A Candidate for RNC Chair and His Anti-Constitutional Ideas
If nothing else, the 2010 elections were about a renaissance of the United States Constitution. The constitutional restraints on the power of government are en vogue. A resurgent GOP has claimed the document as a unifying rallying cry. This is why it is so curious that one of the leading candidates for Republican National Committee chair has fought for one of the most anti-constitutional ideas of the last half-century.
Saul Anuzis, former chair of the Michigan Republican Party, has aggressively championed the National Popular Vote movement. If you don’t know what that is, count your blessings. The National Popular Vote movement is a frontal assault on one of the most important parts of the Constitution — the method we use to elect the president.
The National Popular Vote movement would have states allocate their Electoral College votes to whichever candidate wins the nationwide popular vote. For example, South Carolina would have thrown their electoral votes in 2008 to Barack Obama even though McCain handily won the state.
It is a peculiar idea for a candidate for RNC chair to champion.
The plan relies on statutory changes in the states, not a constitutional amendment to abolish the Electoral College. Naturally, there would never be sufficient support to amend the Constitution this way. States would never sign that suicide pact. Americans may be disturbed, however, to learn that 31 state legislative chambers have passed this purely partisan initiative. Notice the blue hue of the states which have done so.
The Electoral College is not some ancient relic whose time has passed. Instead, it is a way to preserve nationhood, to make elections matter in every corner of the union. Successful presidential candidates must appeal to a cross section of voters to obtain a majority of electoral votes. Obama appealed to more than New York, California, Massachusetts, and Vermont. He had to capture the formerly industrial Midwest and a southern state or two to win. The pattern repeats in other elections.
The National Popular Vote plan promoted by Saul Anuzis would trigger a massive power shift to urban areas. Why do a time consuming crisscross of the upper Midwest when you can buy the New York City and Philadelphia media markets and open the spigots with urban voters? Under Anuzis’ plan, there is no reason for a candidate to visit Alabama, Tennessee, Kentucky, or West Virginia. Just set up camp in Los Angeles or Chicago instead and wring out as many votes as possible in densely populated urban areas.
Urban voters also have the least political diversity of any voters. Contrary to what some believe, voters in places like Boston, San Francisco, and Seattle are actually the least tolerant of competition ideologically. They vote as a cohesive bloc, more so than suburbia or even rural areas.
“The Founders feared national mob rule more than anything else..”
If our nation isn’t under mob rule now I’d like to know what is sitting in the Whitehouse? It sure as hell isn’t Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs.
As for the RNC, Mr. Adams finally put the obvious ugly truth up on top of the table. From Obama’s good buddy Michael Steele to Saul Anuzis now, the RNC has been bought and paid for by George Soros.
Perhaps now if someone quips, “How is that hope and change going?” the easily proven liberal response can be, “Damn good, dumb ass. Damn good!”
It’s not just anti-constitutional, it’s flatly UNconstitutional. The third sentence of Article I, Section 10 says, “No State shall, without the Consent of Congress, lay any duty of Tonnage, keep Troops, or Ships of War in time of Peace, enter into any Agreement or Compact with another State, or with a foreign Power, or engage in War, unless actually invaded, or in such imminent Danger as will not admit of delay.” Congress didn’t agree to this compact. It is therefore unconstitutional, automatically. And there’s no question that it’s an inter-state compact; the popular vote people admit that.
The current system of electing the president ensures that the candidates, after the primaries, do not reach out to all of the states and their voters. 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. The reason for this is the state-by-state winner-take-all method (not mentioned in the U.S. Constitution, but since enacted by 48 states), under which all of a state’s electoral votes are awarded to the candidate who gets the most votes in each separate state.
Presidential candidates concentrate their attention on only a handful of closely divided “battleground” states and their voters. In the 2012 election, pundits and campaign operatives agree already, that only 14 states and their voters will matter. Almost 75% of the country will be ignored –including 19 of the 22 lowest population and medium-small states, and big states like California, Georgia, New York, and Texas. This will be more obscene than the already outrageous facts that in 2008, candidates concentrated over two-thirds 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 (Ohio, Florida, Pennsylvania and Virginia). In 2004, candidates concentrated over two-thirds of their money and campaign visits in 5 states; over 80% in nine states; and over 99% of their money in 16 states.
Two-thirds of the states and people have been merely spectators to the presidential elections.
Policies important to the citizens of ‘flyover’ states are not as highly prioritized as policies important to ‘battleground’ states when it comes to governing.
Because of the state-by-state winner-take-all electoral votes laws in 48 states, a candidate can win the Presidency without winning the most popular votes nationwide. This has occurred in 4 of the nation’s 56 (1 in 14) presidential elections. Near misses are now frequently common. There have been 6 consecutive non-landslide presidential elections (1988, 1992, 1996, 2000, 2004, and 2008). 537 popular votes won Florida and the White House for Bush in 2000 despite Gore’s lead of 537,179 popular votes nationwide. A shift of 60,000 votes in Ohio in 2004 would have defeated President Bush despite his nationwide lead of 3,500,000 votes.
The solution to that is district voting, which preserves the integrity of the states. Under district voting, which is in effect in two states, each Congressional district is worth 1 electoral vote to its winner, while the winner of the state at-large is awarded 2 electoral votes. In contrast, NPV requires a uniform standard nationwide, else one state can cheat another. Suppose California decided to let 14-year-olds vote (which they are free to do, as the Constitution sets no lower bound on the minimum voting age). Texas then objects that this is unfair.
Under the current system, or any system that preserves the integrity of the electoral college, California replies, “What concern is it of yours? How we conduct our elections does not affect the outcome of elections in Texas, for we are free to elect our Congressmen, Senators, and Presidential electors in whatever manner is consistent with Federal laws and our own, as are you. Since we have broken no law, nor infringed upon your ability to hold free and fair elections, you have no basis to object.”
However, under the National Popular Vote system, the objection has merit, because California is allowing people who are not eligible to vote under Texas’ laws (disregarding residency restrictions) to cancel out the vote of Texans, which does interfere with Texas’ ability to hold free and fair elections.
Dividing a state’s electoral votes by congressional district would magnify the worst features of the Electoral College system. What the country needs is a national popular vote to make every person’s vote equally important to presidential campaigns.
If the district approach were used nationally, it would less be less fair and less accurately reflect the will of the people than the current system. In 2004, Bush won 50.7% of the popular vote, but 59% of the districts. Although Bush lost the national popular vote in 2000, he won 55% of the country’s congressional districts.
The Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment only restricts a given state in the manner it treats persons “within its jurisdiction.” The Equal Protection Clause imposes no obligation on a given state concerning a “person” in another state who is not “within its [the first state's] jurisdiction.”
The U.S. Constitution specifically permits diversity of election laws among the states because it explicitly gives the states control over the conduct of presidential elections (article II) as well as congressional elections (article I). The fact is that the Founding Fathers and the U.S. Constitution permits states to conduct elections in varied ways. The Constitution’s grant of exclusive power to the states to decide how presidential elections are conducted was not a historical accident or mistake, but was intended as a “check and balance” on a sitting President who, with a compliant Congress, might be inclined to manipulate election rules to perpetuate himself in office.
The district approach would not cause presidential candidates to campaign in a particular state or focus the candidates’ attention to issues of concern to the state. Under the 48 state-by-state winner-take-all laws(whether applied to either districts or states), candidates have no reason to campaign in districts or states where they are comfortably ahead or hopelessly behind. In North Carolina, for example, there are only 2 districts the 13th with a 5% spread and the 2nd with an 8% spread) where the presidential race is competitive. In California, the presidential race is competitive in only 3 of the state’s 53 districts. Nationwide, there are only 55 “battleground” districts that are competitive in presidential elections. Under the present deplorable 48 state-level winner-take-all system, two-thirds of the states (including California and Texas) are ignored in presidential elections; however, seven-eighths of the nation’s congressional districts would be ignored if a district-level winner-take-all system were used nationally.
Also, a second-place candidate could still win the White House without winning the national popular vote.
A national popular vote is the way to make every person’s vote equal and guarantee that the candidate who gets the most votes in all 50 states becomes President.
Mark, you’re missing (deliberately?) the real problem with NPV — it would allow candidates to scour the cemeteries to get as many fraudulent votes as they can in their urban strongholds, which would wipe out voters from other states. Currently, the EC system means that such shenanigans might affect CA’s 53 electoral votes, but GA’s would be unaffected. With NPV, if 47 million Californians all voted straight ticket (through…whatever means the CA legislature allows/encourages that to happen), then THAT, ALONE, is almost enough to win the election even if clear majorities in all 49 other states vote for the other guy.
That would be “fair” in your view, since each single vote “counts the same”? Never mind that unscrupulous actors in heavily partisan states can easily stack the vote?
Throw in NY and MA and the rest of the country might as well not bother to vote.
Even outside of shenanigans like that, the NPV would tilt the campaigns even MORE heavily in favor of urban concentrated markets; you would NEVER see a candidate in Boise, ID or Gary, IN. Why bother? You’d be much better off, in “campaign expenditure per vote cast”, spending your time and money in Chicago, IL or Atlanta, GA. The name of the game would be voter turnout in the big cities — nothing else would matter.
If your state or media market doesn’t HAVE a true big city, well…too bad.
Not an improvement, Mark.
Wrong, because there are still the two at-large electors for the state, and all but the smallest states have battleground districts. For obvious reasons, states with only one Congressional District would have three at-large electors under the district voting system.
People’s Advocate has filed an initiative to reform California to Congressional District Electors. 53 elections would be in play that would force candidates to come to California for votes. Now they ignore us.
Since no one is attempting to enforce it yet, there is no compact for Congress to approve. Only if and when the requisite number of states pass this agreement into law does it become a matter for Congress to approve or reject.
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 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.
Sounds like material lifted from an internal National Popular Vote legal memo. Welcome to PJM! Glad you popped in to defend your very bad idea.
We should stick firmly with the Constitution and the Electoral College. People like Hillary Clinton have for years tried to get rid of the Electoral College, just making the popular vote count. That would simply force all of the candidates to only spend time in large, heavily populated, states and ignore the rest of the country. That is exactly what the Founding Fathers tried to avoid, which would amount to disenfranchising the smaller states. Seems that there are many people out there who just don’t have any faith in a document that has served us so well for almost 225 years. Shame on them.
Under National Popular Vote, when every vote counts, successful candidates will continue to find a middle ground of policies appealing to the wide mainstream of America. Instead of playing mostly to local concerns in Ohio and Florida, candidates finally would have to form broader platforms for broad national support It would no longer matter who won a state.
Now political clout comes from being a battleground state.
Now with state-by-state winner-take-all laws presidential elections ignore 12 of the 13 lowest population states (3-4 electoral votes), that 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. A survey of 1,039 Wyoming voters just conducted on January 4–5, 2011 showed 69% overall support for the idea that the President of the United States should be the candidate who receives the most popular votes in all 50 states. Nine state legislative chambers in the lowest population states have passed the National Popular Vote bill. It has been enacted by the District of Columbia and Hawaii.
The 11 most populous states contain 56% of the population of the United States and a candidate would win the Presidency if 100% of the voters in these 11 states voted for one candidate. However, if anyone is concerned about this theoretical possibility, it should be pointed out that, under the current system, a candidate could win the Presidency by winning a mere 51% of the vote in these same 11 states — that is, a mere 26% of the nation’s votes.
With National Popular Vote, big states that are just about as closely divided as the rest of the country, would not get all of the candidates’ attention. In recent presidential elections, the 11 largest states have been split — five “red states (Texas, Florida, Ohio, North Carolina, and Georgia) and six “blue” states (California, New York, Illinois, Pennsylvania, Michigan, and New Jersey). Among the four largest states, the two largest Republican states (Texas and Florida) generated a total margin of 2.1 million votes for Bush, while the two largest Democratic states generated a total margin of 2.1 million votes for Kerry. 8 small western states, with less than a third of California’s population, provided Bush with a bigger margin (1,283,076) than California provided Kerry (1,235,659).
With National Popular Vote, big cities would not get all of candidates’ attention, much less control the outcome.. The population of the top five cities (New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Houston and Philadelphia) is only 6% of the population of the United States and the population of the top 50 cities (going as far down as Arlington, TX) is only 19% of the population of the United States. Cleveland and Miami certainly did not receive all the attention or control the outcome in Ohio and Florida in 2000 and 2004. A “big city” only campaign would not win.
For example, in California state-wide elections, candidates for governor or U.S. Senate don’t campaign just in Los Angeles and San Francisco, and those places don’t control the outcome (otherwise California wouldn’t have recently had Republican governors Reagan, Dukemejian, Wilson, and Schwarzenegger). A vote in rural Alpine county is just an important as a vote in Los Angeles.
If the National Popular Vote bill were to become law, it would not change the need for candidates to build a winning coalition across demographics. 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.
With National Popular Vote, every vote, everywhere, would be politically relevant and equal in presidential elections. It would no longer matter who won a state. Candidates would need to care about voters across the nation, not just undecided voters in a handful of swing states or districts.
One person, one vote. The GOP will never buy it.
LOL, and the DNC will never practice it! ACORN institutionalized voter fraud and the DNC figured out how to get the taxpayers to even fund it!
NPV means candidates don’t even have to think about “fly over country” anymore, let alone rural areas. I’m sure this would fit the mind set of the big city elites just fine and dandy.
The real way forward is back to the time when the Senate was elected by the state legislatures. The elites conveniently forget that there were three parties represented in the compromise that is the Constitutions, the people, the states, and lastly (and intended also to be least) the federal government.
The “popular vote” crowd is the same crowd that insists no one has to prove citizenship to vote (hell, even a beating heart for that matter). And all of the decisions about investigating voting irregularities would be centralized and easier to “control”.
To hell with NPV and all others who would willfully undermine the Constitution.
I was not aware of Anuzis support for abolishing the electoral college. However in a broader sense take a look at the RNC Chair candidates. Do we have anyone with the heft, reputation, and charisma to lead the party? At a time when we need it the most, the slate is filled with light weight local political types who have not generally distinguished themselves on the national scene. How much more dirt is there that we don’t know yet about these people. All I remember is that when you get into the in-fighting and favoritism at a district level you end up with republicans who look and act alot like liberals.
We can do better but for some reason the RNC looks ready to elect some non-distinguished person who may mean well but will hardly be ready to unite us in the fight of our lives that is coming. Once again I find it hard to take republicans seriously when this is the best they can do!
What else is new when we have to beat them up constantly to do the obvious like abloish ear marks and cut spending.
Tommy – the article doesn’t say he supported an abolition of the Electoral College. He supports rendering it meaningless. Read up on the National Popular Vote plan in the links in the article. If you are wondering whether he supports it, click here:
http://www.scribd.com/doc/46737653/Letter-to-Sen-Huggins
Tommy – the article doesn’t say he supported an abolition of the Electoral College. He supports rendering it meaningless
A distinction without a difference.
No, there is a difference. Abolishing the electoral college would require 2/3 of both chambers of Congress and 38 states concurring. Rendering it meaningless with this compact requires far less than that, even if it must be approved by Congress.
Thanks for this info. It appears the Republican upper echelon didn’t get the message; they’re being given a trial run to see if they can represent the people, not lobbyists and billionaires with deep pockets. They may have to go the way of the WHIGS. The once silent majority have awakened and realized how far from the constitution we’ve come. If the Republicans can’t do the job in 2012, they need to be replaced by a 3rd party.
This is the worst idea I have ever heard of.
Now Obama is a sure winner in 2012 since he will have orchestrated 5-10 million fraudulent votes in urban centers like LA, Chicago, NYC, Detroit, Philadelphia, NJ, etc.
These illegal votes now will make it look falsely like he won the national popular vote, and Arkansas and North Carolina will be forced to have their voters abandoned by forcing their electoral votes to Obama thereby giving him a second term.
Is this even Constitutional at the federal level or even at the state levels?
INSANITY leading to the end of the Republic as the Progressive Movement expands their voter fraud like they did in Nevada and CA out to all the Blue State urban centers.
This would pretty force a rebellion.
The potential for political fraud and mischief is not uniquely associated with either the current system or a national popular vote. In fact, the current system magnifies the incentive for fraud and mischief in closely divided battleground states because all of a state’s electoral votes are awarded to the candidate who receives a bare plurality of the votes in each state.
Under the current system, the national outcome can be affected by mischief in one of the closely divided battleground states (e.g., by overzealously or selectively purging voter rolls or by placing insufficient or defective voting equipment into the other party’s precincts). The accidental use of the butterfly ballot by a Democratic election official in one county in Florida cost Gore an estimated 6,000 votes ― far more than the 537 popular votes that Gore needed to carry Florida and win the White House. However, even an accident involving 6,000 votes would have been a mere footnote if a nationwide count were used (where Gore’s margin was 537,179). In the 7,645 statewide elections during the 26-year period from 1980 to 2006, the average change in the 23 statewide recounts was a mere 274 votes.
Senator 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?”
The National Popular Vote bill would end the disproportionate attention and influence of the “mob” in a handful of closely divided battleground states, such as Florida, while the “mobs” of the vast majority of states are ignored.
In 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).
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 counted and mattered to their candidate.
In the 3 state examples of polling 800 voters each with a second question that specifically emphasized that their state’s electoral votes would be awarded to the winner of the national popular vote in all 50 states, not necessarily their state’s winner, there was only a 4-8% decrease of support.
Question 1: “How do you think we should elect the President: Should it be the candidate who gets the most votes in all 50 states, or the current Electoral College system?”
Question 2: “Do you think it more important that a state’s electoral votes be cast for the presidential candidate who receives the most popular votes in that state, or is it more important to guarantee that the candidate who receives the most popular votes in all 50 states becomes president?”
Support for a National Popular Vote
South Dakota — 75% for Question 1, 67% for Question 2.
see http://nationalpopularvote.com/pages…php#SD_2009MAY
Connecticut — 74% for Question 1, 68% for Question 2.
see http://nationalpopularvote.com/pages…php#CT_2009MAY
Utah — 70% for Question 1, 66% for Question 2.
see http://nationalpopularvote.com/pages…php#UT_2009MAY
To tell you the truth, with Anuzis for this MADNESS, I’m for a another term for Steele.
ALL the others running against him have BIGGER PROBLEMS than he does.
Cino – not a conservative
Anuzia – for voter-fraud popular vote instead of Electoral College
Prebus – Stooge of Barbour
The blonde chick – Just not sure
I’m from Maryland, unfortunately a very blue state. Our governor may sign this compact very soon. While it would give me a chuckle to see electors pledged to Sarah Palin because she won the popular vote, I am totally against this idea. In addition to being unconstitutional, it also has logistical problems. If the vote is close, a recount in all 50 states and the district would have to be done. Imagine the Florida hanging chad nightmare multiplied by 51!
Anuzis is so wrong.
In California we will reform the process from “Winner Take All” to Congressional District Electors.
YESTERDAY The history of the Electoral College is based on the Centurions of the Roman Empire.
Each Centurion was selected by 100 citizens to represent them in the council that selected the Caesar. It was felt that the working citizens were not informed to make complex public policy decisions.
The Catholic Church has adopted the Electoral College in selecting the Pope.
The group is called the Council of Bishops that votes in secret until one Bishop is elected as Pope.
Our founding fathers debated the process of selecting the president. They rejected the various systems for a representative process. Thirteen States banded together to establish the USA for the protection from foreign aggressors, especially Britain.
Each elected member of the federal legislative branch would atomically be Electors to the Electoral College. The legislative branch selected George Washington our first president, 1788. It was determined that this process was too political and was abandoned in favor of non-elective Electors selected by each state.
Tony,Tony, it’s not the counil of Bishops. It’s the college of Cardinals. Only a Cardinal Archbishop can vote in the conclave.
You were so right! Sorry about that!
Did it on the fly!
Tony
If the Electoral College is done away with, corrupt Democrat controlled cities will steal elections and that will eventually lead to one party Soviet style government and or the dissolution of the United States, IMHO.
I do declare. I believe the vivacious Mrs Anne Wagner would be the best selection. Cino woould be horrible.
The National Popular Vote bill would guarantee the Presidency to the candidate who receives the most popular votes in all 50 states (and DC).
The bill preserves the Electoral College, while assuring that every vote is equal and that every voter will matter in every state in every presidential election.
Every vote, everywhere, would be politically relevant and equal in presidential elections. Elections wouldn’t be about winning states. 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.
The bill would take effect only when enacted, in identical form, by states possessing a majority of the electoral votes–that is, enough electoral votes to elect a President (270 of 538). Then, all the electoral votes from those states would be awarded to the presidential candidate who receives the most popular votes in all 50 states (and DC).
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.
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.
1,922 state legislators (in 50 states) have sponsored and/or cast recorded votes in favor of the bill.
In 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). Support for a national popular vote is strong in virtually every state, partisan, and demographic group surveyed in recent polls in closely divided battleground states: CO– 68%, IA –75%, MI– 73%, MO– 70%, NH– 69%, NV– 72%, NM– 76%, NC– 74%, OH– 70%, PA — 78%, VA — 74%, and WI — 71%; in smaller states (3 to 5 electoral votes): AK – 70%, DC – 76%, DE –75%, ME — 77%, NE — 74%, NH –69%, NV — 72%, NM — 76%, RI — 74%, and VT — 75%; in Southern and border states: AR –80%, KY — 80%, MS –77%, MO — 70%, NC — 74%, and VA — 74%; and in other states polled: CA — 70%, CT — 74% , MA — 73%, MN – 75%, NY — 79%, WA — 77%, and WV- 81%.
The bill has passed 31 state legislative chambers, in 21 small, medium-small, medium, and large states, including one house in AR, CT, DE, DC, ME, MI, NV, NM, NY, NC, and OR, and both houses in CA, CO, HI, IL, NJ, MD, MA ,RI, VT, and WA . The bill has been enacted by DC, HI, IL, NJ, MD, MA, and WA. These 7 states possess 74 electoral votes — 27% of the 270 necessary to bring the law into effect.
http://www.NationalPopularVote.com
Wait a minute- since when can DC interact with states as though it were a state?
The District of Columbia Council may enter into interstate compacts under Congress’s delegation of authority to the Council by the District of Columbia Home Rule Act of 1973, and it has done so on numerous occasions.
There are hundreds of major interstate compacts, including the
● Colorado River Compact (allocating water among seven western states),
● Multi-State Tax Compact (whose membership includes 23 states and the District of Columbia),
● Interstate Oil and Gas Compact,
● Interstate Corrections Compact,
● Mutual Aid Compact,
● Great Lakes Basin Compact (to which the province of Ontario is a party along with various states),
● Port Authority of New York and New Jersey (a two-state compact), and
● Multi-State Lottery Compact (which operates the Powerball lotto game in 21 states)
Bunk: “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.”
Complete nonsense. Typical of this crowd. It was both designed by and anticipated by the Founders.
Mark
You’re trying to sell this idea based on a lie/falsehood. In your second paragraph you state:
“The bill preserves the Electoral College, while assuring that every vote is equal and that every voter will matter in every state in every presidential election.”
It may preserve the Electoral College but it renders it meaningless. And how can you say that ” every vote is equal and that every voter will matter in every state in every presidential election.” when with the next breath you run roughshod over those of us who do not agree with this power grab by admitting that as soon as enough liberals vote for this you’re going to shove it down our thoughts anyway:
“The bill would take effect only when enacted, in identical form, by states possessing a majority of the electoral votes–that is, enough electoral votes to elect a President (270 of 538). Then, all the electoral votes from those states would be awarded to the presidential candidate who receives the most popular votes in all 50 states (and DC).”
Some reasons to maintain the present system, from Wikipedia:
Arguments supporting the Electoral College
Prevents an urban-centric victory
Proponents of the Electoral College claim the Electoral College prevents a candidate from winning the Presidency by simply winning in heavily populated urban areas. This means that candidates must make a much wider appeal than they would if they simply had to win the national popular vote.
Maintains the federal character of the nation
The United States of America is a federal coalition which consists of component states. Proponents of the current system argue that the collective opinion of even a small state merits attention at the federal level greater than that given to a small, though numerically-equivalent, portion of a very populous state. The system also allows each state the freedom, within constitutional bounds, to design its own laws on voting and enfranchisement without an undue incentive to maximize the number of votes cast.
For many years early in the nation’s history, up until the Jacksonian Era, many states appointed their electors by a vote of the state legislature, and proponents argue that, in the end, the election of the President must still come down to the decisions of each state, or the federal nature of the United States will give way to a single massive, centralized government.
In his book A More Perfect Constitution, Professor Larry Sabato elaborated on this advantage of the Electoral College, arguing to “mend it, don’t end it,” in part because of its usefulness in forcing candidates to pay attention to lightly populated states and reinforcing the role of the state in federalism.
[edit] Enhances status of minority groups
Far from decreasing the power of minority groups by depressing voter turnout, proponents argue that, by making the votes of a given state an all-or-nothing affair, minority groups can provide the critical edge that allows a candidate to win. This encourages candidates to court a wide variety of such minorities and advocacy groups.
Encourages stability through the two-party system
Many proponents of the Electoral College see its negative effect on third parties as a good thing. They argue that the two party system has provided stability through its ability to change during times of rapid political and cultural change. They believe it protects the most powerful office in the country from control by what these proponents view as regional minorities until they can moderate their views to win broad, long-term support from across the entire nation.
Death or legally defined disability of a presidential candidate
The Constitution grants each state the right to appoint electors in a manner chosen by that state. While it is common to think of the electoral votes impersonally, as mere numbers, the Electoral College is in fact made up of real people (usually party regulars of the party whose candidate wins each state) with the capacity to adapt to unusual situations. That capacity might be particularly important if, for example, a candidate were to die or become in some other way legally disabled or disqualified to serve as President or Vice President. Advocates of the current system argue that these electors could then choose a suitable replacement (who would most likely come from the same party of the candidate who won the election) more competently than could the general voting public. Furthermore, the time period during which such a death or the onset of such a legal disability or disqualification might call for such an adaptation extends, under the Electoral College system, from before Election Day (many states cannot change ballots at a late stage) until the day the electors vote (the first Monday after the second Wednesday of December).
In the election of 1872, Democratic candidate Horace Greeley did in fact die before the meeting of the Electoral College, resulting in Democratic disarray; the electors who were to have voted for Greeley split their votes across several candidates, including three votes cast for the deceased Greeley. However, President Ulysses S. Grant, the Republican incumbent, had already won an absolute majority of electors. Because it was the death of a losing candidate, there was no pressure to agree on a replacement candidate. There has never been a case of a candidate of the winning party dying.
In the election of 1912, Vice President Sherman died shortly before the election, too late for any state to remove his name for its ballot, thus causing Sherman to be listed posthumously. The 8 electoral votes that Sherman would have received were cast for Nicholas Murray Butler.
Isolation of election problems
Some supporters of the Electoral College note that it isolates the impact of any election fraud, or other such problems, to the state where it occurs. It prevents instances where a party dominant in one state may dishonestly inflate the votes for a candidate and thereby affect the election outcome. For instance, recounts occur only on a state-by-state basis, not nationwide.
State election systems
The Electoral College allows for each state to conduct elections using whatever methods it chooses (i.e. voting system, vote-recording technology) without affecting other states. A national popular vote, by definition, requires all states to use plurality voting and would likely lead to national election rules and standards.
Neutralizes turnout disparities between states
There are factors that affect the turnout around the country. Weather can vary greatly across a large nation, rain or winter storms can impact voter participation in affected states. In addition, when a state has another high profile contest, such as a hotly contested Senate or gubernatorial race, turnout in that state can be affected. Because the allocation of electoral votes is independent of each state’s turnout, the Electoral College neutralizes the effect of all such turnout disparities between states.
Maintains separation of powers
The Constitution separated government into three branches that check each other to minimize threats to liberty and encourage deliberation of governmental acts. Under the original framework, only members of the House of Representatives were directly elected by the people, with members of the Senate chosen by state legislatures, the President by the Electoral College, and the judiciary by the President and the Senate. The President was not directly elected in part due to fears that he could assert a national popular mandate that would undermine the legitimacy of the other branches, and potentially result in tyranny.
Federalism concerns the allocation of power between state governments and the national government. The National Popular Vote bill concerns how votes are tallied, not how much power state governments possess relative to the national government. The powers of state governments are neither increased nor decreased based on whether presidential electors are selected along the state boundary lines, along district lines (as has been the case in Maine and Nebraska), or national lines.
The influence of minority voters has decreased tremendously as the number of battleground states dwindles. For example, in 1976, 73% of blacks lived in battleground states. In 2004, that proportion fell to a mere 17%. The Asian American Action Fund, Jewish Alliance for Law and Social Action, NAACP, National Latino Congreso, and National Black Caucus of State Legislators endorse a national popular vote for president.
The current state-by-state winner-take-all system does not protect the two-party system. It simply discriminates against third-party candidates with broad-based support, while rewarding regional third-party candidates. In 1948, Strom Thurmond and Henry Wallace both got about 1.1 million popular votes, but Thurmond got 39 electoral votes (because his vote was concentrated in southern states), whereas Henry Wallace got none. Similarly, George Wallace got 46 electoral votes with 13% of the votes in 1968, while Ross Perot got 0 electoral votes with 19% of the national popular vote in 1992. The only thing the current system does is to punish candidates whose support is broadly based.
The same presidential electors would be available under the National Popular Vote compact to replace the dead, disabled, or discredited President-Elect as would be available under the current system.
The presidential electors would presumably vote for the winning party’s vice-presidential nominee.
State election laws are not identical now nor is there anything in the National Popular Vote compact that would force them to become identical.
State-by-state winner-take-all laws to award electoral college votes were eventually enacted by 48 states after the Founding Fathers wrote the Constitution.
The Founding Fathers only said in the U.S. Constitution about presidential elections (only after debating among 30 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 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.
In 1789 only three states used the state-by-state winner-take-all method to award electoral votes.
The winner-take-all method is not 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 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 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. 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.
Voter fraud has been on the increase since the election of Clinton. Election of the President by popular vote will further increase this problem, especially in urban areas and areas where the Democrats have a standing army of sympathizer organizations such as ACORN, the UAW and the New Black Panther Party. In addition, where the President was elected by electoral vote when having lost by popular vote has only happened 4 times in U.S. history, the latest being Bush in 2000. Seems to me like this is a Democratic Party ploy to ensure this does not happen again, at the expense of the Constitution, as always.
The third paragraph of Article 1, section 10 only relates to states making their own alliances in time of war, which was on one of the weaknesses of the Articles of Confederation. Prior to the Constitution states were on their own in funding armies in case of invasion. Many states provided no support at all.
I don’t care how any one cares to interpret this clause but no reasonable person can interpret the plain reading that it only applies to states unilaterally keeping military forces outside times of war. The phrases cannot be taken out of context but only have meaning when the paragraph is taken in its entirety.
If states can get together to form their own alliances then what is the point in having a Constitution? I think the concept that states can do anything they want outside of amending the Constitution if enough of them gang together is nuts. This is what gave rise to the fall of the Articles of Confederation and gave rise to the Constitution. I don’t think this is what the founding fathers had in mind.
This “Mark” character can bloviate to beat the band, but a “national popular vote” is still a very bad idea, since it decimates regionalism and what’s left of states rights.
His disingenuous attempt to paint the electoral college as forcing Presidential candidates to focus only an battleground states shows how clueless he is to the original intent: The Founders never put as much importance on the President and the federal government as we do now; it was assumed that the states would largely run their own affairs within the framework provided by the Constitution. If “flyover states” are “missed” or “neglected” in the campaign, they can get an idea of what the “neglectful” candidates are all about from the myriad modern means of communication. Also, “Mark’s” viewpoint sort of implies that all states should be lining up as if to ask “what’s in it for me?” Hence the need for special visits from the candidates. This is the mentality that helped get us into the mess we’re in now. All a President is supposed to be is the head of one branch of the federal government — that’s all.
By encouraging regionalism, the electoral college also provides a means for the “minority” to put a check on a majority on occasion. This is what happened in the 2000 election, and in the grand scheme of things, this is a “good” thing. After all, had we had the popular vote scheme in place then, Al Gore would’ve been President. Whatever his demerits, Bush was the better President for the times. This “minority prevails” phenomenon happens very rarely (I believe only 3 times in our history), so is nothing to be alarmed about. It’s a feature, not a bug.
Let me cite another example, since Democrats are much more likely to go for this “popular vote” fraud: Had all 100 Senate seats been up for election in 2010, the GOP would have also taken the Senate. Democrats should be grateful that a mechanism was in place to give them continued legislative leverage at a time when they’re deeply unpopular.
lol
i second the call out on the walls of text from this “mark”
So, then, the national popular vote adopted and whoever the “Democrats” are presenting as pretending that year to the presidency having been “elected” by the “Democratic” (National Socialist Workers’, Gangster’s and Criminal Aliens’) potty’s electoral-machinery-controlling fraudsters, will the congress then turn its attentions to “electing” senators in the same manner?
Too bad, of course, for the populations of the 85% of states that will no longer have senators — but the wolves will like it.
(“Democracy is two wolves and a lamb voting on what to have for lunch.
“Liberty is a well-armed lamb contesting the vote.”
– Benjamin Franklin)
Not only should the Electoral College not be watered down; the Amendment permitting popular election of Senators should be repealed. Senators are supposed to represent their states, not be Representatives on steroids.
The popular election of Senators is a relic of the Progressive era that needs retiring. It is one of the worst thumbs on the scale of the Balance of Powers.
Bravo!!!! Absolutely.
the author is entirely correct, remove the electoral college and all you will have left is urban tyranny, it’s bad enough already, let’s not do something stupid and make it worse.
the RNC is disfunctional organization that is slopping over with statist, RINO fools and harms the conservative cause.
don’t give them any more money, it only encourages them.
#17 & #18 Right On! Nothing wrong with the system that has served us well for over 200 years, except the out of control voter fraud the last dozen years that needs to be stopped and the perps gifted with large prison sentences!
Anything George Soros is for, I AM AGAINST! Including Anuzis!
Give the gal a chance, she is a military mom!
Republicans “We have met the enemy and he is us!”
I think it’s past time for a new party. We need one that stands for justice, integrity, honor, and decency. We could just abbreviate it, that would be ……….. JIHAD. Sounds somewhat familiar but I just can’t place it but it’s catchy, has a good beat and is easy to dance to.
Remove the Electoral College, and the President of the United States will forever more be elected solely by residents of the big cities on either coast and in the upper midwest.
The End.
There actually is a Democratic partisan advantage in the least-populous states under the current winner-take-all system. The low-population red states are redder than the low-population blue states are blue.
Specifically, the Republican popular-vote margins in the reliably Republican six low-population states were
● Alaska–64%,
● Idaho–69%,
● Montana–61%,
● North Dakota–64%,
● South Dakota–61%, and
● Wyoming–70%.
In contrast, the Democrats carried three of their reliable low-population states (Delaware, Hawaii, and Maine) with just 54% of the vote and effortlessly harvested their electoral votes. A 46%–54% margin is generally viewed as the boundary that places a state safely out of reach for the opposition during a typical presidential campaign.
In addition, the Democrats carried two more of their low-population states (Vermont and Rhode Island) with only 60% of the vote (that is, a smaller margin than any of the six reliably Republican low-population states). The District of Columbia is the only low-population jurisdiction where the Democrats regularly win presidential races with a high margin.
A large number of Republican votes were left on the table because of the high margins of victory in the six reliably Republican low-population states, compared to the relatively modest winning margins in the six regularly Democratic low-population states. Under a national popular vote in which every vote would be equal, this wastage would not occur.
● Wyoming’s 96,509-vote margin exceeded Vermont’s 62,911-vote margin.
● Alaska’s 65,812-vote margin exceeded Delaware’s 28,356-vote margin.
● North Dakota’s 85,336-vote margin exceeded Hawaii’s 37,209-vote margin.
● Montana’s 92,110-vote margin exceeded Rhode Island’s 85,753-vote margin.
● South Dakota’s 83,320-vote margin exceeded Maine’s 65,017-vote margin.
● Idaho’s 227,334-vote Republican margin exceeded the District of Columbia’s 164,869-vote margin.
If the boundaries of the 13 least-populous states had been drawn recently, there would be accusations that they were a Democratic gerrymander.
Similarly, there is no significant partisan advantage in favor of the Republican Party even if one considers the 25 least-populous states (i.e., those with seven or fewer electoral votes). The Republicans won 13 of the 25 least-populous states in 2008 while the Democrats won 12. The Republicans won 58 electoral votes in the 25 least-populous states while the Democrats won 57.
In 2004, 8 small western states, with less than a third of California’s population, provided Bush with a bigger margin (1,283,076) than California provided Kerry (1,235,659).
I agree that Saul Anuzis needs to fess up about his real motive and if he has been paid off by Soros, but wasn’t Reince Priebus already elected the new RNC chairman?
Saul is a paid lobbyist for the National Popular Vote Compact. We are fighting it off here in Michigan. I’m a tea party founder on the West Side of the state and I wrote a Resolution Opposing the “National Popular Vote Compact” which was passed last Tuesday through the Michigan Republican Party Issues Committee. Now it will go to the whole State Republican Committee for a vote.
We have also lobbied many legislators and explained the truth about what this is and what it will do. Many had agreed to co-signed the bill they have not even seen yet in support of the NPV Compact based on the reputation of Saul in the state along with another paid lobbyist, former State Representative Tom Pearce(R). Once they are told the truth they have gone back in most cases and taken their names back from their agreement. They have been told it is the only way they can split our electors by congressional district which is a flat out lie. Once this compact reaches the 270 electors needed (as little as 11 state’s electors) they will have no control of our electors ever again. We have had to tell these people, who obviously have not read their constitutions that they can split our electors now if they so choose. It’s very frustrating as laymen to be telling our own legislators what their powers are under the constitution! However, we are winning!
I believe this is their standard approach in all states. In CA many Republican legislators were signing on until they got wise and all the Republican legislators took their names back. It did pass CA and that is how they are now 49% of the way toward reaching the 270 electors needed to form this compact.
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