California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger vetoed AB 2948 on Saturday, September 30. This is the bill that would have authorized California to join a compact with other willing states. Once states containing a majority of electoral votes had signed the compact, these states would pledge to appoint presidential electors pledged to the national popular vote winner.
Good for Gov Schwarzenegger. This interstate compact is a dangerous idea for federalism. The electoral college defends the roll of our system being a republic, not a democracy, the sovereign nature of our federal states, and the role the President plays as President of the United STATES, not President of 300 Million Americans.
Let’s hope this compact idea goes down in flames in other states.
I totally disagree. While I’d prefer the absolute abolition of the EC, which hurts states rather than empowers them and gives candidates for president leeway to ignore a majority of the country and instead focus on “battleground states”. And with more than 80% of the states practically guaranteed to be owned and taken for granted by one of the two major parties, most of us have little to no power at all in electing the president.
Not to mention the very concept of not voting for candidates at all, but electors who are not bound to vote for the candidate winning the state (and faithless electors are quite common — every time Nixon ran one of his electors refused to vote for him. Electors have also turned on Gore, Ford, Dukakis and Kerry).
Not to mention that even among small states, voters are disenfranchised. For instance, according to the census, Montana has 400,000 more people than Wyoming does, yet, both have the same number of electoral votes, thus effectively disenfranchising the surplus voters.
I support the measure, but see it as only a silver medal to abolishing the EC altogether and electing the president via the popular vote.