Disingenuous NPV veto messages hurt everyone
"Given the potential ... that Hawaii's electoral votes would be awarded in a manner that may not reflect the will of the majority of the voters in Hawaii, I believe that this bill is not in the best interest of the citizens of the state of Hawaii," Lingle wrote in her veto message.
California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger gave a similar rationale last fall:
I believe strongly in democracy and in honoring the will of the people. While this bill honors the will of the majority of people voting for the office of President of the United States across the country, it disregards the will of a majority of Californians.I appreciate the intent of this measure to make California more relevant in the presidential campaign, but I cannot support doing it by giving all our electoral votes to the candidate that a majority of Californians did not support.
Veto messages like this are either gross manifestations of gubernatorial sloth or deliberate displays of public disinformation. Anyone who reads a three sentence description of the plan knows it doesn't go into effect until states representing a majority of Electors have signed on. Do we really believe Lingle and Schwarzenegger hadn't read that description?
The other commonality is a Republican governor overruling a Democratic legislature. That reform becomes strictly partisan in America seems to be an unfortunate pathology; look at the history of recent redistricting reform initiatives. Yet popular vote reversals don't only hurt Democrats. Bush in 2004 was within a hair of losing the Electoral College despite a three-million popular vote lead.
The National Popular Vote plan is about equal democracy - about one person, one vote. The vote of a Chicago (IL) Republican should matter as much as that of a Midland (TX) Democrat. Lying to the public with states' rights vetoes hurts everyone except microtargeting consultants in Florida and Ohio.
Comment on Disingenuous NPV veto messages hurt everyone
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Posted by Joel, 2007-05-23 21:59:27 (5 years ago)
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Posted by ACSBlog: The Blog of the American Constitution Society, 2007-05-11 09:17:53 (5 years ago) -
Thanks for sharing your thoughts. When Birch Bayh started working on the Electoral College, the geography of partisan alignment made it favorable to big cities. The understanding was that every vote should be equal. Ever since the unit rule of elector allocation became the norm, "districts that make up the legislative branch" have had nothing to do with how one campaigns. And if electors were allocated by congressional district, the battleground would be even smaller. Whether a state-by-state election or direct election gives or takes stability from the republic is up for grabs. Misfires that elect the popular vote loser may well keep some people happy. They also undermine the legitimacy of the system in the eyes of others. In truth, the average voter wants a national popular vote. The fringe of either party is likely to defend or attack the system with zeal, based on the false perception that it is stacked in favor or against one or the other party. I'll repeat the often repeated factoid. "Bush in 2004 was within a hair of losing the Electoral College despite a three-million popular vote lead."
Posted by Jack, 2007-05-04 10:10:31 (5 years ago) -
Birch Bayh is a Democrat. The National Popular Vote is an anti-democrtic step backwards. The true wonder of the current Electoral College is that is guarentees that a presendential winner gets the majority vote in the majority of the electoral districts that make up the legisltive branch. For example the population of the districts won by Bush was almost double the population of the districts won by Gore in 2000. This gives stability to our republic. The National Popular Vote will open up the scenario of presendential winners succesding with a majority vote from smaller number of overall electoral district, leading directly to instability of government and trust in the population, and opening the doors to all kinds of manipulative devision campaign strategies by political parties, special interest groups, and candidates. Finally, any scheme that negates the votes of the people of a state in favor of the voting preferences of people in other states is shear folly, and totally undemocratic and unconstitutional.
Posted by Steve Breitenbach, 2007-05-03 21:03:29 (5 years ago) -
Evidently she has no problem with tens of thousands of her fellow Republicans being effectively disenfranchised every four years by virtue of the fact that their state is solid blue. There seems to be a theory foot that the Interstate Compact being proposed is some sort of a Democratic conspiracy. Not so. Its proponents include many people who are decidedly Republican, like Birch Bayh, for instance. Those who think that the supporters of this Compact are only Democrats with the taste of sour grapes in their mouths from 2000 ought to consider what might have happened in 2004 had a few thousand votes swung the other way in Ohio. Bush, who won by a significant margin in the popular vote would have lost the election to Kerry. I would have loved that outcome myself, but I still support the Interstate Compact. This should not be made into a matter of partisan politics.
Posted by Baronscarpia, 2007-04-27 12:11:17 (5 years ago)
As a resident of California, I would love to see the NPV passed, but unfortunetly our Governor will probably veto the bill again. Hopefully this will come up as an intiative next year or the year after.