On February 5, the New Mexico House Consumer & Public Affairs Committee passed HB 383, the National Popular Vote Plan bill. The sponsor is Rep. Mimi Stewart (D-Albuquerque).
On February 5, the New Mexico House Consumer & Public Affairs Committee passed HB 383, the National Popular Vote Plan bill. The sponsor is Rep. Mimi Stewart (D-Albuquerque).
The National Popular Vote bill would guarantee the Presidency to the candidate who receives the most popular votes in all 50 states (and DC).
Every vote would be politically relevant and equal in presidential elections.
The bill would take effect only when enacted, in identical form, by states possessing a majority of the electoral votes—that is, enough electoral votes to elect a President (270 of 538). When the bill comes into effect, all the electoral votes from those states would be awarded to the presidential candidate who receives the most popular votes in all 50 states (and DC).
The Constitution gives every state the power to allocate its electoral votes for president, as well as to change state law on how those votes are awarded.
The bill is currently endorsed by 1,246 state legislators — 460 sponsors (in 48 states) and an additional 786 legislators who have cast recorded votes in favor of the bill.
The National Popular Vote bill has been endorsed by the New York Times, Chicago Sun-Times, Minneapolis Star-Tribune, Los Angeles Times, Boston Globe, Hartford Courant, Miami Herald, Sarasota Herald Tribune, Sacramento Bee, The Tennessean, Fayetteville Observer, Anderson Herald Bulletin, Wichita Falls Times, The Columbian, and other newspapers. The bill has been endorsed by Common Cause, Fair Vote, and numerous other organizations.
In Gallup polls since 1944, only about 20% of the public has supported the current system of awarding all of a state’s electoral votes to the presidential candidate who receives the most votes in each separate state (with about 70% opposed and about 10% undecided). The recent Washington Post, Kaiser Family Foundation, and Harvard University poll shows 72% support for direct nationwide election of the President. This national result is similar to recent polls in Arkansas (80%), California (70%), Colorado (68%), Connecticut (73%), Delaware (75%), Kentucky (80%), Maine (71%), Massachusetts (73%), Michigan (73%), Mississippi (77%), Missouri (70%), New Hampshire (69%), Nebraska (74%), Nevada (72%), New Mexico (76%), New York (79%), North Carolina (74%), Ohio (70%), Pennsylvania (78%), Rhode Island (74%), Vermont (75%), Virginia (74%), Washington (77%), and Wisconsin (71%).
The National Popular Vote bill has passed 22 state legislative chambers, including one house in Arkansas, Colorado, Maine, Michigan, North Carolina, and Washington, and both houses in California, Hawaii, Illinois, New Jersey, Maryland, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and Vermont. The bill has been enacted by Hawaii, Illinois, New Jersey, and Maryland. These four states possess 50 electoral votes — 19% of the 270 necessary to bring the law into effect.
See http://www.NationalPopularVote.com
We need to keep single member districts and plurality elections. We need to keep the Electoral College system and promote the Maine/Nebraska system of allocation. We need to repeal all limits on contributions, expenditures and reporting rules. We need to simplify and drastically reduce ballot access rules, or eliminate Government printed ballots altogether. This will give us the best electoral system.
To reduce government power, we need serious term limits on office holders: 3 terms for US House, 1 term for US Senate, Pres and VP 2 terms, Governors 2 terms, other state reps and senators 6 years (8 in some states) and, most importantly, most judges should be limited to 2 years and out.
We must abolish eminent domain and judicial contempt of court powers. We have to expand the power of both judges and juries to overturn bad laws – FIJA.
We should quit wasting our time and energy on crazy, stupid ideas that will actually reduce our liberty such as direct election of Pres and VP, National Popular Vote, PR, IRV and other schemes that will make things more confusing and give more power to the State and the S o c i a l i s t s.