Avoiding The Constitution

California's voters' recent tendency to vote overwhelmingly Democratic in presidential elections results in the presidential nominees practically ignoring the state. Being ignored causes the state's legislators to feel slighted. Like a spoiled child demanding attention, the lawmakers are trying to change the Electoral College so that presidential campaigns must engage in some "serious sucking up" to California's powerbrokers.

To soothe their hurt feelings, and ensure they are no longer ignored by presidential nominees, the legislature passed a law designed to make an end run around the U.S. Constitution and elect presidents by popular vote.

According to the Los Angeles Times, the legislation requires that California's electoral votes go to the nominee who gets the most votes nationwide — not the most votes in California.

The legislation AB 2948 is part of the Campaign for the National Popular Vote's "Agreement Among the States to Elect the President by National Popular Vote."

The Group's website explains the Constitutional end run:

A federal constitutional amendment (requiring two-thirds of Congress and 38 states) is not required to change the state laws that currently specify use of the winner-take-all rule. Nationwide popular election of the President can be implemented if the states join together to pass identical state laws awarding all of their electoral votes to the presidential candidate receiving the most popular votes in all 50 states and the District of Columbia. The proposed state legislation would only come into effect only when it has been enacted, in identical form, by enough states to elect a President—that is, by states possessing a majority (270) of the 538 electoral votes.

The U.S. Constitution establishes a legal vehicle for the proposed coordinated state action, namely the “interstate compact.” Examples of existing interstate compacts include the Colorado River Compact (which divides water among seven western states) and the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey (a two-state compact). Interstate compacts are enacted by states in the same way they enact ordinary legislation. It is settled constitutional law [that] an interstate compact is [a] legally enforceable contractual obligation among the states belonging to the compact and all of their officials.

Supporters of this proposal to amend the Constitution without actually amending it hope that enough other states pass similar laws to make up a majority of the Electoral College votes. That could be as few as 11 states. Similar legislation is pending in five states: New York, Illinois, Missouri, Colorado and Louisiana.

Growing up as a rural country bumpkin, I appreciate the protection the Electoral College offers the less populous rural states, keeping power from being even more heavily concentrated in the more urbanized states.

The Electoral College keeps small states from being ignored. If presidents were elected by direct vote, a candidate would only have to focus his campaign on the dense population centers, such as New York City, Boston and Philadelphia, to win an election. The "national" campaign could take positions that benefit the population centers and harm those in the rural areas.

Governor Schwarzenegger has not taken a position on the bill. I urge the Governor to veto it. If it is indeed a good idea to elect presidents by popular vote, let's debate the issue and amend the Constituition instead of doing an end run around it.

Comments

[KipEsquire]

As I mentioned a while ago in my own post on the subject, California or any other state could could achieve much the same result, with no constitutional difficulties, simply by adopting the District Method of allocating Electoral votes.

http://kipesquire.powerblogs.com/posts/1153826460.shtml