, and why we have some representation based on population, and some based upon individual states, in both Congress and the Electoral College. And that is precisely what the schemers are trying to get around.
But, since you've laid down the law in your above statement, if a state chooses to allocate all it's electoral votes to the candidate receiving the smallest number of votes, then that is still constitutional. No problem with that, according to you.
Or maybe some states would like to allocate their electoral votes to some individual who didn't even run in the presidential primaries. Still fits your guideline as being constitutional.
Thanks. And, I agree with you about the necessity of state compacts being approved by Congress. The only way this "scheme" could be described, is a compact, ergo, it requires Congressional approval, at least.
Even still, I believe it undermines the intent of the Founders and as such, it would have difficulty surviving judicial review, at least with the Justices we have today, I hope.
You keep dodging the question - If it's such a meritorious idea, then why subvert the Constitution? Why not address the problem head on with a Constitutional Amendment where 3/4ths of the states have to ratify, rather than just 270 Electors? Isn't that in keeping with the spirit and and intent of the Founding Fathers? You remember those guys, right?
Again, that is how conservatives think. What are you, exactly?
Congressional consent is not required for the National Popular Vote compact under prevailing U.S. Supreme Court rulings. However, because there would undoubtedly be time-consuming litigation about this aspect of the compact, National Popular Vote is working to introduce a bill in Congress for congressional consent.
The U.S. Constitution provides:
“No state shall, without the consent of Congress,… enter into any agreement or compact with another state….”
Although this language may seem straight forward, the U.S. Supreme Court has ruled, in 1893 and again in 1978, that the Compacts Clause can “not be read literally.” In deciding the 1978 case of U.S. Steel Corporation v. Multistate Tax Commission, the Court wrote:
“Read literally, the Compact Clause would require the States to obtain congressional approval before entering into any agreement among themselves, irrespective of form, subject, duration, or interest to the United States.
“The difficulties with such an interpretation were identified by Mr. Justice Field in his opinion for the Court in [the 1893 case] Virginia v. Tennessee. His conclusion [was] that the Clause could not be read literally [and this 1893 conclusion has been] approved in subsequent dicta.”
Specifically, the Court’s 1893 ruling in Virginia v. Tennessee stated:
“Looking at the clause in which the terms ‘compact’ or ‘agreement’ appear, it is evident that the prohibition is directed to the formation of any combination tending to the increase of political power in the states, which may encroach upon or interfere with the just supremacy of the United States.”
The state power involved in the National Popular Vote compact is specified in Article II, Section 1, Clause 2 the U.S. Constitution:
“Each State shall appoint, in such Manner as the Legislature thereof may direct, a Number of Electors….”
In the 1892 case of McPherson v. Blacker (146 U.S. 1), the Court wrote:
“The appointment and mode of appointment of electors belong exclusively to the states under the constitution of the United States”
The National Popular Vote compact would not “encroach upon or interfere with the just supremacy of the United States” because there is simply no federal power—much less federal supremacy—in the area of awarding of electoral votes in the first place.
The concept of a national popular vote for President is far from being politically “radioactive” in small states, because the small states recognize they are the most disadvantaged group of states under the current system.
12 of the 13 smallest states (3-4 electoral votes) are almost invariably non-competitive, and ignored, in presidential elections. Six regularly vote Republican (Alaska, Idaho, Montana, Wyoming, North Dakota, and South Dakota),, and six regularly vote Democratic (Rhode Island, Delaware, Hawaii, Vermont, Maine, and DC) in presidential elections. So despite the fact that these 12 states together possess 40 electoral votes, because they are not closely divided battleground states, none of these 12 states get visits, advertising or polling or policy considerations by presidential candidates.
These 12 states together contain 11 million people. Because of the two electoral-vote bonus that each state receives, the 12 non-competitive small states have 40 electoral votes. However, the two-vote bonus is an entirely illusory advantage to the small states. Ohio has 11 million people and has “only” 20 electoral votes. As we all know, the 11 million people in Ohio are the center of attention in presidential campaigns, while the 11 million people in the 12 non-competitive small states are utterly irrelevant. Nationwide election of the President would make each of the voters in the 12 smallest states as important as an Ohio voter.
In the 13 smallest states, the National Popular Vote bill already has been approved by eight state legislative chambers, including one house in Delaware and Maine and both houses in Hawaii, Rhode Island, and Vermont. It has been enacted by Hawaii.
And hence, every vote tallying method everywhere be equally subject to the potential for fraud and abuse, and effects of that fraud and abuse won't be stopped at the local or state level. It will be felt on a national scale.
A national popular vote would give those who perpetuate vote-related fraud a NATIONAL place in which to hide. Rather easier to get lost in a larger universe, yes?
Stupid, stupid, STUPID idea, and if you're hell-bent on promoting it, you're promoting it for your own selfish gain, not for the good of the nation. Get bent.
There is nothing in the U.S. Constitution that needs to be changed in order to have a national popular vote for President. Awarding all of a state’s electoral votes to the candidate who gets the most votes inside the state is not in the U.S. Constitution. It is strictly a matter of state law. The state-by-state winner-take-all rule was not the choice of the Founding Fathers, as indicated by the fact that the winner-take-all rule was used by only 3 states in the nation’s first presidential election in 1789. The fact that Maine and Nebraska do not use the winner-take-all rule is another reminder that the Constitution left the matter of awarding electoral votes to the states. All the U.S. Constitution says is “Each State shall appoint, in such Manner as the Legislature thereof may direct, a Number of Electors.” The U.S. Supreme Court has repeatedly characterized the authority of the states over the manner of awarding their electoral votes as “plenary” and “exclusive.” A federal constitutional amendment is not needed to change state laws.
This is not a change to the EC. It is a change to the way the participating sates choose their electors.
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