Fred Head
Posted on 07/11/2011 11:40:58 AM PDT by Baladas
I feel exactly the same. It's perfectly legal unfortunately ,but it flies in face of our entire system of government.
A conservative can be for the popular vote but not for this compact.
It is not “perfectly legal.” It is legal for a state legislature to pass a law that hands out electoral votes to the winner of the national popular vote. However, making the effect of such law conditional upon enough other states adopting it is an interstate compact, and as such requires congressional approval.
True, I would have constitutional problems with the National Popular Vote initiative for the same reason I have problems with states unilaterally seceding. It's that part of the constitution ignored by "states rights" freepers that specifically PROHIBITS states from doing taking certain actions without consent of Congress. In fact, I would say the founders inserted those restrictions exactly for situations like this... to prevent 12 or 14 large population states from getting together on their own and using their power to dictate to the rest of the states how some federal matter will be carried out. Per Article 1, Section 10.:
"No State shall, without the Consent of Congress... enter into any Agreement or Compact with another State , or with a foreign Power..."
So unless BOTH houses of Congress give them permission to have a "National Popular Vote compact" with several other states that have 270 electoral votes, it ain't constitutional. In any case, the way to get Congress to approve would effectively start a constitutional amendment process anyway, which was the point all along.
Of course, it WOULD be constitutional if a state were to, by THEMSELVES, pass a law to allocate all their electoral votes to the nationwide popular vote winner instead of the popular vote winner in their own state. That would actually be hilarious if a couple of heavily Democrat states did that, because it would be the only way they'd be in play for us during the general election, and the GOP wouldn't even have to waste money campaigning there.
For example, if Illinois had decided on their own to allocate their electoral votes to the popular vote winner in 2004, Bush would have gotten all of Illinois' 21 electoral votes despite the fact only 44% of Illinoisans voted for him. (ironically, that flies in the face of the "will of the people" and makes at least 7 million votes meaningless, but oh well) The results on election day would have been 307 Bush, 230 Kerry instead of 286 Bush, 251 Kerry. And Bush handily wins the popular vote over Kerry nationally whether Kerry's 3 million Illinois votes are added to the national total (giving him 59 million to Bush's 62 million), or whether nobody in Illinois votes (making it 56 million to Bush's 60 million).
It would be helpful to us if California, New York, New Jersey, Massachusetts, and Washington state all passed such laws on their own, since right now they're big electoral goldmines that we stand almost no chance of winning. As another freeper noted, it would be particularly fun if Massachusetts or some such ultra-RAT state was forced to cast all 12 of their electoral votes for Sarah Palin after Obama overwhelmingly wins their state.
But these states trying to run around the constitution and sign some agreement that they'll ALL simultaneously cast electoral votes for the popular vote winner once states that have 270 electoral votes join their cause is blatantly unconstitutional and I'd love to see someone bring up this point to "federalist Fred" Thompson and see his excuse. I hope some judge strikes this down if they accomplish their goal.
Of course, even if it were done legally, a national popular vote would be a terrible idea, with all campaign dollars being spent in highly populated areas and the “winner” likely getting below 40% because there wouldn’t be a disincentive for single-issue candidates to mount third-party bids.
The states created the U.S., not the other way around, and the president should be elected by Americans qua citizens of their home state.
Mexico elects their President by direct popular vote, but most of their elections have been textbook examples of why that's NOT a good idea, particularly the last one with was riddled with so many reports of election irregularities and voter fraud (and who trusts the Mexican government to produce an accurate count?) that Calderon's razon thin win of 35.8% to Obrador's 35.3% made it impossible for him to claim a mandate and enough margin of error that Obrador got a lot of press by declaring himself the "true" President of Mexico and marching around with a Presidential sash to the cheers of thousands of supporters.
France and Indonesia use a series of run-off elections and have different rounds of balloting so voters narrow down the choices until there are only two left and the winner gets an absolutely majority instead of a "first past the post" win by plurality. That seems the most sensible way to have a popular vote election, but in the U.S. if we abolished the electoral college we'd still have winner-by-plurality unless you passed yet another constitutional amendment. The electoral college gives a clear advantage in this case -- even though you can deadlocks and wins by plurality when the electors vote, it's EXTREMELY rare -- even in a 3-way presidential race like '92 or '68. The electoral college usually produces a much clearer victory than the popular vote does.
I suppose I would prefer a popularly elected President over a Parlimentary-style system where Congres chooses the President (must be frustating to live in England and you're only able to cast a vote against Cameron, Brown, or Blair if you happen to live in their local district!), though both have their advantages of disadvantages. In this case I agree the compromise solution of having the people indirectly elect the President thru the electoral college was the best solution. I just wish we'd allocate electoral votes by congressional district instead of winner-take-all.
The founders got this one right, but once again I believe there are many times where there was a perfectly legitimate reason to amend the constitution. Just because the founders thought it was best to have the runner-up in a Presidential election become the Vice President doesn't mean it worked that way in reality.
Uploading new word to vocabulary, “qua”. ;-D
That’s a good point.
Mexico is the only country that I can think of off the top of my head that elects Presidents by mere plurality vote. They have 3 major parties now and may never see a majority President again. Most popular vote President countries have runoffs. I haven’t heard many PV supporters in this country suggest a runoff or instant run off ballot.
Auh is right it would be a help to third parties. I could even see some liberal judge declaring that any candidate on the ballot in any state had to be on the ballot in all them.
The recount issue alone should dissuade any thinking person. A nationwide recount would be like something out your worst nightmares.
Fred, you ignorant slut.
I think it’s a travesty how we no longer teach Latin in school (I just know the few odd words that have entered English, or at least “legalese”).
I always thought it would be cool to learn Latin.
It’s easier to learn languages as a young kid, best time to do it.
And we wonder how we ended up in the mess we have for government.
I bought my daughters a Latin edition of the children’s book “Olivia.” I was reading it to them last night, and helping the older one (she’s 5) figure out what they were saying—many Latin words found their way into English and (especially) Spanish, so it wasn’t that difficult (plus, I had quickly read through the English-language version before). My eldest (who is reading like at a second-grade level in both English and Spanish) will be reading the English-language version tonight (it will be a surprise gift), and promised to memorize it so that she can understand what the Latin words mean when she reads the Latin edition next week. My wife wants her to learn French and Italian, while I would prefer that she learn Latin and German (both of which I want to learn myself); we don’t want to push her too hard, and she already has a bunch of after-school activities, but I think that eventually she’ll learn all of those languages.
Very impressive.
My mother at first wanted to be a translator (of Russian). In high school and College she studied French, German, Russian, and Serbo-Croat.
Currently she’s very involved in a local church where most of the parishioners are Spanish speakers so she’s learning Spanish.
Fred Head
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