Thread: CA. State Senate approves ‘popular-vote president’

State Senate approves ‘popular-vote president’

July 14th, 2011, 12:31 pm

The state Senate on Thursday approved a measure that could lead to U.S. presidents being elected by a popular vote rather than by the electoral college, should enough other states pass similar measures.

The measure was passed 23-15. I’ll update this with the party breakdown once I get it. The Assembly previously approved the measure 51-21, largely on the strength of Democratic support.

The bill, which now goes to Gov. Jerry Brown, would award all of the state’s 55 electoral votes to the winner of the national popular vote.

Seven states and the District of Columbia, with a combined 77 electoral votes, have approved similar measures so far. The law will not be activated until states totaling 270 electoral votes – the majority needed to elect a president – have such a provision on the books.

The state-by-state effort is designed to circumvent the constitutional mandate for that the electoral college choose the president, since it appears unlikely Congress will amend that provision.

The most obvious argument for a popular vote are the three presidents who were elected despite being out-polled by their opponent: George W. Bush, Rutherford B. Hayes, and Benjamin Harrison. All three happen to all be Republicans. In all but two states, the winner among the state’s voters receives all the state’s electoral votes – a system that led to these three anomalies.

The bill’s principal author, Assemblyman Jerry Hill, D-South San Francisco, also points out that while presidential candidates are quick to visit California to raise funds, they do little campaigning here and once elected pay more attention to swing states. If they won purely based on the popular vote, they’d likely spend more time – and campaign money – in the state.

Republican opponents point out that the states to pass a National Popular Vote bill so far are all controlled by Democrats, and say that the provision would strengthen Democrats’ hand because they could focus voter drives in heavily urbanized areas – which are typically blue.

“That means that Republicans within the L.A. media market will have a much harder time getting elected,â€

The presidential election system we have today is not in the Constitution. State-by-state winner-take-all laws to award Electoral College votes, are an example of state laws eventually enacted by states, using their exclusive power to do so, AFTER the Founding Fathers wrote the Constitution, Now our current system can be changed by state laws again.
Unable to agree on any particular method, the Founding Fathers left the choice of method for selecting presidential electors exclusively to the states by adopting the language contained in section 1 of Article II of the U.S. Constitution– “Each State shall appoint, in such Manner as the Legislature thereof may direct, a Number of Electors . . .â€

Any attempt by a state to pull out of the compact in violation of its terms would violate the Impairments Clause of the U.S. Constitution and would be void. Such an attempt would also violate existing federal law. Compliance would be enforced by Federal court action
The bill says: “Any member state may withdraw from this agreement, except that a withdrawal occurring six months or less before the end of a President’s term shall not become effective until a President or Vice President shall have been qualified to serve the next term.â€

There have been 22,000 electoral votes cast since presidential elections became competitive (in 1796), and only 10 have been cast for someone other than the candidate nominated by the elector’s own political party. The electors are dedicated party activists of the winning party who meet briefly in mid-December to cast their totally predictable votes in accordance with their pre-announced pledges. Faithless electors are not a practical problem, and most states have complete authority to remedy any problem there could be, by means of state law.
If a Democratic presidential candidate receives the most votes, the state’s dedicated Democratic party activists who have been chosen as its slate of electors become the Electoral College voting bloc. If a Republican presidential candidate receives the most votes, the state’s dedicated Republican party activists who have been chosen as its slate of electors become the Electoral College voting bloc. The winner of the presidential election is the candidate who collects 270 votes from Electoral College voters from among the winning party’s dedicated activists.
The U.S. Supreme Court has upheld state laws guaranteeing faithful voting by presidential electors (because the states have plenary power over presidential electors).