"We have heard of the impious doctrine in the old world, that the people were made for kings, not kings for the people. Is the same doctrine to be revived in the new, in another shape - that the solid happiness of the people is to be sacrificed to the views of political institutions of a different form? It is too early for politicians to presume on our forgetting that the public good, the real welfare of the great body of the people, is the supreme object to be pursued; and that no form of government whatever has any other value than as it may be fitted for the attainment of this object.” — James Madison
Last week George Will wrote for the Patriot Post:
“At his Friday news conference-cum-tantrum, Barack Obama imperiously summoned congressional leaders to his presence: 'I've told' them 'I want them here at 11 a.m.' By Saturday, his administration seemed to be cultivating chaos by suddenly postulating a new deadline: The debt-ceiling impasse must end before Asian markets opened Sunday evening Eastern time, lest the heavens fall. Those markets opened; the heavens held. ... Obama has marginalized himself. Inordinate self-regard is an occupational hazard of politics and part of the job description of the rhetorical presidency, this incessant tutor. Still, upon what meat doth this our current Caesar feed that he has grown so great that he presumes to command leaders of a coequal branch of government? He once boasted (June 3, 2008) that he could influence the oceans' rise; he must be disabused of comparable delusions about controlling Congress."
In the February 23, 2009 edition of the New American Jack Kenny opined:
“Something similar, but more subtle, can be seen today. Barack Obama had been president for exactly one month when he addressed a gathering of the nation's mayors in Washington last Friday. One month apparently was time enough for him to flex his imperial muscles and survey his vast new powers. For he warned the city mayors that he would be watching them to make sure the money they receive under the economic stimulus bill is spent wisely and well: "If a federal agency proposes a project that will waste that money, I will not hesitate to call them out on it, and put a stop to it," he said. "I want everyone here to be on notice that if a local government does the same, I will call them out on it, and use the full power of my office and our administration to stop it."
The Democrat Party wants to be the party of an Imperial America, an America ruled from Washington, D.C. They want an America where we will no longer be citizens, but subjects — subjects to imperial presidency.
To accomplish the goal the Democrats need to insure their continued election to national office without amending the Constitution. This process is now in
Earlier this month, California’s legislature passed Assembly Bill 459, which would adopt the National Popular Vote compact. Under this scheme, the state’s Electoral College slate would go to the presidential candidate with the most popular votes nationwide, whether or not that candidate won California. The compact would take effect only after it gained approval from states with a combined 270 electoral votes, the minimum necessary to elect a president. So far, seven states and the District of Columbia have joined the compact, for a total of 77 electoral votes. Governor Jerry Brown’s signature would add California’s 55 for a total 132.
It’s a terrible idea. Driving the compact is the memory of the 2000 presidential election, in which George W. Bush won the slimmest of electoral-vote majorities even though Al Gore gained a plurality of popular votes. But that election itself suggests a fatal flaw in the proposal. A legal battle over the Florida vote ended in a controversial Supreme Court decision. As messy as that fight was, it had the virtue of taking place only in one closely contested state. The compact would tear down that firewall and extend the madness nationwide. If the national popular vote decided the presidency, the losing side in a tight race would challenge election results everywhere it could, even in states where the margin was large. If you liked Florida 2000, you’ll love the National Popular Vote.
Absent a constitutional amendment abolishing the Electoral College, the idea of a “national popular vote” is fuzzy at best. In our federal system, each state has its own laws for counting votes. No official, definitive national tally takes place. Even when there isn’t a contested election, determining what counts as a vote for whom can be ambiguous. In 1960, Alabama voters cast ballots directly for electors, not presidential candidates. Of the 11 Democrat electors who won, five voted for John F. Kennedy, while six electors supported segregationist Senator Harry Byrd (D-Virginia). Even though JFK’s name wasn’t even on the state ballot, most reference books credit all of Alabama’s 324,050 Democratic popular votes to him, thus giving him a national margin of 113,000. But by following the Electoral College split, one could plausibly assign him 5/11 of the state popular vote. By this means of counting, Kennedy’s Alabama total was 144,355 —meaning he would have lost the national popular vote to Nixon by more than 50,000. So would Nixon have become president in 1960 if the National Popular Vote had been in place? Not so fast: the Kennedy forces, like any other losing side, would have mounted an all-out legal battle.
Nowhere in the Constitution is there a mention of “popular” vote to elect the President of the United States. Article II, Section states:
“The executive power shall be vested in a President of the United States of America. He shall hold his office during the term of four years, and, together with the Vice President, chosen for the same term, be elected, as follows:
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 electors shall meet in their respective states, and vote by ballot for two persons, of whom one at least shall not be an inhabitant of the same state with themselves. And they shall make a list of all the persons voted for, and of the number of votes for each; which list they shall sign and certify, and transmit sealed to the seat of the government of the United States, directed to the President of the Senate. The President of the Senate shall, in the presence of the Senate and House of Representatives, open all the certificates, and the votes shall then be counted. The person having the greatest number of votes shall be the President, if such number be a majority of the whole number of electors appointed; and if there be more than one who have such majority, and have an equal number of votes, then the House of Representatives shall immediately choose by ballot one of them for President; and if no person have a majority, then from the five highest on the list the said House shall in like manner choose the President. But in choosing the President, the votes shall be taken by States, the representation from each state having one vote; A quorum for this purpose shall consist of a member or members from two thirds of the states, and a majority of all the states shall be necessary to a choice. In every case, after the choice of the President, the person having the greatest number of votes of the electors shall be the Vice President. But if there should remain two or more who have equal votes, the Senate shall choose from them by ballot the Vice President.
The Congress may determine the time of choosing the electors, and the day on which they shall give their votes; which day shall be the same throughout the United States.
No person except a natural born citizen, or a citizen of the United States, at the time of the adoption of this Constitution, shall be eligible to the office of President; neither shall any person be eligible to that office who shall not have attained to the age of thirty five years, and been fourteen Years a resident within the United States.”
This Article was amended by the XII Amendment which states:
“The electors shall meet in their respective states and vote by ballot for President and Vice-President, one of whom, at least, shall not be an inhabitant of the same state with themselves; they shall name in their ballots the person voted for as President, and in distinct ballots the person voted for as Vice-President, and they shall make distinct lists of all persons voted for as President, and of all persons voted for as Vice-President, and of the number of votes for each, which lists they shall sign and certify, and transmit sealed to the seat of the government of the United States, directed to the President of the Senate;--The President of the Senate shall, in the presence of the Senate and House of Representatives, open all the certificates and the votes shall then be counted;--the person having the greatest number of votes for President, shall be the President, if such number be a majority of the whole number of electors appointed; and if no person have such majority, then from the persons having the highest numbers not exceeding three on the list of those voted for as President, the House of Representatives shall choose immediately, by ballot, the President. But in choosing the President, the votes shall be taken by states, the representation from each state having one vote; a quorum for this purpose shall consist of a member or members from two-thirds of the states, and a majority of all the states shall be necessary to a choice. And if the House of Representatives shall not choose a President whenever the right of choice shall devolve upon them, before the fourth day of March next following, then the Vice-President shall act as President, as in the case of the death or other constitutional disability of the President. The person having the greatest number of votes as Vice-President, shall be the Vice-President, if such number be a majority of the whole number of electors appointed, and if no person have a majority, then from the two highest numbers on the list, the Senate shall choose the Vice-President; a quorum for the purpose shall consist of two-thirds of the whole number of Senators, and a majority of the whole number shall be necessary to a choice. But no person constitutionally ineligible to the office of President shall be eligible to that of Vice-President of the United States.”
Our Founders were specific in their not wanting national popular vote to elect a president. This would have smelled like a democracy, something they did not want. They wanted a republic, where states had more rights than the central government — something so many of my fellow Americans do not understand.
Look ahead to 2012. Suppose President Obama wins big in California while narrowly losing the national popular vote to, say, Rick Perry or Michele Bachmann. Suppose further that California would tip the election one way or the other. Would Democrats gladly let the state’s electoral votes, and the presidency, go to the hated GOP candidate? Of course not. In the legislature or in the courts, they would try to break the compact. The folks at the National Popular Vote organization insist that the compact is airtight. But if they doubt that California is full of lawyers who know how to get out of a contract, they aren’t following the Hollywood trade press. Contemplating a President Perry or Bachmann, Democratic attorneys would suddenly remember that the state constitution does not empower the legislature to let nonresidents decide state elections, and that the United States Constitution requires congressional approval of interstate compacts.
Even in the unlikely event that this scheme survived legal and political challenges, it would still be a mistake. Under the current system, candidates must build a coalition of states that gets them to 270 electoral votes. Accordingly, they campaign in places where their election is not a sure thing. Republicans go to Pennsylvania and Michigan, while Democrats stump in Virginia and Missouri. The proposed plan would change those strategies dramatically. Each side would focus on ramping up turnout in its base areas: Republicans in Texas, Democrats in California and New York, for instance. The likely result would be heightened partisan polarization.
The proposal’s California supporters point out that presidential candidates spend little time in the state during the general election. That’s true, but irrelevant. During fundraising season, candidates come here with outstretched hands and bended knees. Moreover, the state enjoys enormous clout on Capitol Hill. During the past decade, Californians have chaired key House committees including Appropriations, Rules, and Ways and Means. They’ve also served as Majority Whip and Speaker of the House. Both of our U.S. senators currently chair major committees. No one can seriously contend that California lacks political power in Washington. This is a faux argument put forth by the Democrat majority to insure a perpetual Democrat imperial presidency.
So, on the one hand we have a system that produces results that Americans accept, and does not deny California a powerful seat at the political table. On the other, we have a risky scheme whose only sure result would be to make lots of money for lots of lawyers. It’s a sign of dysfunction that California’s state lawmakers chose the latter.
We have a system that has worked well for 234 years. Yes, there have been a few glitches, but the system has worked as our Founders envisioned. We made a mistake when we adopted the Seventeenth Amendment that allowed senators to be elected by popular vote. This amendment has brought forth an imperial senate where senators can serve to the detriment of the people of their state. As Example Florida has a Republican controlled state legislature and a Republican governor, but is saddled with a Democrat senator who tows his party line and not the interest of the state.
In retrospect, the amendment failed to accomplish what was expected of it, and in most cases failed dismally. Exorbitant expenditures, alliances with well-financed lobby groups, and electioneering sleights-of-hand have continued to characterize Senate campaigns long after the constitutional nostrum was implemented. In fact, such tendencies have grown increasingly problematic. Insofar as the Senate also has participated in lavishing vast sums on federal projects of dubious value to the general welfare, and producing encyclopedic volumes of legislation that never will be read or understood by the great mass of Americans, it can hardly be the case that popular elections have strengthened the upper chamber's resistance to the advances of special interests. Ironically, those elections have not even succeeded in improving the Senate's popularity, which, according to one senior member, currently places a senator at about "the level of a used-car salesman."
Instead of a National Public Vote compact we should repeal the 17th Amendment.
The current system maximizes the incentive and opportunity for fraud. A very few people can change the national outcome by changing a small number of votes in one closely divided battleground state. The sheer magnitude of the national popular vote number is much more robust against manipulation.
ReplyDeleteSenator Birch Bayh (D-Indiana) summed up the concerns about possible fraud in a nationwide popular election for President in a Senate speech by saying in 1979, "one of the things we can do to limit fraud is to limit the benefits to be gained by fraud. Under a direct popular vote system, one fraudulent vote wins one vote in the return. In the electoral college system, one fraudulent vote could mean 45 electoral votes, 28 electoral votes."
Hendrik Hertzberg wrote: "To steal the closest popular-vote election in American history, you'd have to steal more than a hundred thousand votes . . .To steal the closest electoral-vote election in American history, you'd have to steal around 500 votes, all in one state. . . .
For a national popular vote election to be as easy to switch as 2000, it would have to be two hundred times closer than the 1960 election--and, in popular-vote terms, forty times closer than 2000 itself.
Which, I ask you, is an easier mark for vote-stealers, the status quo or N.P.V.[National Popular Vote]? Which offers thieves a better shot at success for a smaller effort?"
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Recounts are far more likely in the current system of state-by-state winner-take-all methods.
The possibility of recounts should not even be a consideration in debating the merits of a national popular vote. No one has ever suggested that the possibility of a recount constitutes a valid reason why state governors or U.S. Senators, for example, should not be elected by a popular vote.
The question of recounts comes to mind in connection with presidential elections only because the current system so frequently creates artificial crises and unnecessary disputes.
A nationwide recount would not happen. We do and would vote state by state. Each state manages its own election and recount. The state-by-state winner-take-all system is not a firewall, but instead causes unnecessary fires.
Given that there is a recount only once in about 160 statewide elections, and given there is a presidential election once every four years, one would expect a recount about once in 640 years under the National Popular Vote approach. The actual probability of a close national election would be even less than that because recounts are less likely with larger pools of votes.
The average change in the margin of victory as a result of a statewide recount was a mere 296 votes in a 10-year study of 2,884 elections.
No recount would have been warranted in any of the nation’s 56 previous presidential elections if the outcome had been based on the nationwide count.
The 2000 presidential election was an artificial crisis created because of Bush's lead of 537 popular votes in Florida. Gore's nationwide lead was 537,179 popular votes (1,000 times larger). Given the miniscule number of votes that are changed by a typical statewide recount (averaging only 274 votes), no one would have requested a recount or disputed the results in 2000 if the national popular vote had controlled the outcome. Indeed, no one (except perhaps almanac writers and trivia buffs) would have cared that one of the candidates happened to have a 537-vote margin in Florida.
ReplyDeleteThe common nationwide date for meeting of the Electoral College has been set by federal law as the first Monday after the second Wednesday in December. Under both the current system and the National Popular Vote approach, all counting, recounting, and judicial proceedings must be conducted so as to reach a "final determination" prior to the meeting of the Electoral College. In particular, the U.S. Supreme Court has made it clear that the states are expected to make their "final determination" six days before the Electoral College meets.
Current federal law (Title 3, chapter 1, section 6 of the United States Code) requires the states to report the November popular vote numbers (the "canvas") in what is called a "Certificate of Ascertainment." You can see the Certificates of Ascertainment for all 50 states and the District of Columbia containing the official count of the popular vote at the NARA web site at
ReplyDeletehttp://www.archives.gov/federal-register/electoral-college/2008/certificates-of-ascertainment.html
The presidential election system we have today is not in the Constitution. State-by-state winner-take-all laws to award Electoral College votes, are an example of state laws eventually enacted by states, using their exclusive power to do so, AFTER the Founding Fathers wrote the Constitution, Now our current system can be changed by state laws again.
ReplyDeleteUnable to agree on any particular method, the Founding Fathers left the choice of method for selecting presidential electors exclusively to the states by adopting the language contained in section 1 of Article II of the U.S. Constitution-- "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."
The constitution does not prohibit any of the methods that were debated and rejected. Indeed, a majority of the states appointed their presidential electors using two of the rejected methods in the nation's first presidential election in 1789 (i.e., appointment by the legislature and by the governor and his cabinet). Presidential electors were appointed by state legislatures for almost a century.
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 method) 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, and only three states used the state-by-state winner-take-all method to award electoral votes.
The current 48 state-by-state winner-take-all method (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 entitled to any special deference based on history or the historical meaning of the words in the U.S. Constitution. It 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 method.
The constitutional wording does not encourage, discourage, require, or prohibit the use of any particular method for awarding the state's electoral votes.
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 method is used by 48 of the 50 states. States can, and frequently have, changed their method of awarding electoral votes over the years.
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.
ReplyDeleteThe 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 method, 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.
Any attempt by a state to pull out of the compact in violation of its terms would violate the Impairments Clause of the U.S. Constitution and would be void. Such an attempt would also violate existing federal law. Compliance would be enforced by Federal court action
The bill says: "Any member state may withdraw from this agreement, except that a withdrawal occurring six months or less before the end of a President’s term shall not become effective until a President or Vice President shall have been qualified to serve the next term."
The National Popular Vote compact is, first of all, a state law. It is a state law that would govern the manner of choosing presidential electors. A Secretary of State may not ignore or override the National Popular Vote law any more than he or she may ignore or override the winner-take-all method that is currently the law in 48 states.
There has never been a court decision allowing a state to withdraw from an interstate compact without following the procedure for withdrawal specified by the compact. Indeed, courts have consistently rebuffed the occasional (sometimes creative) attempts by states to evade their obligations under interstate compacts.
The National Popular Vote bill would guarantee the Presidency to the candidate who receives the most popular votes in all 50 states (and DC).
ReplyDeleteThe bill is a state-based approach. It preserves the Electoral College and state control of elections. It changes the way electoral votes are awarded in the Electoral College. It assures that every vote is equal and that every voter will matter in every state in every presidential election, as in virtually every other election in the country.
Under National Popular Vote, every vote, everywhere, would be politically relevant and equal in presidential elections, and included in the national count that determines the candidate with the most popular votes, who then is guaranteed the majority of electoral votes needed to win the presidency. It gives a voice to the minority party voters in each state. Now their votes are counted only for the candidate they did not vote for. Every vote, everywhere would be counted for and directly assist the candidate for whom it was cast. Candidates would need to care about voters across the nation, not just undecided voters in a handful of swing states.
In the 2012 election, pundits and campaign operatives already agree that, only 7-14 states and their voters will matter under the current winner-take-all laws (i.e., awarding all of a state’s electoral votes to the candidate who receives the most popular votes in each state) used by 48 of the 50 states. Candidates will not care about at least 72% of the voters-- voters in 19 of the 22 lowest population and medium-small states, and in 16 medium and big states like CA, GA, NY, and TX. 2012 campaigning would be even more obscenely exclusive than 2008 and 2004. In 2008, candidates concentrated over 2/3rds of their campaign events and ad money in just 6 states, and 98% in just 15 states (CO, FL, IN, IA, MI, MN, MO, NV, NH, NM, NC, OH, PA, VA, and WI). Over half (57%) of the events were in just 4 states (OH, FL, PA, and VA). Candidates have no reason to poll, visit, advertise, organize, campaign, or care about the voter concerns in the dozens of states where they are safely ahead or hopelessly behind.
Now, policies important to the citizens of ‘flyover’ states are not as highly prioritized as policies important to ‘battleground’ states when it comes to governing, too.
Charlie Cook reported in 2004:
“Senior Bush campaign strategist Matthew Dowd pointed out yesterday that the Bush campaign hadn’t taken a national poll in almost two years; instead, it has been polling 18 battleground states.”
Since World War II, a shift of only a few thousand votes in one or two states would have elected the second-place candidate in 4 of the 13 presidential elections. Near misses are now frequently common. There have been 6 consecutive non-landslide presidential elections. A shift of 60,000 voters in Ohio in 2004 would have defeated President Bush despite his nationwide lead of over 3 Million votes. Some insider Republicans believe under the current system in 2012, President Obama could win the electoral vote without winning the popular vote.
The Electoral College that we have today was not designed, anticipated, or favored by the Founding Fathers but, instead, is the product of decades of evolutionary change precipitated by the emergence of political parties and enactment by 48 states of winner-take-all laws, not mentioned, much less endorsed, in the Constitution.
States have the responsibility to make their voters relevant in every presidential election. The bill uses the power given to each state by the Founding Fathers in the Constitution to change how they award their electoral votes for president. It does not abolish the Electoral College. Historically, virtually all of the major changes in the method of electing the President, including ending the requirement that only men who owned substantial property could vote and 48 current state-by-state winner-take-all laws, have come about by state legislative action, without federal constitutional amendments.
2,110 state legislators (in 50 states) have sponsored and/or cast recorded votes in favor of the bill.
ReplyDeleteIn Gallup polls since 1944, only about 20% of the public has supported the current system of awarding all of a state's electoral votes to the presidential candidate who receives the most votes in each separate state (with about 70% opposed and about 10% undecided). The recent Washington Post, Kaiser Family Foundation, and Harvard University poll shows 72% support for direct nationwide election of the President. Support is strong among Republican voters, Democratic voters, and independent voters, as well as every demographic group surveyed in virtually every state surveyed in recent polls in closely divided battleground states: Colorado-- 68%, Florida – 78%, Iowa --75%, Michigan-- 73%, Missouri-- 70%, New Hampshire-- 69%, Nevada-- 72%, New Mexico-- 76%, North Carolina-- 74%, Ohio-- 70%, Pennsylvania -- 78%, Virginia -- 74%, and Wisconsin -- 71%; in smaller states (3 to 5 electoral votes): Alaska -- 70%, DC -- 76%, Delaware --75%, Idaho – 77%, Maine -- 77%, Montana – 72%, Nebraska -- 74%, New Hampshire --69%, Nevada -- 72%, New Mexico -- 76%, Oklahoma – 81%, Rhode Island -- 74%, South Dakota – 71%, Utah - 70%, Vermont -- 75%, and West Virginia – 81%, and Wyoming – 69%; in Southern and border states: Arkansas --80%, Kentucky -- 80%, Mississippi --77%, Missouri -- 70%, North Carolina -- 74%, Oklahoma – 81%, South Carolina – 71%, Tennessee -- 83%, Virginia -- 74%, and West Virginia – 81%; and in other states polled: California -- 70%, Connecticut -- 74%,, Massachusetts -- 73%, Minnesota -- 75%, New York -- 79%, Oregon – 76%, and Washington -- 77%.
Most voters don't care whether their presidential candidate wins or loses in their state . . . they care whether he/she wins the White House. Voters want to know, that even if they were on the losing side, their vote actually was directly and equally counted and mattered to their candidate. Most Americans consider the idea of the candidate with the most popular votes being declared a loser detestable. We don't allow this in any other election in our representative republic.
The National Popular Vote bill has passed 31 state legislative chambers, in 21 small, medium-small, medium, and large population states, including one house in Arkansas(6), Connecticut (7), Delaware (3), The District of Columbia, Maine (4), Michigan (16), Nevada (5), New Mexico (5), New York (29), North Carolina (15), and Oregon (7), and both houses in California (55), Colorado (9), Hawaii, Illinois, New Jersey, Maryland, Massachusetts, Rhode Island (4), Vermont, and Washington. The bill has been enacted by the District of Columbia (3), Hawaii (4), Illinois (19), New Jersey (14), Maryland (11), Massachusetts (10), Vermont (3), and Washington (13). These eight jurisdictions have 77 electoral votes -- 29% of the 270 necessary to bring the law into effect.
See http://www.NationalPopularVote.com
National Popular Vote is a nonpartisan coalition of legislators, scholars, constitutionalists and grassroots activists committed to preserving the Electoral College, while guaranteeing the presidency to the candidate who earns the most votes in all 50 states.
ReplyDeleteThe National Advisory Board of NPV includes former Senators Jake Garn (R–UT), Birch Bayh (D–IN), and David Durenberger (R–MN) as well as former congressmen John Anderson (R–IL, I), John Buchanan (R–AL), Tom Campbell (R–CA), and Tom Downey (D–NY).
Jason Cabel Roe, a lifelong conservative activist and professional political consultant wrote:
"I strongly support National Popular Vote. It is good for Republicans, it is good for conservatives, it is good for California, and it is good for America. National Popular Vote is not a grand conspiracy hatched by the Left to manipulate the election outcome.
It is a bipartisan effort of Republicans, Democrats, and Independents to allow every state – and every voter – to have a say in the selection of our President, and not just the 15 Battle Ground States.
National Popular Vote is not a change that can be easily explained, nor the ramifications thought through in sound bites. It takes a keen political mind to understand just how much it can help . . . Republicans. . . .Opponents either have a knee-jerk reaction to the idea or don’t fully understand it. . . . We believe that the more exposure and discussion the reform has the more support that will build for it."
Former Tennessee U.S. Senator and 2008 presidential candidate Fred Thompson (R), and former Illinois Governor Jim Edgar (R) are co-champions of NPV.
Saul Anuzis, Chairman of the Michigan Republican Party for 5 years and a former candidate for chairman of the RNC, supports NPV as the fairest way to make sure every vote matters. "This is not a partisan issue and the NPV plan would not help either party over the other."
Some other not liberal supporters who wrote forewords to "Every Vote Equal: A State-Based Plan for Electing the President by National Popular Vote " include:
Laura Brod - Minnesota Public Sector Chair for ALEC.
James Brulte - Republican Leader of the California State Assembly from 1992 to 1996, and Senate Republican leader from 2000 to 2004.
Ray Haynes - National Chairman of ALEC in 2000.
New York Assemblyman Dean Murray - a Tea Party organizer before being elected to the Assembly as a Republican, Conservative Party member. Fox News described him as the first Tea Party candidate elected to office in the U.S.
Thomas Pearce - Michigan State Representative from 2005–2010 and appointed Dean of the Republican Caucus.
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On June 7, 2011, the Republican-controlled New York Senate passed the National Popular Vote bill by a 47–13 margin, with Republicans favoring the bill by 21–11. Republicans endorsed by the Conservative Party favored the bill 17–7.
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In 1969, The U.S. House of Representatives voted for a national popular vote by a 338–70 margin. It was endorsed by Richard Nixon, Gerald Ford, George H.W. Bush, Jimmy Carter, and contemporary vice-presidential candidates Bob Dole and Walter Mondale.