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Further Relegating The Constitution To Irrelevance One State Law At A Time

By: Dave Poff (haystack) (Diary)  |  July 27th, 2010 at 09:54 PM  | 

RESIZE: AAA

On reliable authority (from those much smarter than I) I’m told that this notion of abandoning the traditions of the Electoral College is well within the rights of the “some several States” as afforded them in the 12th Amendment to the US Constitution and that sending Electors from each of these “some several States” with specific instructions to cast their ballot for the person with the majority of the national popular vote is well within the boundaries of what the Constitution envisioned.

I just disagree. I remember how poorly Democrats took the Bush victory on Electoral College votes where his Popular numbers favored his opponent…to me, this is just the means to make sure no Democrat ever has to meet a similar fate as the one poor Al Gore was made to suffer.

Massachusetts has become the most recent State to pass a law requiring that its Electoral College representatives must vote for the President and Vice President according to the one(s) that have already won the popular vote across the country. This is defended at the website “NationalPopularVote” with this snippet:

The National Popular Vote bill would guarantee the Presidency to the candidate who receives the most popular votes in all 50 states (and the District of Columbia).

The bill has passed 30 legislative chambers in 20 states (AR, CA, CO, CT, DE, HI, IL, ME, MD, MA, MI, NV, NJ, NM, NY, NC, OR, RI, VT, WA).

In the recent 52–7 New York State Senate vote on the bill, Republicans supported the bill by a 22–5 margin (with 3 not voting) and Democrats supported it by a 30–2 margin.

The bill has been enacted by state legislatures representing 61 electoral votes — 23% of the 270 necessary to activate the law (Hawaii, Illinois, Maryland, New Jersey, and Washington).

The bill has been endorsed by 1,922 state legislators.

Until I hear no more talk of dead people voting, or homeless people voting 3 times…and when I am SURE my Department of Justice no longer tolerates thugs armed with batons and goofy looking militant uniforms standing guard outside polling places making sure people cast their vote as the thugs expect them to, THEN I’ll feel better about removing a check and balance from an already flawed system.

Sorry-I read this as just one more chink in the armor of the Constitution that paves the way for putting a greater imbalance between huge states with monstrous populations (and outrageously underfunded entitlement programs) and smaller states already struggling to have equal say in this mess called American governance. This may help ensure an Obama win in ’12, but it does nothing for making sure everyone’s voice is equally represented in Washington.

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  • cactusjack

    Once I was talking with a known lib Dem explaining why the EC is good. I mentioned casually it tends to work against third party candidates by ignoring them and awarding votes winner take all in each state. It worked this way so well in 1992, hardly anyone realized or remembers now Bill Clinton had won the Presidency fair and square under the US Constitution, with only 41% of the popular vote (Bush = 39%, Perot = 20%). Moment of silence from the lib. Could see the wheels turning as the lib thought it out – “Clinton actually got less than 50%? That’s right he did!! But the EC worked *right* that time?! Better think this over..hmm.” This is not the greatest built in benefit of the EC to this conservative, but believe me this really works on lib Dems everytime!

  • Ausonius

    was clear to the Founding Fathers from their studies of past history, especially the Athenian democracy and its implosion during the Peloponnesian War against the brutal slave-state of Sparta.

    This is why our r e p u b l i c was given safeguards against direct democracy, like the Electoral College, because direct democracy means that the morons in the electorate – and remember that at any given moment even intelligent people can become morons – cannot be overruled when they go awry.

    Apparently Massachusetts and other state legislatures are suffering acute moronism.

    • cactusjack

      and Lincoln into office. Blowout popular votes pulled the EC along in their wake and unloosed LBJ and one of FDR’s terms upon us. The biggest EC blowout in history, IIRC, was Reagan’s 1984 – won 49 of 50 states and came close to winning the 50th Mondale’s Minnesota anyway. Score: EC – Jefferson, Lincoln, Reagan. Popular vote blow out (60% +) – LBJ, FDR . Does this tell us something? The EC, like everything else in the Constitution must be revered and studied diligently, not despised – and if so will yield an alloy of timeless inspiration, practical wisdom, political brilliance, and public safety, followed only by a yet deeper layer of timeless inspiration, practical wisdom, political brilliance, and public safety.

    • Next93

      After watching the oh-so-clever elites in the Obamasiah administration effectively cripple the economy, I’m not at all convinced that safeguards composed of the morons in the oh-so-clever elite is much of an improvement over the morons in the electorate.

      • Ausonius

        I understand your point: the morons in the electorate keep tending, however, to vote in their own kind: Barney Frank, Rangel, D.C. mayor Marion Barry, Dodd, Reid, Pelosi, etc.

        To overcome that, the hand-sitters need to get pushed and motivated: remember that a small shift of 4% gets rid of the nightmare presently occurring.

        In a fantasy America, the electors would refuse to vote for a community organizer with no achievements, a proven liar, whose party openly engaged in voter intimidation and other kinds of fraud (e.g. multiple and ghost voting).

  • http://vladenblog.tumblr.com Vladimir

    …and I’m referring here to the tawdry episode where the legislature took away appointment power from Romney but restored it for Patrick…

    We can expect them to overturn this provision every time there’s a popular Republican serving his first term.

  • aylarja

    Note that most of the states whose legislatures have passed this law are blue states. How are the voters of these states going to feel after two or three Presidential election cycles when their electoral votes are awarded to a Republican even though, in many cases, significant majorities of those states will have voted for the Democrat? I suspect a decade or so down the road, this act of post-Bush v. Gore folly will be repealed in many of these states, their citizenry having decided that electors actually representing their votes to be more important than making some statement about a long-forgotten Presidential candidate.

    • Finrod

      As long as we keep this nonsense restrained to the blue states, I don’t think we have anything to worry about.

    • mustango

      …they’ll blame it on Republicans, of course.

  • bobmontgomery

    ……..to pry some (or a ) constitutional lawyers away from defending the non-constitutional rights of gay cohabitators for a few moments in order to SAVE THE REPUBLIC?

  • traversecityconservative

    What exactly is the fine or punishment in these new laws for not doing what the cheaters want? Because I’ll vote for whomever I damn well choose if I’m a representative. My husband has said all along that the Dems will cheat and change laws along the way to win – and he even thinks Obama will cancel the 2012 presidential vote. Hopefully he’s wrong.

    • cactusjack

      close elections has been a speciality of the Democratic Party for almost a century. Yes they are going to go to new lows, I bet, in 2012 but they won’t be strangers to all the tricks. If you really study it you get a little depressed realizing how many national elections, let alone local ones, were dragged into a gray area election night and then presto change-o, next morning out comes the smiling Democrat winner. 1948, 1960 and even Ford vs. Carter 1976 in Ohio, had some real shenanigans going on that we must wonder the legitimacy of the “winner” in Presidential or some Senate races those years.I sincerely believe the Democratic anger in 2000 was not so much being mad their guy lost, as rather a feeling of professional embarrassment of having let a big one get away. They just got lazy and didn’t realize the Repubs would stand up to them “on the ground” in FL.

    • JamesSmith130

      The law would automatically select the elector slate of the candidate who “won the popular vote”. Since the Constitution allows state legislators to select the electors the way they see fit, it would be constitutional.

  • omegared5

    Any one of those states not sitting in the coastal megalopolises(or poli) running from Boston to Norfolk in the East(w/ Florida thrown in) and Seattle to San Diego in the West should realize no one will care or bother to campaign in their states if the electors are forced to follow national popular vote. Flyover country indeed.

    • usadying

      If there is no electoral college, then candidates will campaign in only large urban areas. Everything else is flyover zone. Why would ANY state do this, except for CA and NY? The electoral college was created for very good reason. These idiots in MA must be a product of the public education system. Oh, and Ivy League where revisionist history is taught.

    • janis

      claimed that they were doing this so the big electoral college states wouldn’t get all the attention anymore. They said that they want “every voter to get the attention that they deserve.” No, they don’t. They just want every Dem to get three votes for every one actually cast, and they want the ability to guarantee that their goat gets the award every single time.

      They really are a miserable lot of thiefs, liars, and cheats. I’m surprised any Dem actually has a mother who’s willing to claim them.

  • charliebravoNH

    In 1972 Richard Nixon won 49 States. The only one he lost was MA. So if this law was on the books then Old “tricky Dick” would have had a 50 state clean sweep.

    • moderaterepub

      When I read this story by first thought was it would have been amazing to watch MA’s votes get chalked up for Bush in 04.

  • bobojake

    http://www.marklevinshow.com/home.asp
    You can go here and listen first hand to some real good information on EC. of goggle Mark Levin and play audio.

  • Carol Tarasewicz

    I live in MA. I get breaking news headlines from local paper that leans right. I got one today about police report acid leak around MA turnpke. I heard a blurb on radio last week but my local cable has been off for a few days. I read about this on Red Mass Group yesterday but it was from Boston Globe and a few weeks old.

    I love Mark Levin. We get him on radio now but at 9 pm, I listen online if I am at work.

    All local reps and senators have to go, they are moonbats. I think we have 5 republicans in state senate.

    I have Ed Markey as rep in US House and Brown and Kerry. Briown has disappointed me on last vote for banks. It makes me wonder if all pols are liars. Scoitt vowed to be 41st vote against Obamacare, but they passed w/o him, I expected him to vote against anything that Obama wanted like bank bill.

    I am waiting for an email response from him about that one.

  • nessa

    …look at the wonders the direct election of Senators has heaped upon us.

  • snowshooze

    Around 1/2 million in my entire State. What would be the point..either side?

  • http://www.800cart.com Ron Robinson

    …first time that what could have been a proportional EC split of their delegation keeps their candidate from being elected.

    What they are trying to do only works in their favor if their candidate is going to win anyway. Otherwise, it causes their candidate to lose by a bigger margin – enough to toss away victory when other close states are considered.

    They think they are electing the prez all by themselves.

    They will regret this at least once (or more) in the next 10 years.

    Load… take careful aim at foot… Fire.

  • Joliphant

    The constitution makes no provision for the states to bind electors and if I recall correctly (it has been awhile so I could be wrong) the explicit Idea of the electoral college was that it would be a representative body not an instrument of direct democracy*

    Seeing as the electoral college meets in D.C., the states are either trying to extend their jurisdiction into the federal district or they need a federal law to enforce this not a state law.

    Now if you go further by the same logic what is to prevent the states from passing laws that their senators and representatives have to vote according to the state legislature or the states governor ?

    *Relevant portion of the constitution

    “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.”

    • Joliphant

      nt

  • partyof1

    will become one big mono-state.

    Or LA, NY, and Chicago can now be free to turn Wyoming into the nation’s landfill/prison state.

    Just put a big fence around it, and if we feel like it, we’ll let you visit us here on the outside–once in a while.

  • Adjoran

    Stupid lawmakers make stupid laws. Massachusetts lawmakers go beyond stupid, past idiotic, from the ridiculous to the sublime.

    The fact is that states have no power to force Electors even to vote for the candidate for whom they were elected. How will they magically acquire the power to force Electors for vote for someone else?

    The Electors for each candidate are selected on the basis of proven loyalty for just this reason. Would a McCain or Obama loyal Elector cast his vote for the other guy just because the state tells him to, when they have no enforcement authority? No, this is just more stupid leftists thinking up stupid ideas to grab power they should not have.

  • jackhammer

    And they used to have results like this….the winner received 98% of the vote….

    That is what this would result in, a result of 50.5/49.5 as an example, which might have been a really tight EC vote, would end up resulting in a 100% to 0% vote in the “new EC” if all states were to adopt this….

    Although it will be funny to see MA electoral votes going republican again in 2012…..although, after seeign how they changed the rules after Kennedy died, they would probably put in a clause that that will only be the case if a D wins the national popular vote.

    I also spend a lot of time in Bangladesh, where votes are regularly bought…nto figuratively ith promises of largesse, but for a payout of $2-3 dollars….With popular vote on the cards, I could easily see this becoming an actual method of rigging elections with ACORN and co “getting out the vote” in districts and states they already have safely wrapped up….maybe couple it with some other northern european ideas like requiring people to vote with fines meted out to those who don’t, and the forced democrat utopia of the poor will be upon us….

    I also go to Cambodia a lot, and the groupthink that lead to the killing fields is not far off….for these academics it is all just a world of hypotheticals,a dn that leads to lord of the flies unintentional outcomes….

    • http://www.hakubi.us/ Neil Stevens

      We should call this proposal the National Front, like they did in the DDR.

  • jackhammer

    He was free to have his Shakra released by middle aged masseuses in hotel rooms worldwide with apparent immunity….the earthy-crunchy groupies were probably considered a bonus too….as well as the millions upon millions he has made with his snake oil salesmanship…It was much easier to start a cult Bhagwhan style without having any of that political reality fo actually being the President….

  • nvrepub

    Imagine if this had been in place in ’04, and Kerry won Ohio but lost the popular vote narrowly. The EV’s from MA, NJ, etc. put Bush over the top.

  • romeg

    of the time, energy and efforts of any state legislature contemplating its adoption and implementation. What is it in the make up of legislators that makes them think that THEY are so freaking superior in their intellect and understanding of all things that they can compel duly elected electors to DEFY the COLLECTIVE WILL of the PEOPLE of their own state; their own constituents? This is the very definition of hubris.

    And just how do they intend to enforce it if they are so silly as to adopt it? Even under the ‘traditional’ system some electors have seen fit to cast their vote contrary to what the election results within their own state would require. Yet, no punitive action has ever been taken against any of these electors.

  • http://www.suvstrategery.blogspot.com SoFiMil

    If a coalition of states gets to their magic # of 270 to trigger separate legislation in each state who’s on board with this, what happens *WHEN* a year or two down the road a state repeals their legislation, bringing the coalition to below the 270 trigger?

    And what happens if this scenario happens in an election year, with a state proposition repealing such legislation in November of a Presidential election.

  • blogan2

    What if the popular vote is so narrow that it’s hard to tell who won without a complete recall?

    One state could have 1,000,000 more Republican votes, and the other could have 1,000,000 Democrat votes. With EC, it’s clear cut where the EC votes go. With this new scheme, you’d have to have both states do recounts. Well, the red state who isn’t involved in this probably won’t do a recount so that another state knows what to do. So the blue state will recount and probably get more democrat votes. If any other states are involved, they’re now at the mercy of another state’s recall procedures.

  • EDC

    Impressive how the deep thinkers in some state legislatures have sold their own citizens down the river, all in the name of fairness.

  • jaydickb

    having presidential elections. They are devaluing the votes of their citizens by pinning their EC votes on the votes in other states. STUPID!

  • mustango

    People asserts Gore would have won under a popular-vote system, but the truth is we have no way of knowing that. It is true that if we had gone through Election Day under the assumption that the EC method would be used, then on the day after the election they had decided to change the rules retroactively to a straight popular vote, then Gore would have won.

    But apart from that sort of blatant bait-and-switch scenario, no one can say for sure what would have happened. Campaign strategies would have been entirely different. People in “safe” states like Texas would have more reason to vote.

    Others have already pointed out that if anything Massachusetts is damaging its own relevance by putting what would normally be nearly certain Democrat electoral votes up for grabs. If that’s what they want to do, let ‘em. Let them explain to their residents why their votes don’t count as much as votes from other states.

  • nvrepub

    Fortunately, it’s all blue states, so the irony is: their EV’s can only go to a GOP candidate. You’ll never see FL, OH, MO, etc. adopt this.

  • http://www.suvstrategery.blogspot.com SoFiMil

    Let’s make a law getting rid of the Electoral College version of the primaries as well.There would still separate party elections, but each would be based on the total popular vote.

  • DefendUSA

    As I understand this, circumventing the EC by this kind of legislation does indeed render your vote useless unless you are for the popular voting method.
    It makes so votes can be bought and completely changes the impetus of campaigning and for sure those who have been kept down will now be drowned out.
    In this vein then, doesn’t it also require a Constitiutional amendment…and then 2/3 of the states must agree?

    I am not liking this at all. It seems as if it would be a difficult route, but as the immigration thing in AZ is case/point…if the feds don’t agree with the rule of law, they write an order and then where will we be…Lawlessness or at war with our own people?