I’m pretty sure you didn’t read my posts correctly.
Miss the point much? The states that signed on for this didn’t do so out of some great sense of “democracy”. They did it to give the Democrats a better chance of winning. Anyone who thinks CA and NY would put all their EV eggs in the Republican basket in the case of a Republican getting more total votes and a Democrat more electoral votes should look at a couple bridges that can be found in both of those states. I hear they’re for sale.
Whatever the motive, doing the right thing is still better than not doing the right thing. Having the winner be the one who gets the popular vote is more just and fair for individual Americans than the electoral college, and thus it’s the right thing to do, IMO, even if the motives are partisan.
And yet they acted exactly as if they did. Imagine that, huh?
Can you even conceive of actual, real humans recognizing and considering something larger than themselves?
There’s no need for the scorning quote marks around democracy. Improving and strengthening our democracy is exactly what this is all about.
State-by-state legislation WOULD allow the states to ratify an amendment allowing the federal government to hold a nation-wide popular election.
Currently, the states chose how their electors will be distributed. None of these NPVIC laws have been challenged in state courts. Why? Because no one can yet claim an injury from the enforcement/use of these laws. Once a state actually uses their NPVIC law/compact/agreement to alter the way its electors must vote, someone will claim an injury, and the case will end up before that state’s Supreme Court. If ten states have passed NPVIC laws, then ten states are facing possible State Supreme Court challenges. Which they may, or may not, lose. NPVIC seems to be a huge political, and legal, morass.
Plus there will be challenges before the U.S. Supremes.
A constitutional amendment would be the surest way to create a nationwide popular vote for POTUS. And that is what you actually wish to do.
I still remember watching the returns on the 2004 election. For a while, Ohio was too close to call and it looked like it could possibly be a reversal of 2000: Bush winning the popular vote and losing the electoral vote, the result clinched by a narrow loss in one state. I was actually hoping for that exact outcome, because if that had happened, I think there would have been broad bipartisan support for scrapping the EC.
I guess I’m not seeing it. Aren’t they still “independently acting in a way that happens to be in concert”? There is still no need for some big contract that everyone signs saying they’ll do XYZ. They just enact their own individual laws that say do X if Y, else Z. It does take in “outside information” (did the other states actually enact the law?), but that was already happening (what was the popular vote in those states?).
Besides–even if that step does somehow establish as a compact, functionally speaking, that doesn’t necessarily mean Article I Section 10 applies.
Even if true–so what? The way to make any group effort happen is by appealing to the selfish interests of individuals.
And anyway, I don’t personally have any great sense that a popular vote is the perfect means of selecting candidates. But the EC is an unbelievably defective system. And a popular vote is reasonable and easy to understand, widely used for other political positions, so it makes an excellent alternative.
I find this to be just conspiracy-talk. It would be the law of the land. Faithless electors are already a potential problem, and yet in practice not so much. CA and NY don’t have any control anyway; the electors still cast the vote.
Just massively increase the elector defection penalty if you’re so worried. Stick 'em in prison for life if they vote contrary to the law. And make that part of the law too, so everyone’s on the same page.
If you read the compact, it explicitly says it doesn’t take effect until “X” number of states join. You’re right that they don’t need this, but that’s not the way this is playing out, and it might be necessary to have that stipulation for any single state to pass it. Otherwise, wouldn’t it come into effect immediately?
Right. I was just laying out some variants on a spectrum to see where people thought a presumably legal (if silly) law would turn into one that needed Congress. I don’t claim to have an answer, but to me the individual steps all look pretty innocuous.
To be more precise, the NPVIC says this about taking effect:
I would prefer that if such a compact goes through, that it does in fact get a blessing from congress, specifically so that it is binding on the states that sign up for it.
John Mace is not wrong that, given holding to a non-binding compact vs electing the preferred party, many states would be very tempted to back out of the compact and vote for their party. I don’t hold his level of pessimism that they would, and in fact, if red states actually did sign onto the compact, then the blues would have an even greater reason to hold to their agreement.
Of course, if it is none but blue states signed on, and it wasn’t binding, then it would not be in the blue states to hold up their end of a bargain that is not being held up on the other side.
And, that’s where I see congress needing to step in anyway, for a compact that compels a state to act in a certain way. What is georgia really going to do to Idaho if they don’t keep up their end of a compact? They really can do nothing. It would require actions from the federal govt to ensure that states held to it.
In any case, getting congress to agree to give their blessing to such a compact would be much easier than a constitutional amendment.
Yes, I can. Too bad that none of them are Republicans.
The so what is what followed, and you quoted below. They would be inclined to exit the pact just as they entered it if the tide went against their interests.
I don’t see what makes it a “conspiracy”, but this particular law of the land could be easily voted to be “not the law of the land”. CA is a one-party state, so heavily Democratic that the legislators would be thrown out if they allowed a Republican into the WH over a Democrat who won the electoral vote. Do you not remember how the whole Senator replacement process got changed in MA depending on which party had the governorship? It would be the same thing.
This compact should be called the National Lets Elect a Democrat to the White House Compact. Why do you think only the more heavily Democratic leaning states have endorsed it? Please see post #70.
This is not to say that Democrats are bad or evil. This is the way of politics.
I was chuckling as I read this because it reminded me of the schoolyard tactic of Joe saying, “I’m just going to punch the air in front of me and walk forward, and if you get in the way, it’s your own fault!” And how teachers, if they saw that happening, would see through that in a second and say, “Joe, if you hit Bobby you’re going to go to detention!”
The idea that a group of states would sign up to the same ground rules for this compact, but not actually be part of the compact, is as unconvincing as Joe’s “But I’m just punching the air!” silliness.
In this case, I would disagree. I’m with the folks who say this would tear the country apart if it were put into effect. I believe it would be like nothing we’ve seen since the Civil War. I usually laugh at secession activities, but I wouldn’t be surprise if some stated actually voted to secede from the Union if an election were turned based on this Compact.
But then, I’m not under the illusion that justice requires the president to be elected by popular vote. Does the existence of The US Senate make us an unjust country?
Most of those that I’m familiar with use some sort of parliamentary system, where the leader of the majority party/coalition in a unicameral legislature is Prime Minister.
I’m not sure what the U.S. can gain by looking at those systems, even if one assumes their superiority (a fair assumption - I can’t help but notice that the American separation of powers hasn’t been widely imitated by younger democracies), because the U.S. can’t get there from here without throwing away their current system and starting over.
Yes. Next question?
Less just than it would be if all US citizens had equal representation in the US senate, rather than some having orders of magnitude more than others, based on state size.
I am not really seeing what the aversion to democracy is. Sometimes, the most democratic representation of govt may not be practical, and compromises need to be made, but when those compromises mean that the majority of the country is not represented, it’s a bug, not a feature.
Why do you hate America? 
BTW, just to show that Republicans are partisan about this whole issue, too, look at the latest Gallup poll on the Electoral College. Very interesting:
That assumes that democracy can only have one form. The states formed a union with the stipulation that in one legislature, each state would be represented equally. That is not undemocratic. But one reason to support a non-popular vote method for electing the president is a desire to preserve the union, which I think would be threatened if we scrapped the EC altogether.
people claim without the EC the candidates would ignore small states. I don’t recall Trump or Clinton spending a lot of time in N. Dakoka, Montana, Idaho, etc . I don’t recall anyone going to those states in recent elections.