On April 25, the Louisiana House & Government Affairs Committee passed HB 1095, the National Popular Vote Plan bill. The same bill had passed that Committee in the last legislative session as well. The sponsor, Representative Walt Leger, is Speaker Pro Tempore and is a Democrat from New Orleans. The Committee first defeated a motion to delay the bill after further study; the vote on that was 4-6. Then, the bill was passed on to the House.
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NO uniform definition in the NPV scheme from Hell.
Const Amdt –
Uniform definition of Elector in ALL of the U.S.A.
P.R. and nonpartisan App.V.
ONE election day
Equal nominating petitions.
END the rule of the EVIL ANTI-Democracy gerrymander oligarchs.
Way to go Louisiana. I am impressed.
Louisiana amended the compact to require a runoff if no candidate got a majority of the vote.
4 –
Here is a link to the bill, as approved by committee and reported favorably to the LA House by a vote of 10-0 on 4/25/12:
http://www.legis.louisiana.gov/billdata/streamdocument.asp?did=794867
If you would, please tell us all what part of the bill contains the runoff “amendment” you claim was made to the compact.
From: http://www.nola.com/politics/index.ssf/2012/04/house_committee_louisiana_elec.html
Jindal, through spokesman Kyle Plotkin, said that abandoning the Electoral College would hurt Louisiana: “The Electoral College was placed in our Constitution by our founding fathers to provide added protections of smaller states. … It has worked well, and we see no reason to circumvent that constitutional process.”
Um…wrong on all counts.
1) There is no evidence in Madison’s notes to the constitution to support the claim that the EC was designed to protect smaller states. Gov. Jindal ought to be asked to provide evidence that the current EC implementation “protects” his small state. In what form does this purported “protection” come, anyway?
2) The EC has “worked well?” By what and whose standards? In four instances the “winner” of the EC received fewer popular votes than the “loser(s).” The debacle of the 2000 recount would not have occurred if we had been employing the NVP method. The widespread fraud, blackmail, threats and in some cases even violent crimes against persons would not have happened in 1876 were it not for the winner-take-all implementation of the EC as it was practiced then and now. And if we had an election determined by a vote in the House, a body that currently has less American popular support than the notion of America going communist, the ranks of those who support NPV would increase manifold.
3) The NPV compact does not circumvent the Constitution. That’s a standard Republican talking point, and a lie.
The LA senate will probably not approve the NPV and Gov. Jindal would likely veto it even if it came to his desk. But if he’s going to speak to the matter, he ought to at least be held to some reasonable standard of honesty.
Uniform definiton of Elector in ALL of the U.S.A.
NONPARTISAN App.V.
EQUAL voting power for ALL votes for Prez/VP.
How many nations survive by having a national vote for the chief executive officer ???
See the pending France top 2 runoff Prez election (even with its initial round defects).
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How many folks are absolutely asking for a left/right HORRIFIC Civil W-A-R II — with tens of millions of folks being killed / injured / enslaved in the U.S.A. ???
History note – the Am. Rev. War was a de facto horrific Civil W-A-R — the 13 colonies seceded the HARD WAY — due to the EVIL monarch/oligarchs in then Great Britain.
This bill chips away at state sovereignty and allows the President to be elected by the highly populated metropolitan areas in the country. States elect the President and we are not electing an American Idol. We are a democratic republic made up of 50 individual states. This bill begins the process of taking down state boundaries and turning us into Europe. The system works, leave it alone. The arguments presented for supporting this bill are not based on hard factual data but rather on whimsical guesses as to what they want to happen.
8 –
Exactly how much less should my vote be worth if I move from a farm to an inner city apartment building? Does it matter if I change my race, too? Why do you think rural votes and voters have greater intrinsic value than urban votes and voters? Under this system you think works so well, how many times in the past twelve elections do you think candidates from either party have campaigned rural in Utah, Montana, Alaska, Wyoming, North Dakota…etc? Please – no whimsical guesses. Lets have some hard factual data.
4 – Jimbo – still waiting for you to substantiate your claim that the compact was “amended” in the LA house committee.
#6 It would have happened in 1880 instead of 1876. Why don’t the advocates of NPV address 1880?
And we can not predict what will happen as a result of a change. The candidates were playing accord to the rules that were in play. In 2004, George Bush recognized that, and ran up the votes in places like Texas, while Kerry tried to pick off an EV victory in places like Ohio.
It’s like trying to figure out who would have won the NBA championship in 1970 if the 3-point rule had been in effect. You could replay the video, and electronically project the 3-point circle. But you can’t adjust for possible tactics, nor explain all the shots where the shooter was just inside the line.
You could argue that the Lakers coulda, shoulda, and woulda won. But they didn’t.
And we don’t know the effect on the relative power of the States and the federal government, and the executive branch and the legislative and judicial branches. Russia has a directly elected president.
BTW, there have been 5 elections where the candidate with fewer popular votes was elected (1824, 1876, 1888, 1960, and 2000).
The bill was passed to 3rd reading in the House on April 26. It is as 15:19-15:25 in the video of the House Chamber proceedings for that day.
#9 Do you live on a farm?
You aren’t under the illusion that the bill will pass the Louisiana House are you. It is hard to not get a bill out of committee. The fact that it almost failed shows you how unpopular the bill is.
The issue of non-majority presidents was raised during the committee hearing. No formal amendment was actually proposed. You don’t have an objection to improving the compact do you?
12 –
In 4 you said: “Louisiana amended the compact to require a runoff if no candidate got a majority of the vote.”
When challenged, in 12 you say: “The issue of non-majority presidents was raised during the committee hearing. No formal amendment was actually proposed.”
So let’s not cavil any longer, shall we, over the fact that you are a liar?
12 –
Ask residents of NY who support the NPV compact how “easy” it is to get a bill out of committee. It’s been stalled in committee owing to the opposition of the committee chair, a Republican, for months, despite the fact that a clear bipartisan majority in both chambers supports it.
Do you live on this planet?
15 –
Chirp…chirp…chirp…nothing.
Typical Jimbo tactic – produce a lie or two and then say nothing when confronted.
A few other comments on his posts.
– Including the 1824 election as an example of a president being elected by a minority of popular votes. Since 6 state legislatures at that time still named electors themselves instead of relying on a popular vote, it would be misleading to say that a president had been elected by a minority of popular votes. And, in fact, the president that was elected that year was elected by the House of Representatives, since no candidate received a majority of EC votes.
Want to see how happy the American electorate is with the EC system as presently implemented? Give an election over to the House. There will be a political explosion in this country.
– I love Jimbo’s assertion that no one can predict what might have happened in 2004 had the NPV been in place. It may be one of the few fair points he’s ever made in this discussion. HOWEVER, he has no problem whatsoever predicting, in the absence of ANY data, that future elections under NPV will require a national popular vote recount. This is also a lie.
But I’ve come to expect that from Jimbo, the enormous Republican tool. It’s what he does.
#13 It is as likely to be approved by the Louisiana legislature in the amended form, as in the form approved by Maryland.
#14 Didn’t the Louisiana House committee report all bills it considered on a unanimous vote?
I live on planet Earth. I have no earthly idea which planet you mean by this planet.
#15 Colorado didn’t have a popular election in 1876, so perhaps we should exclude 1876 as well as 1824.
That leaves us 1888, 1960, and 2000.
You’re still ducking the issue of 1880.
16 –
You’re a bald-faced, serial liar, Jimbo.
Next time you get challenged on one of your lies, have the courage to respond to the challenge before the post drops down 5 pages deep on this blog.
Courage and truth from a Republican tool? No, no…I ask too much.
#19 Still no answer on which planet you live on, Barry.