On April 25, the Vermont House passed S.270, the National Popular Vote Plan. The vote was 77-35. When the bill had passed the Senate earlier, the vote had been 22-6. On April 30, Governor Jim Douglas, a Republican, said he was not enthusiastic about the bill, but that he hasn’t decided whether to sign it or veto it. In any event, the bill passed by over two-thirds in each House, so if he does veto it, it may still become law.
The Bull Moose Progressive Party of Vermont may place a third party candidate as the Green Mountain Governor, replacing Douglas, this November.
Couldn’t happen soon enough for those who support some basic democratic principles like one-person, one-vote and majority voting. Hope people saw Rick Hertzberg’s devastating critique of Douglas’ veto of instant runoff voting here:
http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/hendrikhertzberg/2008/04/irv-for-dummies.html
One more direct attempted subversion of the Constitution — since —
1. The Congress has NOT given any consent for the NPV scheme — an Inter-State Compact – Art. I, Sec. 10, para. 3, and
2. Even if there was such consent — the gerrymander Congress can NOT permit the Equal Protection Clause to be violated.
Attention constitutional law math MORONS —
National vote for Prez
A 60,000,001
B 60,000,000
State Z vote for Prez
A 1 [candidate votes for himself/herself]
B 1,000,000
Sorry — the B votes will be diluted to zero in State Z in a blatant violation of the Equal Protection Clause.
THUS — ONLY a constitutional amendment will get rid of the minority rule Electoral College — NO NPV statutory type fix allowed.
Way too difficult for constitutional law math MORONS to understand — who need another 2000 Bush v. Gore hammer on their MORON skulls to wake up.
Robert that would be ok if we were a true democracy! We are not!!!!! We are a Constitutional Republic. The electoral collage is in place to keep the lager populated states from running rough shod over the lesser populated states. I wish people would know what kind of system of government we have before they critique it!!!!!
Dan Clements –
Actually, if you read James Madison’s notes to the Constitutional Convention, you’ll find that the Electoral College was NOT designed with the purpose of “protecting” small states in the election of the president. The “protection” of small states had been decided earlier in the Convention when the disproportionate allocation of representatives in the Senate and the House was decided. When it came time to decide how to elect the “Executive,” as it was then called, there were other matters that were being debated. Should the Executive be appointed by the US Congress? Would there be time to collect the results of a national popular vote in a time when news could travel no faster than a horse? If a popular vote were to decide the election, how would the populous be expected to vote for anyone other than a local favorite son since they would know little of other candidates from other states?
They finally decide to let state legislatures settle the matter, and this was no small surprise since they were mostly…wait for it…state legislators! Besides, it was late in the summer and they were by then itching to go home. They really didn’t give it a whole lot of thought. The bigger issues in determining how the government would be formed were already decided by then.
While it’s convenient to assume that because they decided to allocate electors based on the House and Senate totals, and that therefore they did so to protect small states in the same way that they did when determining the composition of the US Congress, that assumption doesn’t square with the facts. And it wouldn’t explain why they decided to elect US Senators in essentially the same manner – they too were to be selected by state legislatures. How would that have “protected” the interests of small states? Senators represent only their own states, large OR small.
Demo Rep –
It’s medication time. Hurry!
DemoRep, I wasn’t convinced until that third “moron,” but you’re right, that’s an unanswerable argument.