It's just a hypothetical scenario.
I wondered the reactions.
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Trump: Against the Electoral College; For National Popular Vote
- Thread starter Nous
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I wondered the reactions.
Subduction Zone
Veteran Member
you can't trust just one side in such an argument. Even if it passed it would be challenged and would face a long battle in the courts. I have serious doubts about its constitutionality.
It doesn't seem to be the case. The reality is that at some point the electoral votes in Hawaii will make the difference sooner than popular vote.
As they say, "never take down a fence without finding out why it was placed there in the first place".
My first reaction was to think of the percentage of Americans who support electing the President by national popular vote. Those percentages of survey respondents cited in #31 are impressive, aren't they? I simply cannot think of any other issue that requires change on which such majorities of Americans agree. Can you?
What is the basis of your "serious doubts about [NPVIC's] constitutionality"? This interstate compact does not threaten the supremacy of federal law or the federal Constitution in any way.
I am unaware of any serious speculation about the constitutionality of the NPVIC other than in regard to the issue of Congressional consent. NPV and supporters in Congress have said that they will seek Congressional consent if enough states enact the NPVIC to effectuate, and there is currently a parallel effort to secure such consent in Congress. Given the popularity of electing the President by national popular vote, it is unimaginable to me that Congress would oppose it, and withhold its consent. Nevertheless, such an possibility hardly matters given the long-standing precedent about when Congressional consent is required for interstate compacts (i.e., Congressional consent for interstate compacts is only necessary when the compact somehow usurps federal law or the Constitution, according to Virginia v. Tennessee (1893)).
I think they agree in a larger context, but not when thinking of their
own state's power. Thus, the winner-take-all in the EC endures.
Yes, you provided one viewpoint. I have provided another:
"Many states have signed on to a bill that essentially would tie a state’s electoral votes to the national popular vote. Those states will pledge to swing all of their electoral votes to the winner of the national vote.
But this is because the incentives would be to appeal only to the biggest population centers. Swing states change over time, and the 2016 election could be a prime example of swing-state unpredictability and erosion of the traditional partisan political map."
Why We Use Electoral College, Not Popular Vote
Subduction Zone
Veteran Member
It amounts to some states telling other states how they have to divide up their electoral votes. That appears to go against the constitution. I would like to see a change but I am not putting too much hope into this idea. It would end up at the Supreme Court and the SC is rather conservative right now. How do you think that they would rule?
And it clearly appears to usurp the Constitution. The supporters of this bill appear to be arguing out of both sides of their mouths.
By the way, why did you bring swing states into this? That had nothing to do with my argument.
What does that mean, and why do you think it?
Politics is mostly local.
So the power of the state trumps cooperating with others.
I have cited a bunch of facts that directly refute your claims. Your claims have no connection to reality. For instance:
Which small cities and rural areas did Trump campaign in in order to win the electoral college?
That has nothing to do with electing the President by the national popular vote. If "swing state unpredictability and erosion of the tradition partisan political map" occurred in the the 2016, it certainly wasn't because of electing the President by the national popular vote.
It doesn't seem that you are on your way toward articulating any coherent reason to oppose electing the President by national popular vote, much less a rational reason.
Well, the vast majority of respondents in a variety of state surveys say that they support electing the President by national popular vote, and there is no reason to conclude that they are lying, is there?
Unequivocally false. Inform yourself. Only those states that have adopted the NPVIC agree that their own electors will vote for the candidate who wins the popular vote, and those states that have adopted the NPVIC direct only their own electors to vote for the candidate who wins the popular vote. The states that adopt the NPVIC do not and cannot control what any other state does.
The text of the NPVIC provides that the compact operates according to the power that the Constitution grants to each state legislature, namely the power to “direct” the “manner” in which a state's electors are “appointed” (Art. II, Sec. 1, cl. 2). This is the same power by which 48 states direct the appointment of electors who will all vote for the candidate who gets the most votes in the entirety of the state, rather than appointing electors who will, for instance, vote for the candidate who wins a particular district, as Maine and Nebraska do (which is the manner of appointment used by all states for the first couple of decades after ratification of the Constitution). In McPherson v. Blacker (1892), the Court said that “. . . the appointment and mode of appointment of electors belong exclusively to the states under the constitution of the United States.” The Court reaffirmed this power in Bush v. Gore, stating that “. . . the State legislature’s power to select the manner for appointing electors is plenary . . .”
The key action that each state that has adopted the NPVIC agrees to perform is described by the text of the NPVIC thus:
The presidential elector certifying official of each member state shall certify the appointment in that official’s own state of the elector slate nominated in that state in association with the national popular vote winner.
National Popular Vote -- Electoral college reform by direct election of the President
I haven't used the term “swing state” on this thread. I noted that “none of the 11 states that have already adopted the NPVIC are battleground states, and among the 12 additional states in which the NPVIC has been voted on and passed by one House, only 2 are battleground states.” I pointed out these facts because of your claims (e.g., #30) about “the [party] that is in power in any state” preventing adoption of the NPVIC. Battleground states are those in which at least the electorate is closely divided between Republicans and Democrats. To date, all of the states that have adopted the NPVIC are non-battleground states.
For example, California is a state where in recent years the majority of voters have voted for the Democratic candidate in presidential elections. The state Senate currently consists of 27 Democrats and 13 Republicans; the Assembly is made up of 53 Democrats and 25 Republicans: California State Legislature - Wikipedia It would certainly seem that Democrats are the “party in power” in the California legislature. Yet this fact did not prevent the California legislature from adopting the NPVIC. Under the NPVIC, California electors would vote for the Republican presidential candidate if s/he won the national popular vote, even if the Democratic candidate got the most votes in California. That's how the compact works.
What "clearly usurps the Constitution"? I cited the case law that sets out the conditions that the Court has held to require Congressional approval of an interstate compact. Did you read and understand that decision?
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I didn't conclude that.
But I see polling can be phrased such that people will give
answers differing from what they'd say in a different context.
Subduction Zone
Veteran Member
I read more on it and it just might work. I thought that they were going to tell other states how to vote when I see now that all states that make the agreement pool their votes that get awarded an masse.
Hmm, clever idea. So far it is almost all Democrat states, but it just might work if disappointment in Trump is strong enough.
No... what you have offered is a different viewpoint.
When you say 'Your claims have no connection to reality", and "It doesn't seem that you are on your way toward articulating any coherent reason to oppose electing the President by national popular vote, much less a rational reason" it is your statement that has no connection to reality."
Arguments "ad hominem" shows that you had no viable answer and thus resorted to other methods.
Polls are fickle.
1) Had the tables turned and Hillary won, most respondents would be in favor of the electoral process
2) Polls, as the election proved, can be manipulated or just plain "in error".
So your position doesn't hold much water. (Good try though)
Not everyone is this partisan.
I have been suspicious of the EC since I first got to understand it. But it didn't matter that much until people started taking office that were losers. I don't really care about what happened in centuries past. The USA has changed enormously since the 18th century.
Not just the career politicians and partisanship, either. In the country the Fathers Founded the president wasn't very important to the majority of most people's lives. That was mostly the concern of the individual States. The People were represented at the federal level by Congress. The individual States were represented by the Senate. The President was mainly about representing the USA as a whole to the international community.
But things have changed hugely since then. The States are far less sovereign and far more interdependent. The main issues Trump ran on, income tax and immigration and health insurance policy, didn't even exist. A candidate with Trump's history of deceit, adultery, and bankruptcy would hardly have gotten a vote. Trump was the darling of conservative Christians!
What's up with that?
Things are just plain different from how they were 200+ years ago. Our method of choosing a president needs to change as well. Rigging the system in favor of white landowners worked for the slavers, but we're past that now.
Somewhat.
Tom
Thank you for reading and understanding more about the NPVIC. I wish more people would follow your example (on all matters).
I've just now tried to do a little more reading and understanding of the case law concerning interstate compacts. In recent decades the Court has several times reaffirmed, and expounded upon, its holding in Virginia v. Tennessee with respect to Congressional approval of interstate compacts. In US Steel v. Multi-state Tax Commission (1978), the Court restated its holding in New Hampshire v. Maine (1976), in which an agreement between states is not a compact that requires Congressional approval if the agreement does not tend to increase the political power of the states so as to threaten the supremacy of the federal government. Importantly, in Multi-state Tax, petitioners specifically asked the Court to abandon its precedent that not all interstate agreements or compacts require Congressional approval. The Court stuck with its precedent, and further clarified that when states form a compact or agreement to do something that they have the power to do on their own, it does not tend to increase the states' power such that it may encroach upon federal power (and therefore the compact does not need Congressional approval).
It is clearly within any state's power to direct the appointment of electors who have all agreed to vote for the candidate who gets the most votes in the state, or, alternatively, who have each agreed to vote for the candidate who gets the most votes in particular assigned districts, as Maine and Nebraska currently do. As noted above, it wasn't until well into the 19th century that any state appointed electors who voted for the candidate who got the most votes in the entire state. States are exercising this same power when they appoint their electors who agree to vote for the winner of the national popular vote. Thus, the NPVIC is merely an agreement between states to exercise this power that each state may exercise on its own.
It seems one couldn't come up with a simpler, more direct argument for the constitutionality of a non-Congressionally-approved interstate compact. Nevertheless, given the overwhelming support among the electorate for electing the President by national popular vote, I think it would be a slightly dangerous decision for a member of Congress to vote against approving it or otherwise refuse to approve it (such as a committee chair or the Speaker refusing to bring it for a vote).
You mentioned above that the NPVIC would face a long battle in the courts if enough states enacted it to go into effect. But presumably what will happen is that enough states will enact it to effectuate it, and if Congress doesn't give its approval, the electors in those member states will vote for the winner of the national popular vote in the next election--which, in most elections, would be the winner of the ordinary state-winner-take-all electoral vote anyway. But, even without changing what would be the ultimate outcome of the ordinary electoral college vote, it could easily be a situation such as noted above about California, where the winner of the national popular vote is the Republican candidate, but the Democratic candidate got the most votes in California. Some Californian would surely challenge the constitutionality of the NPVIC then, and the Supreme Court has original jurisdiction over such matters, and could quickly issue a per curiam--although, as it wouldn't change the ultimate outcome of the election in this scenario, it wouldn't be an emergency such as happened in 2000 where the antique Justices have to be roused out of bed and made to decide the case before December 16th or whatever the date is.
On the other hand, it could be a situation in which whether California's electoral votes go to the Republican or Democratic candidate would determine the winner of the national election, and, with California's electors abiding by the non-Congressionally-approved NPVIC and giving their votes to the Republican candidate rather than to the Democratic winner of the state, the NPVIC would immediately be challenged. So the Court would have to rule on the constitutionality of the compact before the December cut-off date. It wouldn't be a long drawn-out case, and there seems to be nothing equivocal in the case law about when Congressional approval is required for an interstate compact. The lawyers for the state would begin and end their defense with the argument that the NPVIC does not entail that a state do anything with respect to its appointment of electors that states cannot ordinarily do on their own, therefore Congressional approval is not required.
I just haven't been able to find any case law by which a plaintiff or court would even begin to argue that a non-Congressionally-approved NPVIC is an unconstitutional exercise of a state's power.
Although several of the states where it has passed one House presumably have large portions of Republicans (e.g., Arkansas).