Tag Archives: National Popular Vote Interstate Compact

Undermining The American Republic

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America is a Representative Republic. We send people to Washington to represent us. The Electoral College gives less populated states a voice in presidential elections. Without the Electoral College, America would be governed by the people elected by New York, California, Massachusetts, Texas, Pennsylvania, and Illinois. Of those states, only one is economically strong and relatively well-governed. Only one of those states has people moving to it and not out of it. The Electoral College protects us from taking the voice away from Americans in smaller states. But some people want us to be permanently governed by the people who ruined the states mentioned above.

On Tuesday, Townhall reported:

In another move to capture power, Virginia Democrats have signed the state onto the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact, an agreement to award the state’s electoral votes to the presidential candidate who wins the popular vote even if the state would have otherwise granted its electoral votes to the other candidate.

So, Virginia doesn’t care how the residents of the state voted.

The article notes:

The legislation only comes into play in the event that the candidate who received the popular vote would not win the presidential election through the Electoral College. In such an event, the states who made up the compact would instead choose to act as unfaithful electors. To clarify: this new law blatantly disenfranchises Virginian citizens.

The article concludes:

They had not dreamed of a scenario in which Republicans could win the popular vote once again. 2024 was surely a hiccup, but ultimately didn’t factor into anything as Trump took the Electoral College as well. Instead, this is simply an attempt to prevent a Republican from laying claim to the presidency by winning the Electoral College while not receiving the popular vote.

Signatories currently make up 222 votes, with another 45 votes from states with outstanding attempts to enact the measure. Only 270 are needed for the popular vote to reign supreme, and with Democrats working tirelessly to allow illegals to vote in our elections, the danger is real.

The work to secure American elections continues to become more vital as Democrats across the country attempt to seize power.

This needs to be declared unconstitutional.

The Need To Pay Attention

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In a speech in Dublin, Ireland, on July 10, 1790, John Philpot Curran stated, “The condition upon which God hath given liberty to man is eternal vigilance.” The quote has been changed slightly and attributed to other people, but that is the original quote. That quote is particularly applicable right now as there are those (some in our government) who are blatantly attacking one of the pillars of our representative republic.

On July 6th, I posted an article about the Supreme Court decision regarding the requirement that electors in the Electoral College vote for their state’s popular vote winner. That decision was a win for the Constitution. However, that decision is not the last we will hear on the subject.

Yesterday The New York Sun posted an editorial noting the next attack on the Electoral College. Understand that the Electoral College is what stands between the representative republic we now have and mob rule. If you believe that New York, California, and a few other populous states are well run, then abolishing the Electoral College would allow those states to run the entire country. That is a scary thought.

The editorial notes:

Now that the Supreme Court has vouchsafed the power of a state to require its presidential electors to vote in line with their state’s popular vote, a new question glimmers in the constitutional mist: Could a state require its electors to vote against the wishes of the state’s own voters? That might seem a ridiculous question. Feature, though, the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact.

It’s a workaround designed to commit the states to use the Electoral College to deliver the presidency to the winner of the national popular vote. It’s the first thing that came to mind when the Supreme Court today unanimously concluded that states have the power to punish faithless electors. Most justices credited the language in Article 2, which grants states the power to appoint electors.

The key phrase is that each state shall appoint its electors “in such Manner as the Legislature thereof may direct.” The court, in an opinion by Justice Kagan, reckons this gives the states the power to attach conditions to the electors it appoints, such as the requirement that they vote for the candidate their home-state voters prefer. It can punish them if they don’t.

The National Popular Vote Interstate Compact, though, is a scheme under which states agree to instruct their electors to ignore what their own state’s voters want and, instead, vote for the winner of the national popular vote. The compact goes into effect when it has been ratified by states whose combined electoral vote count is 270, i.e., enough to choose a president.

The editorial concludes:

The Journal (The Wall Street Journal) covers one caveat, which is that the Constitution forbids any state from entering any compact or other agreement with any other state absent the approval of Congress. That prohibition, the Journal warns, could spell heavy sledding at the Supreme Court were the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact ever enacted by enough states to put it into effect.

One reason all this has been on the boil in the past generation is that 2000 and 2016 were both years in which the Electoral College chose a president who’d lost the national popular vote — and, in Mr. Trump’s case, by a substantial tally. That may be the constitutional way of doing things, but it’s not surprising it produces a certain amount of sturm and drang.

So why not simply amend the Constitution to provide for electing presidents by the national popular vote? It seems that such an amendment wouldn’t stand a chance. The Democratic states like, say, New York and California may favor it. The compact, though, makes a mockery of the idea that America is, in part, a confederation of sovereign states. So the big test of whether the Supreme Court is committed to the Electoral College is yet to come.

If the electors in your state are going to vote for whoever gets the majority of the votes nationally, what is the point of your voting?

A Governor Who Understands The Purpose Of The Electoral College

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On Thursday, The Hill reported that Nevada’s Democratic Gov. Steve Sisolak on Thursday vetoed the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact, which had been passed by the Nevada Assembly and Senate.

The National Popular Vote Interstate Compact would essentially nullify the Electoral College. However, it will not become effective unless enough states to control 280 electoral college votes pass the measure. The idea is that 280 electoral votes would be a majority of the Electoral College and would elect the person who got the most popular votes. At that point we would live in a county governed by New York and California–two states that have not done a particularly good job of governing themselves. That is exactly what our Founding Fathers were attempting to avoid (as explained by Alexander Hamilton in Federalist 68).

In Federalist 68, Alexander Hamilton stated:

And as the electors, chosen in each State, are to assemble and vote in the State in which they are chosen, this detached and divided situation will expose them much less to heats and ferments, which might be communicated from them to the people, than if they were all to be convened at one time, in one place.

Nothing was more to be desired than that every practicable obstacle should be opposed to cabal, intrigue, and corruption.

The idea was that the Electoral College would give less-populated states a voice in the election of the president. A candidate for president would be required to gain a broad base of support–he would be required to represent the entire country–not just one or two sections.

To illustrate what elections would look like without the Electoral College, let’s look at where the campaign money comes from in elections.

According to opensecrets.org the top donor states are California (22 percent), New York (21 percent), Illinois (7 percent), and Florida (6 percent). The other states provided 44 percent of campaign donations. California has 40 million people; West Virginia has 2 million people. Without the Electoral College, how likely is a presidential candidate to campaign in (or represent) the people in West Virginia? There is a valid reason for the Electoral College.

 

Why We Have The Electoral College

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On Thursday, USA Today posted an article about the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact (NPV). That is the proposal working through the states that would essentially eliminate the Electoral College. The article points out that the Electoral College was put in place as a part of the system of checks and balances to make sure that small, less populated states would be represented in presidential elections.

The article notes:

Rural America produces almost all our country’s food, as well as raw materials like metals, cotton and timber. Energy, fossil fuels but also alternatives like wind and solar come mostly from rural areas. In other words, the material inputs of modern life flow out of rural communities and into cities.

This is fine, so long as the exchange is voluntary — rural people choose to sell their goods and services, receive a fair price, and have their freedom protected under law. But history shows that city dwellers have a nasty habit of taking advantage of their country cousins. Greeks enslaved whole masses of rural people, known as helots. Medieval Europe had feudalism. The Russians had their serfs.

Credit the American Founders with setting up a system of limited government with lots of checks and balances. The U.S. Senate makes sure all states are represented equally, even low-population rural states like Wyoming and Vermont. Limits on federal power, along with the Bill of Rights, are supposed to protect Americans from overreaching federal regulations. And the Electoral College makes it impossible for one population-dense region of the country to control the presidency.

The article notes that the reason Hillary Clinton lost the presidential election is 2016 is that she won California and some big cities, but failed to win votes in the center of the country.

The article observes:

And the system worked. The Electoral College requires more than just the most raw votes to win — it requires geographic balance. This helps to protect rural and small-town Americans.

The article notes that fourteen states have already passed NPV. The good news is that NPV only takes effect after it is joined by enough states to control 270 electoral votes (a majority of electoral votes). At the point the Electoral College becomes moot. If the NPV reaches 270 electoral votes, what is the point of voting in a presidential election if you live in a sparsely-populated state? We will be run by California, New York, and some major cities. None of the states or cities involved are particularly well-governed–some of them are on the verge of bankruptcy. Is this really a good idea?

The article concludes:

The idea that every vote should count equally is attractive. But a quote often attributed to Benjamin Franklin famously reminds us that democracy can be “two wolves and a lamb voting on what’s for lunch.” (City dwellers who think that meat comes from the grocery store might not understand why this is such a big problem for the lamb.) And when you think about it, every check on government power, from the Electoral College to the Bill of Rights, is a restraint on the majority.

The Electoral College makes it even harder to win the presidency. It requires geographic balance and helps protect Americans who might otherwise have their voices ignored. All Americans should value constitutional protections, like the Electoral College, that remind us that the real purpose of government is to protect our individual rights.

This Is Not Good News For Our Representative Republic

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The Daily Caller is reporting today that New Mexico is the fourteenth state to join the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact (NPVIC). This is the group that says their states electoral college votes will go to the presidential candidate who gets the most popular votes. In other words, it really doesn’t matter how the residents of these states vote, this is where the electoral votes are going. In essence, that means that New York and California will determine who our next President is if this trend continues.

Just for reference, this is a picture of the 2016 election:

The article points out:

States that have passed similar legislation to join the NPVIC now represent 189 electoral votes. The compact could become official when that number hits 270, enough votes to elect the president of the United States.

That would change America from a Representative Republic to a Democracy.

I am reminded of the words of Benjamin Franklin after the Constitutional Convention of 1787:

A Mrs. Powel of Philadelphia asked Benjamin Franklin, “Well, Doctor, what have we got, a republic or a monarchy?” With no hesitation whatsoever, Franklin responded, “A republic, if you can keep it.”

Moving forward with the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact means that we will not keep it.