On January 3, the New Jersey Senate passed A4225 by a vote of 22-13. It is the National Popular Vote Plan. The bill now goes to the Governor, who is expected to sign it.
Ballot Access News
Edited By Richard Winger
On January 3, the New Jersey Senate passed A4225 by a vote of 22-13. It is the National Popular Vote Plan. The bill now goes to the Governor, who is expected to sign it.
The Congress has NOT given its consent to the NPV scheme.
U.S.A. Const. Art. I, Sec. 10, para. 3.
Thus – one more New Age UNCONSTITUTIONAL action in a State regime.
Geez, don’t our congressmen read the constitution?
I,10,3 doesn’t apply in this case. But if there is a wrestling match to decide the point I’d put $ on Sen Byrd. States can decide their own way to apportion electoral college votes.
The organization for the National Popular Vote has published a 600-page book, analyzing virtually every legal objection that can be imagined to the Plan. That book cites several U.S. Supreme Court decisions that say not all interstate compacts need approval by Congress.
Right.
The Constitution clearly says that the electors shall be apportioned as the state legislatures will direct. Agreement and/or compact don’t mean this sort of maneuvering.
But it’s clearly not prohibited, so where’s the problem? (Apart from the fact that you seem to dislike the plan.)
As Richard stated, the NPV organisation has published an extensive analysis of the legality of their endeavour; give it a read.
There also happens to be the Equal Protection Clause in 14th Amdt, Sec. 1 — noting ALL States BY State LAWS have the voters choosing Electoral College Electors.
It is a BLATANT EPC violation to permit a minority in a State to allow the State’s Electoral College votes to go to a candidate determined by the votes in other States.
Example —
U.S.A.
X gets 50 Million
Y gets 49 Million
——
In State Z however –
X gets 1.1 Million (part of the 50 Million)
Y gets 4.9 Million (part of the 49 Million)
——-
With NPV the X candidate gets elected.
The 4.9 Million votes in State Z are totally subverted.
Even the Congress can NOT directly or indirectly allow violations of the Equal Protection Clause — one of the main purposes of the 1866 Congress in putting it into the Constitution.
The NPV conspiracy has lots of MORONS writing its stuff — regardless of how many pages are in it.
The various U.S.A. District Attorneys should be going to court and stopping ALL the NPV machinations — since they are a de facto conspiracy to overthrow the Constitution (Art. I, Sec. 10, para. 3 and 14th Amdt, Sec. 1) — akin to the Slave States secession conspiracy in 1860-1861.
AND even perhaps getting 5th Amdt Grand Juries to INDICT all the NPV MORON conspirators — to stop the NPV conspiracy from getting even worse.
Sorry — NO compact / statutory *quick fixes* for BASIC constitutional stuff.
ONLY constitutional amendments.
Count the election related constitutional amendments — 12, 14 (Sec. 2), 15, 17, 19, 20, 22, 23, 24, 26, 27. Duh.
Much too difficult for the NPV constitutional law MORONS to understand.
The Equal Protection Clause has no bearing on the National Popular Vote Plan. If it did, the Equal Protection Clause would have outlawed a long time ago how States give an all or nothing total of electors to the candidate who gets the most votes in each State. As an example, here in upstate New York, we vote mostly for the Republican candidate. But in Downstate New York, namely New York City, they mostly vote for the Democrat candidate, and because of their population size in regards to upstate New York, the Democrat carries the day. That means that Democratic candidate gets all of the state’s Electoral Votes. By your argument, a court should be stepping in to protect my rights under the Equal Protection Clause to make sure that upstate New York gets at least some of those Electoral Votes. The reason they don’t is because it’s Constitutionally permissible for the State to assign its Electoral Votes any way it wants. And that includes basing who gets them on how the nation voted. I would be the first to admit that I don’t like the National Popular Vote Plan, but I recognize that it’s legal.
I’ve seen many of your posts before and you sure do seem to throw the term “MORON” around a lot, as well as think that everything is so “cut and dried” as they say, in terms of what is right and wrong. May I suggest you remember that most things in life aren’t defined in terms of black and white, but rather painted in shades of gray, and therefore not everyone is a “MORON” (your term) for the actions they may or may not take?
only a constitutional amendment can change the rules.
In December 2000, one house of the Florida legislature passed a bill to have the state legislature choose the presidential electors. The other house would have quickly passed it, but on the day before that was to happen, the US Supreme Court ended the recount. But if the legislature had passed that bill, and Governor Bush had signed it, no one seemed to think that could be challenged in court, or that any amendment was needed to the U.S. Constitution to let the Florida legislature choose the electors.
Also Nebraska and Maine went to district selection of electors fairly recently. And Colorado legislature chose the presidential electors in 1876. All these changes were made without any sort of U.S. constitutional amendment being needed.
Will – Please explain why a Constitutional Amendment would be needed to change the Constitution so that States can assign their electoral votes the NPV way when that same Constitution already explicitly says that States can assign electoral votes any way that they want to?
I’m confused.
New Jersey is a Democratic stronghold, especially for statewide/national offices. If this stupid bill becomes law, NJ’s votes could be Republican even though the majority of its votes were Democratic. I fail to see why a Democratic Legislator would pass this.
Also, if this becomes law in enough states, we will need a national recount, instead of a state recount in order to know who should be Presidient. In a country this large, that would be a harder task and employ more laywers in every state for appeals than the current fiasco in Florida. Why is this better?
I would rather have a proportial electoral vote in each state. At least that would limit the recount issue to a single state and give fairer voting rights.
While reading about the NPV plan, I believe it said that since it is forming an interstate compact it would need an approval or consent from Congress. They referenced a Supreme Court case that basically mentioned that a vote in Congress, like a resolution in support of the plan, or an actual approval for DC’s votes to be allocated the same way as the other states, would be suffienct endorsement of the compacts nationwide. In any case, nice to see progress on this front.
All of the arguments against the NPV plan are answered in the book that is available for free download at:
http://www.every-vote-equal.com/
The great evil of the Electoral College is that allows the presidential election to be decided by a few swing states. After the primaries the candidates pay no attention to California or New Jersey, because the candidates know they are going to vote Democratic, nor do they pay attention to Utah, Idaho or Texas because the candidates know they are going to vote Republican. Both small and large states are ignored after the primaries unless they are swing states.
Recounts are much less likely to be necessary under the NPV plan – There will always be one or two states with close elections, but nationally, the total will show a clear winner. Florida’s close election would have been irrelevant in 2000, if the NPV plan had been in effect.
The current system is good for the Miami Cubans who hate Castro, because no presidential candidate wants to offend them. That is why we have no diplomatic or trade relations with Cuba, while we trade freely with Communist China. Unless you live in a swing state, you should be in favor of the NPV plan.